--- title: Then and now:"and what about you?" (Soviet Union, Cold War; US, China and Russia, 2017–21) url: https://propagandaarchive.org/then-and-now/whataboutism/ description: Soviet officials answered criticism of their own record by pointing at American racial violence, and between 2017 and 2021 a US president, a Chinese… section: Then and now --- ![Illustration: a Cold War intelligence-dossier collage dominated by a distressed world map with connecting routes, coordinates and highlighted regions.](https://propagandaarchive.org/static/generated/detail/hero-map-heavy.jpg) [Then and now](https://propagandaarchive.org/then-and-now/) # Then and now:"and what about you?" (Soviet Union, Cold War; US, China and Russia, 2017–21) At a glance Soviet officials answered criticism of their own record by pointing at American racial violence, and between 2017 and 2021 a US president… - **Techniques:** [Whataboutism](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/whataboutism/) - **Regime:** [Russian Federation under Vladimir Putin](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/putin-government/), [Trump administration](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/trump-administration/), [Soviet Union under Stalin](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/soviet-union/) On this page - [Then: "And you are lynching Negroes" (Soviet Union, Cold War)](https://propagandaarchive.org/then-and-now/whataboutism/#then-and-you-are-lynching-negroes-soviet-union-cold-war) - [Now: three cases, 2017–21](https://propagandaarchive.org/then-and-now/whataboutism/#now-three-cases-2017-21) - [Where they are alike](https://propagandaarchive.org/then-and-now/whataboutism/#where-they-are-alike) - [Where they differ](https://propagandaarchive.org/then-and-now/whataboutism/#where-they-differ) - [Positions on the record](https://propagandaarchive.org/then-and-now/whataboutism/#positions-on-the-record) - [Same-method test](https://propagandaarchive.org/then-and-now/whataboutism/#same-method-test) - [How to spot it](https://propagandaarchive.org/then-and-now/whataboutism/#how-to-spot-it) - [Sources](https://propagandaarchive.org/then-and-now/whataboutism/#sources) - [Images](https://propagandaarchive.org/then-and-now/whataboutism/#images) - [Image gaps](https://propagandaarchive.org/then-and-now/whataboutism/#image-gaps) On this page > **Content note.** This page quotes a Soviet-era phrase that uses a racial term of its time. It is quoted as the historical record of the retort. **In one line:** Soviet officials answered criticism of their own record by pointing at American racial violence, and between 2017 and 2021 a US president, a Chinese spokeswoman and the Russian president each answered pointed questions by turning to a different accusation. **The shared technique:** [Whataboutism](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/whataboutism/). The archive's definition: "Answer an accusation with a different accusation so the original claim is never tried." The counter-accusation can be entirely true. What makes it whataboutism is that it replaces the answer to the first question. | | Then | Now (three cases) | | --- | --- | --- | | **The item** | The stock retort "А у вас негров линчуют" ("And you are lynching Negroes") | A press-conference answer, a tweet and a summit press conference | | **When** | 1930s–1980s | 15 August 2017; 30 May 2020; 16 June 2021 | | **Who** | Soviet officials and state media | US President Donald Trump; China's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying; Russian President Vladimir Putin | | **Government at the time** | The Soviet Communist Party, from Stalin to Brezhnev | Trump (Republican), Xi Jinping (Chinese Communist Party), Putin | | **The question dodged** | Repression, forced labour and political prisoners in the USSR | Responsibility for violence at a white-nationalist rally; Hong Kong; jailed and murdered Kremlin critics | ![Map of the world marking Moscow, New York, Geneva and Beijing, where the Soviet retort and the answers of 2017 to 2021 were given, and Hong Kong, the place the question to China was about](https://propagandaarchive.org/then-and-now/images/whataboutism-locator-map.svg) *Where the five settings on this page sit. Drawn by FRAME from Natural Earth's public-domain outlines; it takes no position on borders.* ## Then: "And you are lynching Negroes" (Soviet Union, Cold War) *Image gap: no Soviet poster or broadcast of this retort with a clear U.S. public-domain status was found. Soviet works of the 1930s to 1950s are usually still in U.S. copyright. The photograph below shows the American side of the retort.* When Western governments or reporters raised Soviet repression, Soviet officials and media often answered by pointing to lynching and segregation in the United States. The reply became so predictable that the phrase itself turned into a Soviet joke. **What was going on.** Racial violence and legal segregation in the United States were real, and the historian Mary Dudziak has shown they were a genuine foreign-policy problem that pushed US administrations towards civil-rights reform. At the same time, the Soviet Union ran a vast forced-labour camp system and imprisoned its critics. **Content note:** Segregation sign using the racial term 'Colored' of its period. This object is shown as it was published. [Why](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/#as-it-was) ![A "Colored Waiting Room" sign at the bus station in Durham, North Carolina, with passengers beside a Carolina Coach Company bus, 1940](https://propagandaarchive.org/then-and-now/images/durham-colored-waiting-room-1940.jpg) *"Colored Waiting Room" sign, bus station, Durham, North Carolina, May 1940. Photograph by Jack Delano for the U.S. Farm Security Administration, Library of Congress. Public domain. The sign is shown as photographed and uses a racial term of its period. It documents the segregation the Soviet retort pointed to; it says nothing about the Soviet record the retort was deflecting.* **How the technique shows.** The retort did not dispute the charge about Soviet repression. It moved the conversation to a different, true charge, so the first one was never answered. The *Economist* writer Edward Lucas popularised the term "whataboutism" for this Soviet habit in 2008. **An older precedent in the gallery.** ![Sind wir die Barbaren? (1916)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/sind-wir-die-barbaren-1916.jpg) *[Sind wir die Barbaren? (Are We the Barbarians?)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sind-wir-die-barbaren-1916/). Imperial German counter-propaganda, 1916. Public domain.* Accused of wartime atrocities, Germany answered with a chart comparing its social spending and literacy to Britain's and France's. ## Now: three cases, 2017–21 *Image gap: the 2020 tweets and most agency photographs and broadcast footage of these events are copyrighted, so they are quoted and linked instead. The three images below are U.S. federal (Voice of America) or openly licensed (kremlin.ru, CC BY 4.0).* **United States, 15 August 2017.** At Trump Tower, reporters asked President Trump about his response to the white-nationalist rally in Charlottesville, where a counter-protester, Heather Heyer, had been killed. He answered: "What about the alt-left that came charging at, as you say, the alt-right? Do they have any semblance of guilt?" ([TIME](https://time.com/4902129/president-donald-trump-both-sides-charlottesville/)) ![President Trump speaking at a lectern in front of a U.S. flag and a presidential flag, with a Voice of America logo in the corner](https://propagandaarchive.org/then-and-now/images/trump-tower-press-conference-2017-08-15.jpg) *President Trump at the 15 August 2017 news conference at Trump Tower, New York: a still from a Voice of America report (Voice of America, public domain). The moment within the news conference is not identified.* **China, 30 May 2020.** US State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus tweeted that the Chinese Communist Party had broken its promises to the people of Hong Kong. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying shared the tweet with a three-word reply: "I can't breathe", the last words of George Floyd, killed by a Minneapolis police officer five days earlier. ([CBS News](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/china-uses-u-s-protests-to-cry-hypocrisy-amid-hong-kong-standoff/), [CGTN](https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-05-31/George-Floyd-s-killing-I-can-t-breathe-tweets-Chinese-spokesperson-QWaEEcbqtG/index.html)) ![An aerial view of a dense crowd of Hong Kong marchers, most dressed in black and holding black-and-red placards](https://propagandaarchive.org/then-and-now/images/hong-kong-protest-2019-06-16.jpg) *Marchers in Hong Kong, 16 June 2019, during the protests against the extradition bill, a year before the exchange above. Photograph: Voice of America, public domain. It shows the 2019 protests that preceded the question, not the 2020 exchange itself.* **Russia, 16 June 2021.** After his summit with President Biden in Geneva, Putin was asked by ABC's Rachel Scott about jailed and murdered critics of the Kremlin. He answered by describing the arrests after the 6 January attack on the US Capitol and the Black Lives Matter protests. ([RFE/RL](https://www.rferl.org/a/putin-biden-summit-whataboutism-russia-narrative/31313209.html), [Rev transcript](https://www.rev.com/transcripts/russian-president-vladimir-putin-press-conference-transcript-after-meeting-with-biden-english-translation)) ![President Putin at a lectern in front of a blue "Geneva 2021" backdrop and a Russian flag](https://propagandaarchive.org/then-and-now/images/putin-geneva-press-conference-2021-06-16.jpg) *President Putin at the news conference after the Geneva summit, 16 June 2021. Photograph: Presidential Press and Information Office / TASS, via kremlin.ru, CC BY 4.0.* **What was going on.** Each answer came during a crisis at home or a diplomatic clash: a deadly rally in Virginia, Beijing's planned national security law for Hong Kong and the George Floyd protests, and a US–Russia summit four months after Alexei Navalny was jailed. ## Where they are alike - A direct question about the speaker's own side is answered with a charge against the questioner's side. - The counter-charge refers to something real: US racial violence then; violence by some counter-protesters, US police killings and the 6 January riot now. - The original question is left unanswered. ## Where they differ - **Institution or individual.** The Soviet retort was a state habit repeated for decades by officials with a controlled press behind them. Trump's answer was one unscripted exchange, challenged at once by the press and by members of his own party. The Chinese and Russian answers came from state officials in systems with controlled domestic media, which puts them closer to the Soviet case. - **Echo.** Hua Chunying's reply is the closest to the Soviet original: it used the same subject, US racial violence, to deflect the same kind of charge, political repression. - **Scope of this page.** The archive found no equally well-documented example from the US left or a Democratic administration in the sources checked for this page. That is a gap in this page's research, not a finding that such examples do not exist. ## Positions on the record - **Trump** said in the same press conference that there was "blame on both sides" and that he had condemned neo-Nazis and white nationalists. Fact-checkers such as PolitiFact have published the full context of his remarks. - **China's Foreign Ministry** has argued that US officials apply a double standard when they criticise China's handling of protests. - **The Kremlin** has argued that Western governments criticise Russia while ignoring their own prosecutions and protest policing. ## Same-method test Any official, from any party or country, who answers a question about their own conduct by turning to the questioner's faults is scored the same way here. A comparison that applies one standard to both sides and still answers the original question is not whataboutism. ## How to spot it The tell, and what does not count as this technique, are on the [Whataboutism](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/whataboutism/) page. The same-method test above applies them to each case here. ## Sources - Dudziak, M., [*Cold War Civil Rights: Race and the Image of American Democracy*](https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691152431/cold-war-civil-rights), Princeton University Press. - Lucas, E., "Whataboutism", *The Economist*, 31 January 2008. - TIME, [President Trump Again Blames 'Both Sides' for Charlottesville Violence](https://time.com/4902129/president-donald-trump-both-sides-charlottesville/), 15 August 2017. - PolitiFact, [In context: Donald Trump's 'very fine people on both sides' remarks](https://www.politifact.com/article/2019/apr/26/context-trumps-very-fine-people-both-sides-remarks/). - CBS News, [China uses U.S. protests to cry hypocrisy amid Hong Kong standoff](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/china-uses-u-s-protests-to-cry-hypocrisy-amid-hong-kong-standoff/), May 2020. - CGTN, [George Floyd's killing: 'I can't breathe,' tweets Chinese spokesperson](https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-05-31/George-Floyd-s-killing-I-can-t-breathe-tweets-Chinese-spokesperson-QWaEEcbqtG/index.html) (Chinese state media, primary source). - RFE/RL, [Putin's Performance At Geneva Summit Seen As A Master Class In 'Whataboutism'](https://www.rferl.org/a/putin-biden-summit-whataboutism-russia-narrative/31313209.html), 17 June 2021. - Rev, [Vladimir Putin press conference transcript after meeting with Biden](https://www.rev.com/transcripts/russian-president-vladimir-putin-press-conference-transcript-after-meeting-with-biden-english-translation), 16 June 2021. ## Images | Image | Source | Licence | | --- | --- | --- | | *Sind wir die Barbaren?* (1916) | FRAME gallery | Public domain | | Where the answers were given (map) | Drawn for FRAME (`make_whataboutism_map.py`) from Natural Earth | CC BY 4.0, FRAME; basemap public domain | | "Colored Waiting Room", Durham, N.C. (May 1940) | [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:At_the_bus_station_in_Durham,_North_Carolina._1940.jpg), from the [Library of Congress](https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/fsa.8a33837), Jack Delano | Public domain (U.S. government work) | | Trump news conference, 15 Aug 2017 (still) | [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Trump_Blames_Both_Sides_for_Racial_Violence_at_Virginia_Rally.webm), [Voice of America](https://www.voanews.com/a/trump-blames-both-sides-racial-violence-virginia-rally/3986988.html) | Public domain (U.S. government work) | | Hong Kong march, 16 June 2019 | [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Voa_hong_kong_protest_16june2019.jpg), Voice of America | Public domain (U.S. government work) | | Putin news conference, Geneva, 16 June 2021 | [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Putin_in_Switzerland_2021_20.jpg), from [kremlin.ru](http://kremlin.ru/events/president/trips/65872/photos) | CC BY 4.0 | ## Image gaps - **A Soviet poster or broadcast of the retort.** None found with a clear U.S. public-domain status. - **The 2020 tweets and agency footage of the events.** Copyrighted. Quoted and linked instead. - **Hua Chunying's reply and the Ortagus tweet.** No openly licensed image of either was found. The Hong Kong photograph is from the protests, not the exchange.