Paul
Goble
Staunton, August 9 – Many analysts
in Russia and the West are speculating about whether the burning of food at the
Russian border will finally be enough to spark major protests in Russia. But they are missing the point: faced with
any Kremlin action, no matter how absurd and immoral, Russians want
explanations rather than change, according to Kseniya Kirillova.
Even when Russians recognize that
what is being done is fundamentally wrong, their “chief instinct,” the commentator
writes today, is “not a desire to change the situation but rather a searing
need to receive an explanation of why it was done.” And the Kremlin is only too willing to
provide that (nr2.ru/blogs/Ksenija_Kirillova/Rossiyanam-obyasnili-zachem-nuzhno-szhigat-edu-103428.html).
Conformism,
of course, is a characteristic of human nature, Kirillova argues, and is even “one
of the necessary conditions for the survival of people as well as animals. The
ability to come to terms with what one can’t change is a kind of transformed
instinct of self-preservation which gives an individual the chance to survive
in what are at times inhuman conditions.”
But
there are other adaptation mechanisms as well, including a sense of concern,
feelings that something is abnormal or immoral, and a willingness to fight for
one’s rights, but “for the majority of Russians as a result of their sense of
irresponsibility, inertia, and deep fear of a pitiless and unpredictable state
machine, all these instincts except conformism have atrophied.”
The
ordinary Russian today is “convinced that he will not be able to change
anything and doesn’t have the right to try and that struggle with the state is
something like sacrilege,” but “nevertheless,
particular decisions of the government all the same will get him off his knees,
less often in the realm of morals and more often in the sphere of personal
comfort.”
In
those cases, Kirillova says, “such people are disturbed by their sense of
discomfort more than by the decision taken by the authorities. The illusion of
comfort and stability in a person of this type is the only compensation for the
lack of freedom and rights and the sense of illusory defensibility.”
It
is in short, “the last refuge to which he runs from a frightening reality.”
And
that explains why his chief desire is “not to change the situation but only to
return the comfort he has lost. The chief means of that return is little by
little a logical explanation that the latest hit on his normal life was
correct, true and intended for his good,” however much the world around him
suggests otherwise.
In
a totalitarian society, the commentator writes, the individual sees in such
explanations “the only means of psychological survival in a world gone
insane. It is a matter of indifference
to him that the explanations on offer contradict objective reality, legal and
moral norms, and in principle that boundary which separates a healthy mind from
schizophrenia.”
The
Russian authorities understand this perfectly and consequently, “the work of
all analytic and media structures in this country are directed not at the
solution of problems but at the explanation of the ‘normalcy’ of their appearance.”
“Unfortunately,”
Kirillova continues, “the Western world even after having recognized the need
to struggle with Russian propaganda” generally fails to understand that
reality. Instead, its politicians and journalists try “to convince Russians
that they do not have free media,” something that the Russians know very well
but consider “perfectly normal.”
Russians
today have been “convinced of the necessity of the main principles of
totalitarian society: censorship, controlled media and an obligatory ideology.
Earlier they were convinced in the need for war with Ukraine while maintaining the
faith that there was no such war, as well as militarism, the need for lies, the
justification of crimes and repressions, the rejection of western products …
and much else besides.”
Regarding the destruction of
foodstuffs at the Russian border, she cites the explanation offered by Maksim
Vilisov, a researcher at the Moscow Center for the Study of Crisis Society,
whose words she suggests in their “bravura Komsomol manner are in complete
correspondence with the spirit of the 1930s.”
According to Vilisov, “the decision
[to destroy food at the border] was never more important. In a political sense,
it demonstrated the decisiveness of the president to act in the direction he
has chosen. The position of the state must be firm – illegally imported goods
must be destroyed … therefore under legal conditions they cannot even be given
to the needy.”
That is an explanation many Russians
find persuasive even though they view the actual destruction of foodstuffs as
stupid or even immoral, Kirillova continues. And she points out that the
authors of such propaganda themselves share many of the views of those they are
trying to convince.
It is worth noting, she suggests,
that “the author of this text ad his ‘patriotic’ colleagues do not for a second
cast doubt on the stupidity and shamefulness of the decision itself about ‘anti-sanctions.’” That is not what they are talking about or
what their audience is really interested in hearing.
Thus, they “in principle do not
raise issues of morality or law or elementary good sense.” They simply provide
an explanation that people can use even if it rests on ideas as flimsy as the
ones Vilisov and his ilk offer.
“The pathological conformism of the
Russian majority has learned not to take note” of this or to be concerned about
issues that touch on “law, morality and even logic.” But Russians have not lost all the other
aspects of self-preservation. They retain “the animal instinct: a feeling of
hunger, cold, pain and danger.”
From this it follows, Kirillova
says, that “the collapse of the regime will come when the animal instinct of
Russians comes to dominate conformist and a desire for explanations and
justifications. Whether this will occur now with the case of the destruction of
foodstuffs or somewhat later,
only time will tell.”
For
the present, she adds, one thing is clear: “the need for propaganda
explanations of the insanity and crimes of the authorities is still very strong
among the [Russian] population.”
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