In his quarter century in power, Vladimir Putin has ensured that Russia has become a country of lonely and disconnected people.
Reference. Pavlo Kazarin is a Ukrainian journalist, publicist, TV and radio host. Born in Simferopol (1983). In 2006, he graduated from the V. I. Vernadsky Tauride National University with a degree in Russian Language and Literature and received a Master's degree in Philology. Since 2004 he has been working in the media. With the beginning of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, he joined the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
Text of the article
(reprinted from Glavred, original — 11.10.2024)
Whenever democracies and dictatorships are compared, the proponents of the “strong hand” refer to wartime. Their approach boils down to the fact that authoritarian systems may be lagging behind in the peace situation, but they can cope with military challenges with flying colors. That propaganda turns the inhabitants of a dictatorship into motivated passionaries. That an invasion of a country accustomed to the role of a “besieged fortress” will inevitably lead to partisan movement, resistance and all the other trappings of the Soviet cult of the “Great Patriotic War”.
And then the Ukrainian army enters the Kursk region - and none of the above happens.
And all the “things that did not happen” look particularly vivid against the background of what was happening in Ukraine during the first months of the invasion. Rallies against the Russian occupiers in Kherson. Videos of civilians stopping Russian tanks in Chernigov region. Queues at military enlistment offices across the country. A surge in volunteering and record donations. The domestic experience of reaction to the Russian invasion made us expect that the Ukrainian invasion of the Russian Federation would provoke something similar. But it didn't.
In fact, there is nothing surprising about it.
The last thirty years of our country's life have been an experience of discussion and competition. Each new Ukrainian president was in opposition to the previous one. Any attempt to roll the country in the concrete of unanimity failed miserably. Ukrainian polyphony stood out in relief against the monumental hierarchies of most of the former Soviet republics - and that is why our neighbors from the East looked down on our experience of statehood.
In Russia itself, meanwhile, the state was taking over all spheres of public life. Marginalizing dissenters, cracking down on the media and killing competitors. Moscow was concluding a new social contract with its citizens, in which they exchanged their political rights for a stuffed refrigerator.
At some point, Putin achieved what he wanted. The space of Russian life began to resemble an army formation. The chain of command turned into a pole ringing with tension. But there was no room for citizens in this scheme.
Because for all its shortcomings, democracy has one indisputable advantage. Its citizens live with a sense of ownership. They perceive themselves as shareholders of their own state. They treat an official as a function and are not accustomed to deifying the president. Therefore, for them the state is “their own”.
And dictatorships can only pour concrete over grassroots activism, a process that is never selective.
For twenty years, the Russian president has killed in his fellow citizens horizontal ties and a sense of responsibility. The experience of initiative and the habit of passionarity. He has burned out the sense of subjectivity and grassroots response to events. He has accustomed them to the idea that “the state knows best,” which is why no one is in a hurry to lend a shoulder to the vertical at the moment of a state crisis in Russia.
In his quarter century in power, Vladimir Putin has ensured that his country has become a country of lonely and disconnected people.
The Russian vertical has defeated not only the opposition. First of all, it has defeated its own people - turning them into the population. The population can put on military uniforms - tempted by the size of the lump-sum payment. It can tacitly agree to watch the next spectacle to extend the ruler's powers. Or they can support from their sofa the war crimes committed by their army in the occupied territories. But the population does not know how to show solidarity and independent activism. Simply because it requires citizens - and it was the rudiments of citizenship that Putin weaned Russia from by preparing it for war.
Everything that was considered “Ukrainian shortcomings” turned out to be the basis of our resilience. For the last thirty years we overestimated our enemy and underestimated ourselves. The weakness of our verticals was compensated by the strength of our horizontals.
At the time of the invasion, Ukraine had something that Russia ultimately did not. A critical mass of citizens.
And the Kursk operation proved that Russian citizens, falling out from under the all-seeing eye of the power vertical, turn into indifferent statists and passive spectators.
Pavlo Kazarin, October 11, 2024
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Editor's Comment
Instead of a commentary - reactions in social networks to the post by the governor of Kursk Region regarding the fact that the residents of evacuated Korenevo [a village in Kursk Region of the Russian Federation - editor's note] had better not return home yet and may not worry about the safety of their homes, since reports about looters are “information thrown in by the enemy's intelligence services” [source of screenshots - ECHO, October 31, 2024].
Victoria Khomenko
And this is the door that opened itself in a friendly way after a bolt cutter, a crowbar and a machine gun queue
Yulia Yulia
What do you call those who took the TV out of our house through the window? Isn't that looting? Who, then, is the one who ripped up the walls in the house, who tore off the stretch ceilings? So far, they are climbing through the window, but they do not give up hope of breaking the front door, the door handle has already been “beaten” more than once, you can see how the door was picked with a crowbar. Can't they see that the people have already lost everything? While we are wandering around in rented housing, the property we have gained over the years is being shamelessly stolen from our homes. Don't tell me there are no looters! It's disgusting!
Olga Polyanskaya
Who told you that, Marina Degtyareva? The whole village has been looted. Houses, garages have been broken into. Everything they couldn't steal, they smashed up!!!!. People are coming back so they don't steal what's left. They're pulling everything. Every other day we go home to Korenevo. And each time we come with a new lock, because someone tears them off all the time.!!!! SAVE KORENEVO FROM LOOTERS!!!!
Elena Melikhova
Today we were at home, there is nothing to take in the house, the gates have been taken away from the vegetable garden. It remains to dismantle the house by a brick, and you say there is no looting. One question: who's patrolling? If they're taking the gate and no one sees it.
Antonina Silkina
Why don't they expose how they shit and piss on children's cribs in our homes, how they litter our home? I personally had a mattress pissed on in my daughter's room, locked a dog in the car, which died! That's what our protectors are, assholes!!!
Antonina Silkina
It would not be so offensive if it was the AFU, it is offensive that our Russian soldiers are smashing and looting our homes. Such an impression that ours hate us!
Photo of Pavlo Kazarin (facebook.com/kazarin.pavel, источник: vgorode_оdesа) used on the cover.
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