Translated material
First of all, this is indecent...
Why even supporters of the authorities do not want to be informers, but at the same time are ready to fulfill their “civic duty.” Laboratory of the Future Research
Petr Sarukhanov / Novaya Gazeta
This or that phenomenon in Russian life can be fully considered established as something significant and noticeable if they start joking about it on television KVN. In one of the recent programs, a member of one of the teams addressed his joke to jury member Ekaterina Mizulina:
- Katya, do you remember, at school during recess I sang an obscene ditty, and you passed me on to the teacher?.. And you haven’t changed at all, Katya...
The hall exploded with understanding laughter and applause. Katya herself also laughed quite sincerely and as if a little embarrassed. And it would be really funny if it weren't scary. We are not talking about, as we once did at school, shaking a reproachful finger at someone or, as a last resort, making a diary entry for parents, but about fines and real sentences for hundreds and hundreds of people who were appointed as a result of denunciations Katya and others like her.
The flurry of denunciations by Russians against Russians began almost immediately after February 22 and expanded after the appearance of rules on “fakes” and “discredit” in domestic legislation. Denunciations reached their peak as a noticeable social phenomenon on the domestic agenda towards the end of last year, 2023. The media regularly talked about them, serial informers gave proud interviews, experts counted how many people suffered from them. The picture that emerged was impressive. According to various sources, in two and a half years since the start of hostilities in Ukraine, the Russians wrote more than three and a half thousand denunciations. Journalists from “Important Stories”* calculated that the vast majority of them concerned anti-war statements (2623), as well as LGBT** topics, Russophobia, and so on.
In May of this year, Novaya Gazeta conducted a survey among its subscribers and readers, in which it decided to find out their opinion about what is most likely to be denounced in Russia today. In total, almost 10 thousand responses were received, and they confirmed existing statistics, showing that the easiest way to become a victim of an informer:
for criticizing the SVO ( 59% )
for criticism of government power ( 12% )
for a random unsuccessful phrase ( 11% )
for supporting the opposition ( 8% )
no way ( 7% )
for something else ( 3% ).
Whatever one may say, it turns out that military actions have become both the trigger and the semantic center of what looks like a social norm revived from a seemingly forgotten domestic past - to inform. But is this true? Do ordinary Russians consider it normal to write statements to various authorities against those who do something or think differently than the current government general line suggests?
Yes, on the surface we see a set of almost professional informers, among whom is the same head of the Safe Internet League Ekaterina Mizulina, head of the Federal Project on Security and Anti-Corruption Vitaly Borodin, telegram channels “Mrakoborets”, “Mnogonational”, “Anti” -Tolerant Organization”, “Direct Action Actions” and, perhaps, the most active and frightening with his activity and number of victims, Alexander Talipov with his movement "Crimean SMERSH".
To understand what people think about denunciations and how they personally feel about them, Novaya Gazeta’s Future Laboratory conducted a series of both quantitative and qualitative studies from April to July of this year. First, a nationwide survey of citizens was conducted, as a result of which it turned out that
38% of Russians have a very negative attitude towards denunciations,
simply negative - 35%,
indifferent - 17%,
approve - 4%,
very favorable - 1%.
One could exhale and calm down, seeing that two-thirds of Russians do not accept denunciations.
However, upon a more detailed analysis of the results obtained, it was noticed that
There is one group in Russian society that demonstrates a generally indifferent and even slightly positive attitude towards denunciations, and this is student youth.
Among the students:
24% have a very negative attitude towards denunciations,
negative - 22%,
indifferent - 41%,
approved - 10%.
To understand why young people have this attitude and what this means in practice, three special focus groups were conducted with students from several Moscow universities. During a conversation with students, they explained that if we generalize, then from their point of view there may be several reasons for the indifferent and cautiously approving attitude towards denunciations among young people.
Firstly, denunciations may be approved by the leadership of universities, and denunciation may be considered as a survival strategy - for example, under the threat of expulsion and subsequent possible conscription into the army. It was noted that in some universities denunciation is not just approved, but directly encouraged by the administration, and in some places there were even cases of coercion.
Secondly, as our interlocutors noted, among the informers there may be many so-called social activists who not only appeared in significant numbers among the student community, but also simply blossomed after the start of a special military operation. Their activities are also fully supported by the leadership of universities and the authorities in general, and some students join them and report in order to curry favor and receive certain bonuses .
Thirdly, the students could not help but assume that denunciations could be considered by individual youth representatives as a sincere and voluntary form of execution or assistance in the execution of numerous new prohibitive laws by those who consider the current course of the authorities to be correct. These people may not be the majority among students, but they are by no means few.
And fourthly, we must not forget that over the past 20 years in Russia there has been quite a lot of talk about the importance of the rule of law and the need for civil participation, and as a result, someone can be guided by these postulates and the corresponding foreign, primarily Western, practice, where reporting something objectionable or illegal to the authorities is considered the norm .
As a summary: the young people noted that yes, in general, if anything, none of them are personally ready to immediately run and inform at the first opportunity,
but they can well imagine a situation in which either they will have to do this, or they will become the object of denunciation, so the main thing is to sit down and keep a low profile.
To cross-check these opinions with wider and different age groups of Russians, we asked questions about attitudes towards denunciations in six focus groups of Muscovites. Some respondents are very approving of the country's current course, some are silently neutral, and some are sharply negative. Almost all of them confirmed an overwhelmingly clearly negative attitude towards denunciations as such in general. According to them, and clearly recorded in all three groups, “snitching is indecent.” During a more detailed discussion, the following opinions were expressed and argued.
Almost everyone agreed that the negative attitude towards denunciations in general has its roots in the trauma of the Soviet period , when denunciations were used to arrest and repress people, and denunciation was deposited in the minds of the majority of our citizens as a variant of condemned behavior. This negative attitude has become entrenched and is considered as a social norm by the vast majority of our interlocutors. At the same time, for many of them, a negative attitude towards denunciations is caused not by the action itself, but by the language associated with it: “knock”, “inform”, “lay”. In society as a whole, these words have a negative connotation , and therefore the corresponding actions are considered indecent. Almost everyone noted that even the very question of denunciation evokes reflexive negative feelings in them.
But just like from the respondents of our youth groups, the opinion was voiced that if someone breaks the law and you report it to the authorities, then this is not denunciation, this is civil reporting , and it should not be stigmatized, but even encouraged in some way. It was again noted that this is customary in the conventional West and there is nothing wrong with adapting such a practice.
A little more discussion was generated by the question of what to do if the law being violated seems unfair, and on this issue the consensus was “if you’re not sure, don’t report.” At the same time, some group participants considered that reporting to the authorities about “known enemies of the country” or “hostile actions” could also be considered by part of society as a civic duty .
But so that people do not feel moral discomfort from fulfilling such a duty, the government may need to create comfortable, secure channels for transmitting relevant information - no one wants to see themselves as a public informer. And in the end it was added that, apparently, soon it will no longer be necessary to report in person, because this function will be taken over by a video tracking system and artificial intelligence that analyzes everything . At the same time, it was noticeable that this issue seriously worried our interlocutors.
It can be stated that the participants in all our studies, having confirmed an acutely negative and generally negative personal attitude towards denunciations, were divided in relation to their social role exactly along the same line as in relation to the authorities and the current state of affairs in the country. Those who approve of what is happening in Russia today tried to find something positive in the denunciations or somehow justify them, although even these justifications came with significant reservations. Those who have either a negative or neutral attitude towards the current state of affairs (and we have identified very, very many of them) have made it quite clear that denunciation is not and cannot be a social norm, much less an approved norm, and that even those who do this either for work or at the behest of the soul cannot help but know this, not understand that remaining in history as an informer is a very dubious achievement in life.
This material was published in the third issue of Novaya Gazeta. Magazine". You can buy it in the online store of our partners .