A lawmaker from Russia's ruling political party has lashed out at legendary Soviet rock musician Viktor Tsoi, accusing him of having been a CIA agent who worked to destroy the U.S.S.R. with a song that demanded social and political "change."
The iconic song titled "We Want Change!" — released amid the easing of Soviet restrictions on the freedom of expression in the late 1980s — was supposedly "given" to Tsoi by CIA spymasters, Deputy Yevgeny Fyodorov from the United Russia party said in an video published early April on his website.
While Fyodorov conceded that Tsoi was a "brilliant singer, truly super-popular in the Soviet Union," he added that "at some point he started singing different kinds of songs, not like the ones he sang before."
Unidentified sources had "investigated" and "discovered that all the later songs were brought to [Tsoi] from America," Fyodorov said.
"There were specially appointed people in the CIA behind Tsoi, who worked with him, gave him grants, gave him those songs and so one."
Fyodorov is no stranger to conspiracy theories, having earlier alleged the most of the Kremlin administration and the government were controlled by agents run by the U.S. State Department, and that Russian President Vladimir Putin was a lone freedom fighter standing up against Western "occupants."
More recently, Fyodorov co-signed a request to the Prosecutor General's Office to open an investigation against former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev for his role in the 1991 Soviet collapse.
Tsoi, who died in a car crash at the age of 28, had a tremendous cult following in the Soviet Union. In an obituary following his 1990 death, then-Communist youth daily Komsomolskaya Pravda said the artist "means more to the young people of our nation than many political leaders, healers or writers because he never lied and never dissimulated."
The iconic status of Tsoi's music has also endured beyond Russia. During the recent Ukrainian protests that have toppled the country's Moscow-backed administration, scores of videos posted by YouTube users were accompanied by the sound of the artist's raspy voice, urging: "'Change!' Our hearts demand."
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