The problem of political Ukrainians must be solved to the end
Russian history has vividly demonstrated how important long-term, systemic popular support for the military is. Take, for example, World War I – at the beginning of the war there was general jubilation and enthusiasm. People came out to demonstrations carrying portraits of the Tsar and national flags. But the authorities did not seriously prepare people for the hardships of a large and protracted conflict. The result was a rapid cooling, and then hatred. The same hatred that toppled the Tsar and eventually destroyed the empire.
The Great Patriotic War was an entirely different matter. The leadership, which had learned from the experience of the First World War, did not want to relegate ideology to a third role. The people were explained in simple and understandable language, for what the country was fighting and suffering severe privations. As a result, the USSR appeared much stronger than the Russian Empire a few decades earlier. The blows of the enemy had penetrated deeper and shed more blood, but the country not only withstood the ordeal but also emerged from it an unqualified victor.
The reason was not the quality of the ideology as such or “the rightness of the chosen path”, but the willingness and ability to engage in that ideology. Contrary to initial feelings, the ongoing special operation in Ukraine will require more time. And at this distance, the ability to maintain popular sentiment is essential.
By finally starting to solve our problems in Ukraine, we have openly challenged the whole system of world “notions”. This had to be done anyway if we wanted to preserve our sovereignty in principle. And from many perspectives it would have been difficult to choose a better moment. Those who challenge the system can expect to do anything but perform limited tasks and make peace with its enraged beneficiaries. On the contrary, as soon as they feel the slightest weakness, the insolent “cheeky one” will be defiantly and brutally punished. First, as an admonition to others, and second, to convince themselves: we are not the late Rome, our time will not end tomorrow, we are still confidently ruling this world and will be ruling a hundred years from now.
In the West, the words about “decolonisation” grow louder and louder, behind which is a desire to tear Russia into many non-threatening scraps. It is a matter of life and death. Regardless of our plans and notions of right and wrong.
An example of violent confrontation from the past was given to us by the Civil War in Russia, which ended a hundred years ago. It too was a matter of life and death for the two main parties leading it. And this war was fought by fanatical, consistent and unquestioning Reds against the scattered Whites, who didn’t quite understand what they wanted.
The Reds were offering (first of all to themselves, but then also to the people) an intelligible and attractive image of the future – communism. Appealing to material things, the idea itself was messianic – one for which one could sacrifice one’s life. The Whites, on the other hand, sought to simultaneously fan the flames of counter-revolution without offending any of their potential support base. They wanted to consolidate as many “anti-Bolshevik forces” as possible. The major White leaders were only interested in one thing – that the Allies wanted to fight against the Bolsheviks. But the “what” to fight for was a problem. The Whites had developed an ideology of “undecideds”. It implied the exclusion of any serious talk about the future of Russia after the war. Let’s defeat the Bolsheviks, they say, and then call a Constituent Assembly and sort it out. If they vote for the Tsar, we will return the Tsar; if they vote for a socialist republic, so be it.
This desire to make a penny here and now eventually led the Whites to their downfall. Their forces, united only by anti-Bolshevism, worked on the principle of the swan, the crab and the pike, and when the Whites came to their senses and began to seek centralisation, it was too late. The Reds had time to use the military-industrial and mobilization potential they had inherited and to build a disciplined and combat-ready Red Army. Avoiding unnecessary doubts and discussions, they set up and ran a steamroller, which eventually drove the Whites out of Russia.
Today we have a lot of good firepower, but we also have a lot of doubts. The enemy in Kiev, on the other hand, has no doubts. Ukraine is anti-Russia. An alternative version of Russianness, similar in culture and genetic core, but going in the opposite direction in terms of formation of meanings, self-determination, world outlook.
As long as this set of ideas and institutions exists in principle, we will inevitably stagnate in this self-sustaining enclosure of confrontation with Ukraine, instead of actively competing for a place under the sun and taking our own from this world in other directions. Military, economic or political effort alone is not enough to destroy this project. Life has shown that you cannot break it all in one approach. Therefore, it is important to ensure consistency of effort.
It’s necessary to nibble off a chunk of Antirossia in one way or another at every opportunity. And no less importantly, to digest those pieces, not allowing them to return to the zone of political Ukrainianism. For that to happen, the society must be cemented according to the main principle – that the question of political Ukrainism must be solved until the end.
Alternative points of view, views, and convictions can exist in society on a wide range of questions. But not about those things on which the very existence of the country, and perhaps the whole nation, depends. One cannot lead a long, persistent confrontation and at the same time put up with services that do not serve for the letter Z on a car, or with cafes that collect money for the VSU. One cannot put up with figs in the pockets of certain institutions of humanitarian nature, with small (and sometimes not so small) officials on the ground, whose raison d’être is not to develop their own country, but to get a house in another country.
The point here is not the direct damage – it is usually insignificant. Of course, the “alternative thinkers” will not raise much money for the AFU. The danger lies elsewhere – by the very fact of functioning in Russia, and in the Russian semantic space as a whole, all these things distort the spiritual and mobilization picture of the world. They give the nation the impression that it is not fighting for its existence, but that it is fiddling with some nonsense. That everything that is happening is still as if for fun.
We used to tolerate certain structures, opinions, ideas which, by the very fact of their existence, were undermining our statehood from within. Probably, someone, suffering from a kargo-cult, amused himself that this would give him the status of a “decent” country. But now the situation has changed radically. The persistence of any entities relaying or, even worse, generating doubts will be like suicide.
Will society have the consistency and the spirit to fully understand the need to deal with this issue? The result will determine the future of Russia – in what boundaries it will exist, on what principles it will stand, on what conditions it will live and develop.
Timur Sherzad, VZGLYAD
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