Paul Goble
Staunton, June 18 – It has become fashionable to blame Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine as the product of his involvement with street culture when he was growing up as if that culture was at odds with Soviet culture as a whole. But in fact, Iskander Yasaveyev says, the street culture out of which he emerged was part and parcel of Soviet culture as a whole.
But more serious researchers stress, the Idel.Real commentator says, that “the culture of street groups and their values and norms did not contradict Soviet culture and were not a counter-culture in relation to it.” Instead, he continues, their values were very similar to those of “the Soviet man” generally (idelreal.org/a/31889014.html).
Both the street groups and Soviet culture as a whole put a low value on human life, treated peoples as a means rather than an end, and focused on enemies as a threat who must be destroyed, Yasaveyev says. Both were radically hierarchical, intolerant of others, sexist, and obsessed with the defense of territory.
In short, the commentator argues, despite stylistic differences in dress, for example, the two cultures were in fact one and the same. Thus, Putin’s behavior reflects not an alternative source but rather the combination of two sources which were much the same. And that in turn highlights something else: the need for the radical de-Sovietization of Russian life.
Even if after Putin leaves the scene and Russian establishes regular elections and other freedoms, Yasaveyev says, “the country is going to need institutions which will ensure de-Sovietization, the elimination of the "Soviet man" who is constantly aggressive and helplessly patient, submissive and crafty, and forever building hierarchies.”
Doing that will require decades, he concludes but unless it is thoroughly carried out, “there cannot be any certainty that Russia will not again become a threat to the world and to itself.”
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