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Russian 'we' still crushes individual citizens
By Konstanty Gebert
A huge, feminine statue, sword in outstretched hand, overlooks the southern Russian city of Volgograd: the symbolic Motherland, ever ready to repel foreign aggression. It commemorates the defense of the city, then known as Stalingrad, in the winter of 1942. At least a million people -- German and Romanian invaders, Soviet defenders and civilian inhabitants -- died there in one of World War II's decisive battles. A similar memorial stands in the outskirts of St. Petersburg, known as Leningrad during the war, where hundreds of thousands of civilians starved during a three-year German siege.
In both cases, Josef Stalin ordered his troops not to withdraw, and not to capitulate. This arguably contributed greatly to the German defeat. It is beyond debate that the death tolls would have been vastly lower had the cities capitulated.
In many countries an order to resist at all cost would be considered criminal folly today. In Russia, then and now, Leningrad and Stalingrad are seen as shining examples of patriotism, determination and bravery, their staggering human toll a necessary price of victory. ''The individual is nonsense, the individual is zero'' wrote revolutionary poet Vladimir Mayakovsky about Vladimir Lenin.
A bunch of zeros is still zero in Russia, including the 118 hostages who have died since last month's predawn raid by Russian commandos on Chechen rebels who held them in a Moscow theater.
A memorial surely will be built at the site. Like the Leningrad and Stalingrad ones, or the memorial to the sailors lost when the Kursk submarine sank, it will not commemorate the horrible deaths of Russians sacrificed by their state. Rather, it will glorify the state that sent them to their end.
Secrets trump lives
In the Kursk's case, the survivors of the explosion of an unsafe experimental torpedo were left to die under the sea two years ago because foreign rescuers might have gleaned some military secrets while saving lives. In the Moscow theater, hostages were knocked out by an overdose of gas intended to incapacitate their captors. Many died because officials refused to tell medical staff what gas had been used, or the antidote. True, this information might be useful to other terrorists, but its release was indispensable if lives were to be saved, there and then. Given a choice between the lives of its citizens and the protection of its interests, the Russian state once again did not hesitate.
It is the consistency over time and over regimes that makes Russian policy scary. Indeed, it reflects how far Russia remains from the notion of a democracy.
Enemies fare even worse
If Russia treats its own this way, it must be difficult for Russians to consider how their state probably treats the enemy. Yet such reflection is required if Russians are to understand what made the Moscow terrorists do what they did, and why Chechens continue to resist. Only Russian public opinion can stop this 10-year war -- but its grief now is working into the hands of Kremlin generals, who still believe, as generals will, in throwing bombs at the problem. Chechens must be terrified.
At the least, Russians need to reflect on whether they want to continue to be treated by their state as expendable. Even this will be difficult, though, for much is at stake.
In 1976, while crossing the campus of Moscow State University, I ran into a van surrounded by a police escort with sirens wailing. I later found out the van was bringing a sample of lunar soil recently brought in by a Soviet space probe.
''What's up?'' I asked a Russian passerby. He recognized me as a foreigner and suddenly seemed to grow taller, smiling at me with condescension as he said: ''Oh, nothing. We've just brought back a piece of the moon, that's what.''
We! He was an unfree man in an unfree country, his clothes shabby, his face aged before time -- but he was basking in the glory of the regime that had done all that to him. The price for that ''we'' was, of course, that he would be expendable, if ''we'' would decide that this would serve the cause.
This is why Russian masses are not out in Red Square, demonstrating against the massacre of fellow citizens at the hands of their state. As long as this ''we'' lives, many individual ''I''s -- Russian, Chechen and others -- will yet die.
A huge, feminine statue, sword in outstretched hand, overlooks the southern Russian city of Volgograd: the symbolic Motherland, ever ready to repel foreign aggression. It commemorates the defense of the city, then known as Stalingrad, in the winter of 1942. At least a million people -- German and Romanian invaders, Soviet defenders and civilian inhabitants -- died there in one of World War II's decisive battles. A similar memorial stands in the outskirts of St. Petersburg, known as Leningrad during the war, where hundreds of thousands of civilians starved during a three-year German siege.
In both cases, Josef Stalin ordered his troops not to withdraw, and not to capitulate. This arguably contributed greatly to the German defeat. It is beyond debate that the death tolls would have been vastly lower had the cities capitulated.
In many countries an order to resist at all cost would be considered criminal folly today. In Russia, then and now, Leningrad and Stalingrad are seen as shining examples of patriotism, determination and bravery, their staggering human toll a necessary price of victory. ''The individual is nonsense, the individual is zero'' wrote revolutionary poet Vladimir Mayakovsky about Vladimir Lenin.
A bunch of zeros is still zero in Russia, including the 118 hostages who have died since last month's predawn raid by Russian commandos on Chechen rebels who held them in a Moscow theater.
A memorial surely will be built at the site. Like the Leningrad and Stalingrad ones, or the memorial to the sailors lost when the Kursk submarine sank, it will not commemorate the horrible deaths of Russians sacrificed by their state. Rather, it will glorify the state that sent them to their end.
Secrets trump lives
In the Kursk's case, the survivors of the explosion of an unsafe experimental torpedo were left to die under the sea two years ago because foreign rescuers might have gleaned some military secrets while saving lives. In the Moscow theater, hostages were knocked out by an overdose of gas intended to incapacitate their captors. Many died because officials refused to tell medical staff what gas had been used, or the antidote. True, this information might be useful to other terrorists, but its release was indispensable if lives were to be saved, there and then. Given a choice between the lives of its citizens and the protection of its interests, the Russian state once again did not hesitate.
It is the consistency over time and over regimes that makes Russian policy scary. Indeed, it reflects how far Russia remains from the notion of a democracy.
Enemies fare even worse
If Russia treats its own this way, it must be difficult for Russians to consider how their state probably treats the enemy. Yet such reflection is required if Russians are to understand what made the Moscow terrorists do what they did, and why Chechens continue to resist. Only Russian public opinion can stop this 10-year war -- but its grief now is working into the hands of Kremlin generals, who still believe, as generals will, in throwing bombs at the problem. Chechens must be terrified.
At the least, Russians need to reflect on whether they want to continue to be treated by their state as expendable. Even this will be difficult, though, for much is at stake.
In 1976, while crossing the campus of Moscow State University, I ran into a van surrounded by a police escort with sirens wailing. I later found out the van was bringing a sample of lunar soil recently brought in by a Soviet space probe.
''What's up?'' I asked a Russian passerby. He recognized me as a foreigner and suddenly seemed to grow taller, smiling at me with condescension as he said: ''Oh, nothing. We've just brought back a piece of the moon, that's what.''
We! He was an unfree man in an unfree country, his clothes shabby, his face aged before time -- but he was basking in the glory of the regime that had done all that to him. The price for that ''we'' was, of course, that he would be expendable, if ''we'' would decide that this would serve the cause.
This is why Russian masses are not out in Red Square, demonstrating against the massacre of fellow citizens at the hands of their state. As long as this ''we'' lives, many individual ''I''s -- Russian, Chechen and others -- will yet die.
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