The Sociology of Participation and Non-Participation: On the Debate Between Yulia Galimina and Kirill Martynov

The debate over how to regard participants in wars that are not defensive, not fully legitimate, or frankly aggressive have arisen more than once. Two extreme positions see them either as accomplices to a crime or as victims, that is hostages of politicians’ mistaken or criminal decisions.

However, from the domestic political perspective of an authoritarian country waging such a war, including today’s Russia, this is not only, or even primarily, a question of moral judgement, but rather a field of both hidden and open political confrontation. These conflicts involve different strata of society and reflect the various strategies through which they adapt to the realities not only of external but also internal, civil conflict and the accompanying repression.

Russian public opinion is divided over its attitude towards the participants of the ‘special military operation’ along three main lines: the regime’s aggressively imposed view of them as 'heroes', reincarnations of the Great Patriotic War veterans; the perception of them as 'victims', absolved of responsibility; and the view of them as 'mercenaries', driven primarily by mercenary motives.

The struggle for dominance between these interpretations is, to a large extent, a struggle over how the 'ordinary citizen' actually perceives the war under conditions of censorship and authoritarian pressure. It is also a struggle for the nation’s 'imagined majority', whether it sees itself as a participant, a non-participant, or a shirker in this war.

And an entirely correct assessment of the boundaries of 'responsibility' may, in the context of this struggle, turn out to be completely useless for those inside this social 'cauldron', who are compelled to fight it regardless of what is thought by those who, in certain respects, have found themselves outside it.

The embers of civil war

The debate between the politician and scholar Yulia Galyamina, who lives in Russia, and Kirill Martynov, editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta Europe and sentenced in absentia to imprisonment in Russia, has been raging for a second week. To simplify the general outline of the argument: Galyamina speaks from a position that allows one to see the participants in the invasion more as victims drawn into this crime, one that has left them physically and morally maimed, whereas Martynov emphasises their personal and collective responsibility for taking part in an aggressive, criminal war. A war that, as both Martynov himself and several other participants in the debate rightly note, has not been publicly condemned in Russia but, in fact, quite the opposite.

To continue the debate 'for Galyamina' or 'against Galyamina', in my view, makes little sense; and its meaning becomes even more trivial when the dispute descends into an emotional opposition between those who 'left' and those who 'stayed'. The question of a nation’s responsibility for the actions of a despotic regime has a long history, and it is difficult to disagree with most of the moral and legal arguments put forward. At the same time, the social and political substance of the problem remains, in my opinion, insufficiently articulated.

The question of attitudes towards the participants of the ‘special military operation’ is by no means limited to a dispute between Galyamina and Martynov, or their supporters and opponents. It is also a central issue of contemporary Russian politics, and one of the most important questions facing Russian society in the broadest sense of the term. It is, one might say, the focal point of the social and political divisions within Russia, both current and potential, and, in a sense, the 'front line' of a latent civil war smouldering within the country.

In her latest explanatory post, Yulia Galyamina approaches the issue directly in its socio-political dimension. 'The other day I was on a train with a soldier,' she writes, 'who had taken part in the Special Military Operation (though not on the front line). We began with his assertion that ‘if we hadn’t attacked, they would have attacked us’, but through my understanding (there was no need to sympathise with him, he was doing quite well) he came to the conclusion that ‘in reality, only 1–2% of people truly support all this – certainly not me’.’ This sketch, in the genre of 'home-grown sociology', brings us back from the level of ethical and legal norms to the social and political reality of today’s Russia, and highlights at least some of the social and ideological paradoxes and controversies that make up its very fabric.

‘Our boys’

It is worth stepping back a few paces to note that Yulia Galyamina is the author of, in my view, one of the most significant articles on the ideological discourses within Russian society during wartime (→ Galyamina: Five Discourses Around The War).

Each of the two basic discourses – the 'pro-war' and the 'anti-war' – had, by the second year of the war, split into two variations, Galyamina writes. The pro-war discourse divided into the official line, implying support for the war and for the authorities who launched it, and the war correspondents’ version, which combined support for the war with a critical attitude towards the 'authorities' and Putin. The anti-war discourse, meanwhile, divided into a pro-Ukrainian variant, inclined to place responsibility for the war on Russia and its population as a whole, and an anti-Putin pacifism, which places responsibility on Putin and a narrow coalition of militarists around him, seeking thereby to mobilise a new anti-war and anti-Putin majority.

As recently as 2023, anti-Putin pacifism could still express itself through the notion of 'our boys', a formula which recalls, among other things, the patterns of the American anti-war movement during the Vietnam era. From this perspective, the soldiers fighting in the war were seen as hostages to the decisions of politicians, i.e. as victims forced to carry out the orders that followed from those decisions. Historian Ivan Kurilla astutely notes that, from the point of view of the 'normal majority' in almost any country, the army, the military oath and the duty of service, along with the chain of command they imply, are seen as elements of the basic fabric of state order. The destruction of these institutions, and of that order, is therefore perceived as extremely dangerous. Hence, we might add, calls to disobey orders generally remain, at least for a very long time, the domain of marginal or radical social groups, while the 'majority' views them as a threat of total destabilisation and open civil war.

In 2023, the majority of those fighting on the Russian side were those who had entered the conflict in its first wave, i.e. men who had originally been serving in a still 'peace-time' army; those mobilised in late 2022; as well as a smaller number of 'volunteers' swayed by propaganda myths about combating neo-Nazism and protecting civilians in Donbas, along with Prigozhin’s 'prison army'. If one leaves aside the highly ethical but politically marginal calls to 'refuse to obey criminal orders', this majority quite closely fitted the victim pattern that defined the American pacifist view of participants in the Vietnam War, and which Russian society recognises from its reflection on the Afghan War, also fought by a conscript army.

Heroes – mercenaries – victims

Today’s situation, however, is far removed from that of 2023. The majority of those now fighting do so for substantial financial reward. Whatever motives they may profess and however they may justify their choices, these people quite evidently, first, had that payment in mind and, second, knew that it was so high precisely because, without it, the majority of Russian society would not wish to participate in the war on the basis of 'ideological considerations' alone (there are, however, some more complex motives: certain older men explain their decision to fight as a desire to 'bring the war to an end', even at the cost of their own lives, thereby preventing a new wave of mobilisation that might ensnare their children).

Although there remains a considerable proportion of participants who found themselves at war and remain there against their will (remnants of the first-wave contingent, mobilised men, and those who succumbed to pressure in various life circumstances), the majority of participants today are mercenaries, in both institutional and substantive senses of the word.

From a social standpoint, this fact entails three less-than-obvious consequences. First, the 'our boys' narrative no longer works very well (it applies to only a minority of participants of the ‘special military operation') and, crucially, it no longer resonates deeply even within Russian society itself. Second, among the war’s participants – voluntary mercenaries – attitudes towards the 'special military operation' at different levels of value and identity can be far from uniform (as exemplified by Yulia Galyamina’s 'train conversation'). Third, Russian society’s overall attitude towards the participants in the war is, to put it mildly, ambivalent.

Between those who have signed contracts (and whose families have received the corresponding benefits) and those who have not (the overwhelming majority of the population), there runs an invisible boundary. This is especially palpable among the very depressed social strata that supply most of today’s 'participants in the Special Military Operation', for whom material considerations are particularly significant. This is clearly reflected in opinion polls. Around 40% of those surveyed in Russia believe that the main motive for signing a contract was financial gain, while only a quarter cite a sense of duty. A further 30% think both motives were present (according to data from the ‘Chronicles’ project). Given the likely bias of the survey sample towards greater regime loyalty under repressive conditions, it is fair to say that the dominant view of the war’s participants in Russia does not, on the whole, credit them with civic or patriotic virtue, or sees such virtue merely as a 'secondary factor'.

A Levada Centre survey shows that three distinct patterns of attitude towards participants of the ‘special military operation' are clearly present within Russian society: a pattern of heroisation; one of sympathy, viewing them as victims; and one of deheroisation, seeing them as 'mercenaries' characterised more by cruelty and cynicism. The first was associated with 40% of those surveyed, the second with around 30%, and the third with 20% (→ Re: Russia: Heroes — mercenaries — victims). Another question from the Levada Centre shows that 40% of those surveyed regard the participants of the ‘special military operation' as a potential source of danger, expecting 'a rise in crime and conflict' upon their return.

Even without recalling the likely bias of this sample too (though one should), it is clear that attitudes towards the war’s participants are a major source of division within Russian society. This division, in general terms, reflects the complex and multifaceted structure of its relationship to the war itself.

‘Heroes of the special military operation’ on the home front

It is precisely this circumstance that has made the issue so acute in Russia, turning it, even now, into an arena of political struggle. The Kremlin’s official discourse and policy demand that the 'participants of the Special Military Operation' be seen as 'heroes', equal to the heroes of the Great Patriotic War, and they punish any resistance or open opposition to this prescribed view.

In Putin’s eyes, the participants of the ‘special military operation’ are his chief social and historical guard. Their demonstrative advancement up every rung of the social ladder is intended to prevent the silent majority, with its evasiveness and doubts about the aims and costs of the war, from articulating or embracing any discourse that reinterprets the war as senseless and leading almost exclusively to losses. Deeply invested in the moral justification of their privileges and career gains, the 'heroes of the Special Military Operation' are expected to stand vigilantly in defence of their status, suppressing any attempts at such revision and embodying the notion of a mandatory discourse of social success.

Paradoxically, families of those killed in the war are also expected to join them for they, too, have a vested interest in morally and politically justifying the decision of their men to go to war (in many cases, a decision made collectively by the family). They rightly suspect that many of their neighbours and co-workers, whose families deliberately avoided taking part in this brutal transaction, lack the slightest social reverence for those who did. Putin thus becomes, for the relatives of the dead, not only a source of material but also of moral support. For this reason, their 'grief-fuelled anger' will not be directed against him, but against the opponents of the war.

At the same time, another part of society justifiably suspects that the glorification of the 'heroes of the special military operation' and their forced likeness to the heroes of the Great Patriotic War amount to a direct assault on themselves. This is an attempt to compel them to pledge allegiance to the war again and again, and to punish them for the 'evasion' they have chosen as a strategy of social survival during wartime.

From this perspective, the pattern of perceiving participants in the war as 'victims' becomes increasingly irrelevant for much of society. In Putin’s view, the 'heroes of the special military operation' are, rather, an instrument for prolonging the war, that is a means of projecting it into domestic politics and social life, where, as he rightly suspects, there is a widespread conviction that the war is his mistake, and where the ground is well prepared for interpreting it as a great tragedy of his making. Meanwhile, for that part of society against which their conspicuous promotion is directed, they are not victims but a threat.

Another railway test: how many ‘war participants’ are there in Russia?

The aim of this text is not to decide which view of the war’s participants – Galyamina’s or Martynov’s – is more correct. The lawyer says one thing; the priest, another. Martynov, quite rightly and forcefully, insists: first repentance, then compassion. Galyamina replies: compassion is the path to conversion and repentance.

From my point of view, the Ukrainian perspective, which places responsibility for the war on all Russians, is entirely legitimate and just. It corresponds both to the scale of the suffering inflicted on Ukraine by the Russian invasion and to the mobilisation needs of Ukrainian society. Yet, from a European perspective, this view seems less convincing. It conflicts both with European ideals of tolerance and freedom of choice, which limit the concept of collective responsibility, and with the long history of Russia’s participation in European life and culture. Equally artificial appear both the total opposition of Russian society to Putin and the complete reduction of that society to wartime Putinism.

From an internal Russian perspective, the attitude towards the 'participants in the war' is not (unfortunately) a matter of moral judgement, but rather a field of hidden and open political confrontation and struggle, involving various strata and groups of society and reflecting the plurality of strategies for adapting to the realities of internal civil conflict and repression. And here, unexpectedly, the central question becomes: who exactly are the 'participants in the war', and how many of them are there?

One of Galyamina’s commentators wrote that there are too many participants, and that for this reason alone it will be necessary to find some way to talk to them and reach an understanding. But are there really that many, numerically speaking? Three to four million, if one includes the large number of those who, like the man in Galyamina’s vignette, were never on the front line but readily wear military uniforms and, at the same time, when the context changes, are equally ready to 'rethink' the 'special military operation', shifting responsibility for it onto the '1–2%' of its true beneficiaries and supporters, to whom, as he himself says, he does not belong.

Galimina's ‘railway test’ suggests that, sociologically speaking, there may be very, very many 'participants in the war' under one constellation of public sentiment (for example, when 'participants' are seen as reincarnations of the Great Patriotic War veterans, or when the argument 'if we hadn’t attacked, they would have attacked us' prevails) and very, very few, perhaps only 1–2%, under another. Much depends on what kind of reaction people expect from those around them to the fact of their 'involvement'.

The struggle over which constellation of attitudes will prevail is far from over, and it involves not only the 'anti-war minority', but also large numbers of those very same 'evaders' who, recognising their inability to win this struggle, sought to preserve themselves by staying out of it, and whom the cult of the 'heroes of the special military operation' is meant to discipline and bring to allegiance to the war. Therefore, a completely correct judgement about the limits of ‘responsibility’ may prove to be completely useless in the context of this struggle, which those inside this social ‘cauldron’ are forced to wage regardless of what is thought about it by those who, in certain respects, have found themselves outside it.