At least Raskolnikov had a guilty conscience. Whether contemporary Russians do, too, remains unclear.
Fyodor Dostoevsky’s tormented hero believed his extraordinary qualities permitted him to commit murder. After killing two women, he felt impelled to revisit the scene of his crime, eventually broke down and confessed his guilt, and finally found redemption in prison.
The story could be an allegory for what awaits Russians today.
Like Raskolnikov, some Russians have been directly complicit in the crimes Vladimir Putin committed against his own people and other nations. They cheered him on as he devastated Chechnya, invaded Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014, and they still cheer him on as he commits genocide and ethnic cleansing in Ukraine today.
The majority has been blind to the crimes, preferring to revel in the feelings of greatness that Putin engendered. Putin’s popularity has hovered in the 60-90 percent range for the last two decades, even as he systematically dismantled Russia’s nascent democratic institutions, muzzled the press, silenced the opposition, killed his political opponents, extended his control over the economy, promoted corruption, surrounded himself with toadies from the army and secret police, and transformed Russia into some version of an authoritarian, totalitarian, or fascist state.
Although many Russians have taken to the streets in protests in the past and many continue to do so in the present, the silent majority has been and remains as largely indifferent to Putin’s misdeeds as it is overwhelmingly supportive of Joseph Stalin and his legacy. Germans began turning their back on Adolf Hitler immediately after World War II and they decisively broke with him sometime in the late 1960s, roughly 25 years after the end of the war. Since then, the German government and civil society have done everything possible to prevent that hateful legacy from reemerging.
In contrast, Russian attitudes toward Stalin remain positive, even 69 years after his death and 30 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union. More disturbing, Putin has consciously adopted Stalin’s mantle, insisted that today’s Russia is a continuation of the USSR and imperial Russia, and, instead of facing opprobrium, has actually garnered still greater popular support.
Unlike Raskolnikov, who felt guilt and obsessed about his crimes, most Russians prefer to remain blissfully unaware of the awful weight of Lenin’s predations, Stalin’s mass murders, Brezhnev’s repressions, and Putin’s assassinations and war crimes. Russians cannot very well claim not to have known of the crimes—as many Germans did regarding the death camps—because there has been an explosion of histories, journalistic accounts, television programs, and memoirs dealing with the Soviet Union’s misdeeds. And, until Putin’s recently imposed blackout on news in Russia, there were ample sources on Putin’s dictatorial rule. Russians only had to look, but they chose not to.
That doesn’t make them legally guilty for Putin’s or Stalin’s criminal actions. There is, after all, no such thing as collective guilt. But, like Raskolnikov, they should be tormented by guilty consciences and desirous of finding redemption. But, unlike Raskolnikov, they are not.
Their indifference does make them morally guilty. The millions of Ukrainians who are being driven from their homes, the many thousands who will die as a result of intentional Russian shelling of civilian targets (including kindergartens and maternity wards), and the many thousands of Russian and Ukrainian soldiers who will have perished for the maniacal ambitions of a dictator—all of them will be on the conscience of Russia’s silent majority.
When, if at all, will Russians wake up to the reality of their sins and seek forgiveness—from all their neighbors and from each other? Their adoration of Putin has already been tarnished by the huge losses the Russian army has incurred in the war against Ukraine. But their bizarre love of a warmongering dictator will start to dissipate with full force only after he is gone. Fortunately for the Russians, there is growing talk among Russian and Western elites of the necessity of a coup against Putin.
Since Putin has already transformed Russia into a prison, Russians will be able to seek redemption without being sent to prison. In any case, they would do well to reread Crime and Punishment and prepare accordingly.
Dr. Alexander Motyl is a professor of political science at Rutgers-Newark. A specialist on Ukraine, Russia, and the USSR, and on nationalism, revolutions, empires, and theory, he is the author of 10 books of nonfiction, including Pidsumky imperii (2009); Puti imperii (2004); Imperial Ends: The Decay, Collapse, and Revival of Empires (2001); Revolutions, Nations, Empires: Conceptual Limits and Theoretical Possibilities (1999); Dilemmas of Independence: Ukraine after Totalitarianism (1993); and The Turn to the Right: The Ideological Origins and Development of Ukrainian Nationalism, 1919–1929 (1980); the editor of 15 volumes, including The Encyclopedia of Nationalism (2000) and The Holodomor Reader (2012); and a contributor of dozens of articles to academic and policy journals, newspaper op-ed pages, and magazines. He also has a weekly blog, “Ukraine’s Orange Blues.”
greenman
March 12, 2022 at 3:53 pm
The Russians are morally guilty for Putin’s aggressions on other countries. Putin does stuff the ballot box to remain in power.RUssia has no history of democracy. The current regime are the communists, in all but name. The policies carried out much as juggling the press and press control are all standard communist methods. Also control of the economy. The population is approximately 145 million, yet the economy is still narrowly focused and so small, that texas has a larger economy.
China now has a larger GDP per head of population, which demonstrates how far behind Russia has got.
Both communist states try to make up for the deficit in science and technology by stealing intellectual property from western countries.
It is no coincidence that the originator of communism Karl Marx lies buried in a London graveyard, where a country with democracy for centuries was immune to the faulty doctrine Marx promulgated.
Commentar
March 12, 2022 at 4:11 pm
Ahem. The guilty are actually all the war gnomes and expansionists in washington abd brussels.
A.K.A. the genghis horde of today. NATO, the horde of genghis (the babylon of today) is trying or attempting to expand eastward, from the north sea to the eastern edge of central asia but it failed spectacularly in afghanistan.
Now it is meeting another failure, this time, in ukraine. Putin has seen that NATO is a giant with feet of clay. If a bunch of sandal-wearing and bedsheet-clad fighters could defeat NATO, surely a nation like russia with NUCLEAR WEAPONS and hypersonic gliders could also achieve the same.
Not doing so would be the biggest embarassment or shame any man could face. Russia must use its nuclear weapons if necessary to confront and defeat the genghis horde.
The taliban during its lowest ebbs employed suicide fighters since it had zero nukes. But fortunately, russia has nukes.
from Russia with love
March 13, 2022 at 12:13 pm
ha ha ha 🙂 Zbigniew Brzezinski deceived you;) Russia is not going to pay and repent of something. you don’t like it? you can go to the grave of Zbigniew Brzezinski and curse him. 🙂
Passer-by
March 13, 2022 at 7:24 pm
Let’s try a repentance exercise: kindly, in your quoted text below, substitute “Russian” with “American” and “Ukrainians” with “Iraqis”, “Libyans” and “Afghanis”, at your convenenience.
Then, let us know how US-based Raskolnikovs are dealing with their conscience. Thanks 🙂
“Their indifference does make them morally guilty. The millions of Ukrainians who are being driven from their homes, the many thousands who will die as a result of intentional Russian shelling of civilian targets (including kindergartens and maternity wards)”
Michael Helweg
March 14, 2022 at 6:18 am
There is a very small percentage of Americans that has had the unfortunate experience of living in a combat zone. There is nothing quite like this experience. You must also consider that freedom is not granted to those who belong to a global association like NATO. One should not have to wake up every morning and worry about being tortured, incarcerated, raped and murdered. Yet once again, America, the supposed defenders of freedom and justice, are just sitting back and allowing the invasion of a democratic country and acting as if there is nothing we can do. I realize there are inherent dangers to interfering in the invasion of the Ukraine but this is a defining moment in humankind. Doing nothing will most certainly keep us out of the crosshairs of Russia’s military, but how can we claim to champion freedom and allow such acts?
Dimmer
March 14, 2022 at 6:44 am
Yeah, and this is what the person who supports Zelensky tells us. Good luck to you. You probably don’t like your people.
Alex
March 14, 2022 at 11:08 am
The article perfectly demonstrates to us Russophobia and chauvinism as a minimum, and as a maximum we see naked Nazism. Believe me, the Russian people and other peoples of the USSR such as you destroyed in the 40s. If it is necessary to cut off the head of the Nazi hydra again, I am sure that Russia will do it.
I wonder why the publication skips Nazi articles? There is a line between freedom of speech and inciting ethnic hatred.
FURUSSIA
March 18, 2022 at 10:04 am
This isn’t the 40s, Russia is weak and they showed it. Time to finish them once and for all.
Anna
March 22, 2022 at 6:25 am
This article is mixing a lot of things together in a pot that do not belong together – for example the comparison with Germans and Hitler towards the Russians and Stalin. The Germans were forced to process what had happened in the past and could rehabilitate somehow as a society (still a lot of work to do though) , – the Russians never had a chance to do that. What kids learn in universities in Europe about Stalin many Russians do not even know, does not matter if young or old. As a Slavicst I know how particularly hard it is to even research on that subject in Russia itself. Russian people never had the chance to rehabilitate from the Stalin era and this, as a societal fact, contributes a
lot to how the avergage Russians see themselves as a Nation today. I am very surprised that the author of that article, despite of being a professor and whatsoever-cannot make this simple connection and draws this dull comparison. As a German born in Russia, travelling and working there, I can only agree that there is a silent mass of people in Russia who do not speak out against Putin. But this silent mass are not necessarily supporters, but rather frightened people. And every privileged Euopean/American can make their narrow assumptions about the cowardice of Russians, but if you only know an oppressive system and as an ordinary person have no resources to do any thing against it – what will you chose? Sure, there are also many people who believe Putin. But again, as a nation, without any access to appropriate education and information about your countries bloody history and most ordinary people living hand to mouth? What would you expect? Since the 90s all money was flowing into Moscow and St. Petersburg, becoming fake shiny and richt. While the rest of the huge country was rottening away, using industrial machines from the 50s and heating universities with wood and coal.The local policies are drowning in corruption. People have 3-4jobs to make a living while they have families, living together in 2 room apartments. If there is not even a basic system for ordinary people to make ends meet where can be resources to go against Kremlin and or the local gangster living from slush money? I mean what do people expect from ordinary Russians? Everyone who had the resources to go against the regime ahd to flee the country or was killed or imprisoned. I think people are opening their mouths here far too easily and compare apples with oranges. I am very disappointed to read such an article from a fellow of my own field of studies. It is rather written to serve some political agenda then being reflective towards its own field of research. Thumbs down.
A penny tossed to the wind
March 23, 2022 at 2:22 am
One gets the impression this author would benefit from extricating his head from books, likely his own, as metaphor for also extricating it from his rectum, and go down to any local drinking or cafe establishment and have a beer or a cup of tea with the good folk upon whom he lays his unreasonable blame, with a seemingly insatiable and relishing need to lay it.
Then thank goodness for the educative coalface of life.