Military lines

Putin failed to force the Russian people to support the war in Ukraine. But there is almost no merit of society in this

How many Russians support the war?

Two digits seem relevant to me.

First. According to the Levada Center, for all surveys, even given in the forehead, we have clear 20%, which from the very beginning and now do not support the war and are not afraid to talk about it .

The second figure in a conversation with me was brought by Alexei Minyailo, the founder of the research project “Chronicle”. In response to the question: “If Putin decides to withdraw troops from Ukraine without achieving the goals, do you support such a decision? ", 35% of the respondents replied:" I will not support. " Oddly enough, this figure is not in the published report “Chronicle”, but the data of Minyailo sent me.

Why do these numbers seem representative to me? Because in the first case, we are talking about the number of Russians who are ready to openly express their opinion, even if it is dangerous , and in the second - about the number of Russians who want to fight, even if Putin is against .

Thus, very primitively, we can count.

35% of the Russian population at the moment are solid -quality fascists, 20% are openly against the war and are not afraid to express their position, the rest are doubting or indifferent.

In addition: at least 15% hides that they are against war. “For peace negotiations” is 50% of respondents . (40% against). 34% believe that they bear "moral responsibility for the death of civilians and destruction in Ukraine." (60% believe that they do not carry). In response to the question: “What policy do you trust,” Putin calls only 44 %. Only 3% of respondents call “victory over Nazism” as a victorious outcome of the war.

And the quite servile head of the VTsome Valery Fedorov in his New Year's interview complains that two -thirds of Russians are for peace negotiations, and only 15–20% want to “crush the reptile” at all costs.

Those who did not shoot

Those who are against Putin and his war are under severe pressure. Dragon laws are adopted against them. They are planted, detained, kicked out of work, poisoned with titles. More than 19 thousand people in 226 settlements were detained for protests. Ilya Yashin received 8.5 years, Alexei Gorinov - seven. And still people come out. “For eight months, we know only about 18 days, when the Russian security forces did not detain anyone for an anti-war position,” wrote the ATS-Info in October 2022.

However, these protests are few compared to the real number of dissatisfied. The reasons for this are obvious.

Firstly, in Russia there is no “youth bubble” ( a sociological term indicating the process of a sharp increase in youth among the able-bodied population. - Approx. Ed. ), The main component of revolutions.

Secondly, Russian society is atomized. In any dictatorship, in the presence of a strong repressive apparatus, the problem of “freezer” arises (with this supervision I owe Prof. Anton Sobolev, who studied this phenomenon and now teaches at University of Texas).

The "stiseless" wants the bloody regime to be overthrown, but to do it someone else. And he himself would prefer to ride on this train for free.

The problem of "freezers" is usually overcome due to horizontal connections in society. It is scary to go out for a protest, but if six of your communications comrades go out, then you can’t go out - it is impossible, because even more than sanctions from the authorities, a person is afraid of the contempt of neighbors. That is why, for example, communal protests in China are so frequent. In Russian society, horizontal relations are largely violated. This is a difficult legacy of the USSR, which destroyed any such connections: a person depended on the state, and not on a family, a clan or a small team.

Thirdly, in Russian society there are no alternative centers of power, powerful political or oligarchic groups, which were, for example, in many in Ukraine. This is a condition necessary for the triumph of any revolution directed against the dictator. Putin eliminated these centers of strength for twenty years and achieved his own.

Instead of these alternative centers, there is a huge repressive apparatus. The status of all these people depends on Putin. In fact, they were given the opportunity to rob Russia in exchange for serving the dictator. These are 340 thousand Rosgvardists, a million cops, 350 thousand FSBSHNI, 50 thousand in the prosecutor's office and 20 thousand in the UK. You can’t throw off this either with flowers or terrorist attacks. In the USSR, too, while it was useless, they did not go out into the street. Neither in Kyiv nor in Vilnius there were mass protests against the invasion of Czechoslovakia.

Fourth, dissatisfied consider themselves a minority. This in itself is fatal. The first step of the totalitarian dictatorship that wants to achieve unanimity is the assertion that such unanimity already exists. As the experiment of Asha shows, a person is programmed to choose the decision that the team chooses, and not the one that is correct.

And, no less important: in addition to the giant repressive apparatus, Russian society suffers from total brainwashing and learned helplessness.

From Korean camps to Putin's prisons

The phrase "flushing of the brain" has now become ordinary. But few remember when it appeared-and it was used for the first time in 1950 by journalist Edward Hunter and was an accurate tracing paper with the Chinese Maoist term “SI Nao”, literally “wash the brain”-well, in the sense of re-educating the reactionary bourgeoisie in the correct ideas of communism. The fact is that it was in 1950 that the Korean war began, American military personnel fell into the Korean concentration camps, and the United States faced a problem inaudible hitherto.

Concentration camps were before - in Germany. But there these were the extermination camps. Jews, freed from these camps, did not cry and were not eager to take part in the construction of National Socialism according to the Fuhrer.

Another thing is the simple American guys from Oklahoma and Minnesota, who fell in Korea in the hands of the Chinese. During the war, about five thousand prisoners signed collective letters demanding to stop the war, branded American imperialists, and also began to be recognized in how biological weapons were personally used. And at the end of the war , 23 prisoners completely refused to return to the United States . They intended to continue to build communism with their Chinese comrades.

The Americans were amazed. After the release from captivity, almost all survivors passed many hours of debivide, which restored a terrible picture.

Mortality among prisoners was 38%. They were poorly fed, subjected to multi -day marches without food and without the opportunity to warm themselves. But most of all they were processed. Any captive who came to a friend received cigarettes or food. The reporting flourished. Hundreds of people pounded on comrades. In the camps, the atmosphere of party purges dominated. Propaganda journalists- Alan Winnington from the Daily Worker or Wilfried Bersett from CE Soir -personally told the captives in their native language about the horrors of imperialism and capitalism. Over and over again, prisoners of war knelt, cried and repented that they were imperialists. Anyone who did not admit is only demonstrated his imperialism. Only bad ones came from the house. If a letter came with the words of support, it was not transmitted. If the soldier’s wife decided to get a divorce, the letter was necessarily handed over. Koreans and Chinese sought to decapitate any protest and prevent the formation of any group. Each leader was destroyed ruthlessly, people were absolutely disconnected. There is a known case when 40 soldiers silently looked at how one of the neighbors threw three patients out of the hut into the ice mud (who then died). To the question: "Why didn't you intervene?" - The answer followed: "It was not our business."

The Putin government washes the brains of 20 years to Russians. And not only with the help of propaganda, but also physically decreasing any protest. Everyone is convinced that he is alone. That resistance is useless. What will be reported to him. What to growl is only worse. Leaders are poisoned, captivated or intimidated.

To be a leader in Putin's Russia is the same as being a leader in a Korean camp for American prisoners of war.

Navalny poisoning, and then conclusion - this is not just poisoning and prison. This is a sign: the jokes are over. Putin has 340 thousand in helmets and clubs. And you are naked, helpless, and your hands are tied behind your back. Well, will we fight?

It is not surprising that the reaction of the vast majority of dissatisfied with the war was to escape. They fled before the war, fled after the war. This is a completely logical reaction in these circumstances. It’s amazing not that they fled. It is amazing that even in these circumstances tens of thousands protested.

In this sense, it is not necessary to repeat in Putin's propaganda that the whole people are one around the Fuhrer. This is exactly the same effect that propaganda wants to achieve. Everything is useless, everyone is one around the leader, and if you protest, you are alone.

People who fight against Putin with weapons in their hands, protecting their families from genocide, have the right to any statement - do not choose words during the war. It is enough, however, it is ridiculous when some European politicians join them, and instead of supporting those who writhe in the mud under the blows of batons, they ask with the type of civilizational superiority: “Why are you so few?” In the same tone, Maria Antoinette advised those who do not have bread, there are cakes.

It is strange to set as an example to the Russians protests against the war in Vietnam. The protests did not interfere with his career - they helped her; Not to mention the fact that they worked for one of the most monstrous dictatorships that humanity knew. Jane Fund spoke to the Viet Congs soldiers, who treated her compatriots according to the same recipe as the Koreans, and returned to shine in Hollywood.

In Russia, the situation is different. When the 19-year-old student Olesya Krivtsova published two anti-war posts on Instagram, the police during a search waved a sledgehammer at the face of the lying girl and handed over greetings from the Wagner PMC . To call such as Olesya Krivtsova, genetic garbage and natural slaves is pleasant and convenient. Everyone who calls it that becomes above the genetic garbage of Krivtsova. He would have found how to defeat the cop with a sledgehammer.

Let us compare the situation in Russia with the situation in Georgia. There, despite the “Revolution of Roses” and unprecedented reforms carried out by Saakashvili, there are no mass protests demanding its release. The reason: the decapitated party (all three heads of national unity, usually sitting a little in prison, begin to act against Saakashvili), titles, corruption, demotivation and propaganda, claiming that "if national unity is returning to power, Putin will bomb Georgia." The Georgian suppression apparatus has not yet been close to Putinsky, but the technology of learned helplessness is already operating.

Why are the Russians not rally in support of the war

But the most indicative aspect of the situation is different. Not in the absence of rallies against war. And in the absence of voluntary rallies in her support .

Why does the minority not substitute itself under the batons of riot police, is understandable-but here is the majority, Putin's majority, where is it?

40% of Russians are against peace negotiations. 35% - for continuing the war at all costs. 60% do not feel any responsibility for death and destruction in Ukraine. Their brains were washed.

Well, where are they, I do not say “at the front” - at rallies? No! Instead of them, state employees are driven in the regions, and in Moscow - there is a crowd for 500 rubles per person. What are these fanatics who otherwise not rally? Look at Hitler's performances. On a raging crowd. This is what the support of the fanatic looks like.

The learned helplessness, which Putin has inspired the population for 20 years, now plays against him. He built the state of the Pofigists, not fanatics. Now that the fanatics were needed, they are not.

How did the Mongols protest?

Humanity, as you know, only did its whole history, which protested against aggressive wars, unleashed by tyrants reigning over it. The Huns were terribly protested when Attila cut out the citizens of the Roman Empire. Akkadians got up with a wall when Sargon smashed the Sumerian cities. And how the Mongols protested against the actions of their troops - this is just a textbook example of mass protests.

And only the Russians, you see, do not protest. They say that this is a genetically flawed nation and born imperialists.

In fact, the sad truth about humanity lies in the fact that a person, if he is unpunished and poverty, cuts neighbors with pleasure, and war is a thing that usually ralles the nation. Nazism, alas, is an instinctive conformation that public consciousness accepts during the war. "Or they - or we." Descriptions of the Persians among the Greeks or Canaanians in the Bible are, by modern standards, pure Nazism. And all the great figures of world history, from Alexander of Macedon to Napoleon, are ready -made candidates for the Hague, as well as the heroes of the Iliad.

More recently, in the history of mankind, we saw cases when people really cut out another people on a national or religious basis, and the whole people took part in this madness.

We know how Tutsi cut out in Rwanda. As in 1941, when the Nazis launched the Jewish genocide, throughout Europe, from France to Romania, there was a huge number of people who wanted to join the permitted hunting for people. As in Turkey, ordinary people participated with hunting in the genocide of Armenians, as well as Greeks and Assyrians, and how, during Bartholomew’s night, ordinary good Parisians scored the Guugenots with stones.

It is on this - to arouse deep ethnic hatred according to the principle of “you are one nation, and I am another, and nothing else matters,” Putin expected.

Moreover, all his policy on the occupied lands of Ukraine was designed for this. Do not take off - so we will fuse. I will not be able to force Ukrainians to recognize themselves as Russians on the model of Korean concentration camps - so I will force Russians to hate Ukrainians and vice versa.

This is precisely what filtration camps, mass bombing, infrastructure blows, tanks shooting at the trousers trying to escape civil vehicles, and an unprecedented in the history of modern society, the conscious transformation of the army into Ainzatzroup, as in the time of Attila or Tamerlan.

So, by the standards of human history, Putin did not succeed.

Almost the entire intellectual Russian elite is not on the side of Putin, but on the side of Ukraine. And all rappers against the war. Independent opinion leaders are against war. Pugacheva - against the war. Meladze whispers: "Glory to Ukraine." In the comments on my streams, thousands of Russians celebrate Kherson's liberation and rejoice at the successes of the Ukrainian army.

Can you imagine that during the Armenian-Azerbaijani, or Georgian-Abkhaz, or Palestinian-Israeli conflict, would there be a significant share of the people that would rejoice at the successes of an alien army?

Putin failed to make this conflict total for Russia. For a significant part of Russian society, he remained a conflict of a tyrant, who enslaved his people, with a people that he cannot enslave.

You will tell me that I am talking about the intellectual elite, youth and residents of large cities. It is among these categories that Putin’s support is minimal, while among lumpen, pensioners and in provincial cities you will find the purest samples of Putin Nazism.

I’ll mind: even among them Putin's propaganda failed. The fact is that you have the only, but unmistakable way to measure the effectiveness of totalitarian propaganda. Namely - are people going to death or not? Here are the Islamists, for example, go.

And Putin’s instead of fanatics with burning eyes gained convicts, mobilized whispering about the nurse, and the mobilization process itself turned into Darwin’s selection. Who smarter is running away. In the Putin parody of the Reich, only the corpses are real, but enthusiasm is that fake and exists, like Putin's Wundervafli, only on the TV screen.

This is a unique situation in world history: so that such total propaganda causes such a small enthusiasm.

To a large extent, the polemic against the "good Russians" is due to this. As we have already said, any war, especially leading on a national basis, contributes to the total separation of they/we. “Russians who are against the war” do not fit into this picture. It is somehow more convenient to remove them from it. Explain that they are also bad. Why? Because they are also for Putin. Well, if not for Putin, then for the army. Well, if not for the army, then for the empire that should be destroyed.

Those Russians who are offended by this, I recall that they are not killed by a national basis. When the armed invader in a conversation with his wife says that Ukrainian children “need to strangle in the womb”, he adds “I am doing this.” And when you are scolded on Facebook in response, you know, something else. When your army arranges a buch, the only thing you can talk about is about buch. Otherwise, you will look like an imam, who, after the next attack, condemns not a terrorist attack, but “Islamophobia”.

Но, с другой стороны, трудно не заметить, что большинство претензий к тем русским, которые против войны, скроено по одному образцу. «Все русские — имперцы и нацисты, а если они отрицают это, это только доказывает их имперскость». Такой подход бьет по союзникам и помогает Путину. Он внушает тем, кто против войны, дополнительное чувство выученной беспомощности.

По этой же, кстати, причине те, кто против войны, не должны говорить о путинской армии «наша армия», в смысле «наша армия совершает преступления». No! Why on earth? Представьте себе, что в стране идет гражданская война, и красные убивают белых. Вы за белых. Разве красные — это «ваша армия»? Вы же не будете говорить: «Наша ФСБ»?

Люди, которым пришли повестки, должны понимать, что значительная часть общества не солидарна с их будущими действиями и не считает их «своей армией» ни с какого боку. Они должны понимать, что их мобилизуют не в армию, а в ОПГ.

Почему провалилась пропаганда

Еще раз: россиянам ставят в упрек, что они недостаточно активно протестуют против войны. Мало ли, что Навальный призвал «набить телами автозаки», чтобы остановить войну? Он — имперец хуже Путина. Ну и что, что Яшин получил 8,5 лет? Сколько их, тех Яшиных? Ну и что, что россияне несут цветы в честь погибших в Днепре? Их хватают, а они несут. Но мало несут.

Это несложная игра: раз за разом предъявлять экзаменуемому всё более высокие требования, и, когда он срежется, с чувством превосходства умыть руки. В 1968 году семеро советских диссидентов вышли на площадь в знак протестов против введения войск в Чехословакию, и их назвали героями. По нынешним меркам их следует смешать с грязью. How? Seven? All? So little? А солдаты? А литовцы, казахи, латыши, эстонцы, молдаване, мобилизованные в посланные в Чехословакию войска? Почему они покорно шли в армию?

Увы, печальная особенность человечества заключается в том, что в диктатурах протестуют вообще мало, и особенно — против захватнических войн. Когда Ирак вторгся в Иран, на улицу с протестами никто не выходил. В Палестине не выходят на протесты против терактов против Израиля. В ту самую минуту, когда я пишу эти строки, еще один диктатор, гораздо более удачливый, нежели Путин, пытается понемногу возрождать Османскую империю.

Мне трудно себе представить, чтобы в Стамбуле прошли хоть какие-то протесты по этому поводу, и чтобы оппозиция Эрдогану собирала обогреватели, медикаменты и тем более оружие для отрезанных в Нагорном Карабахе армян. При этом мы не слышим, чтобы туркам в Европе предъявляли претензии и упрекали турецкую оппозицию в том, что их народ — вечные рабы.

Так вот, поведение россиян действительно не имеет аналогов в истории диктатур; но не потому, что большинство «за», а потому, что меньшинство — вполне ощутимое и осязаемое — категорически «против».

В том, что во время массового, тотального внедрения единомыслия и чинопочитания в обществе находится множество людей, которые искренне начинают верить в кровавый бред, — нет ничего странного. Внимательное изучение истории человечества не дает в этом отношении поводов для оптимизма.

Для меня вопрос ровно в другом: почему этого единодушия нет? Почему россияне не стоят в очереди в военкоматы, а к памятнику Леси Украинке в Москве несут цветы? Почему путинизм не стал тотальным, как коммунизм при Сталине или нацизм при Гитлере?

Конечно, можно льстить себе надеждой, что это связано с его конструктивными недостатками, потому что на самом деле никакого путинизма как целостной идеологии нет, а есть просто куча наваленного наспех пиара, цели и задачи которого менялись не то что каждый год, а каждый месяц. Трудно вести священную войну, если ее запрещают называть войной и говорят, что это СВО.

На самом деле — увы — все тотальные идеологии в истории человечества были устроены по тому же принципу. Верующим предлагалось, в зависимости от конкретной обстановки, верить сначала в одно, а потом в другое. Мало кто из американских борцов с фашизмом разуверился в Сталине, после того как тот заключил с Гитлером союз. А последователи неудачливого мятежника Иисуса, обещавшего поразить войско римлян огнем из своих уст, сразу после того как ангелов не случилось, принялись верить во Второе Пришествие.

Решающим для провала путинизма, на мой взгляд, оказалось другое.

Во-первых, слишком большая часть россиян прекрасно видит, как живут те, кто зовет умирать, — и как живут те, кого умирать зовут. Суровый проповедник во вретище и веригах, рассказывающий о самопожертвовании и самоотречении, имеет шанс на успех, — но вряд ли тот же успех будет иметь римский папа, погрязший в роскоши, взятках и плотских грехах. На фоне дворца в Геленджике и итальянских вилл путинская борьба против Запада смотрится бледно.

А во-вторых, — и это самое главное, — Путин проиграл.

Густой запах старческой неудачи, казенного нафталина и поеденных крысами трупов висит над всей его затеей.

Если бы Киев действительно взяли в три дня, то, будьте уверены, и энтузиазм бы зашкаливал, как после Крыма, и Пугачёва с Меладзе молчали бы, и даже Европа бы проглотила и занялась business as usual, как после Грузии.

Тогда бы твердое большинство было бы довольно СВО, как оно было довольно аннексией Крыма. Но Киевом Путин подавился. А поскольку разговоры о необходимости пожертвовать свою жизнь за президента своя и его Геленджик, броник и 15-метровый стол появились только после того, как ВСУ начали выбивать оккупантов, — то и энтузиастов мало, а те, которые есть, происходят в основном из пенсионеров, которых не завербуешь, и из силовиков, у которых бронь: они в тылу корчуют крамолу и других гонят на убой.

Так что особой заслуги российского народа в том, что партия «раздавить гадину» составляет 15–20%, — по утверждению главы ВЦИОМА, — нет. Это целиком заслуга российских бездарных генералов и взяточников. Это связано с тем, что путинская картина мира угодливо сконструирована под него. Это идеальная вера для бункера. В конечном итоге она проста, как валенок. Путину приятно верить, что весь российский народ, как один, положит за него жизнь. Мало кто имеет мотивы разделять эту веру.