Russian 'we' still crushes individual citizens

[DinoDoc]

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.

Hi Serb!

[Urban Ranger]

Did you write that?

[DinoDoc]

No, I didn't. I never put things I write in quotes.

[Stefu]

It's troll! It's troll! It's big and heavy and brown!
It's troll! It's troll! It's antics will cause you to frown!
Everyone hates the troll!
But they still answer it's call!
C'mon and reply to troll!
Everyone hates the troll!

(Really, people, why did we abandon the troll song and have those silly ratings? I mean, ever since Fez got his hand on those and started giving them to every liberal thread they've kinda lost their meaning.)

[Az]

Maybe we need a troll referee...

[Sonic]

I doubt it is troll...

[Boris Godunov]

I e-mailed this article to my former roommate, who is Russian. He said it's pretty on-the-mark.

[Az]

Sonic, It's not a troll. It seems rather correct to me as well.
I was just making a comment.

[laurentius]

Stalin killed all intelligence from russia. The land of unhuman barbarians. The goverment sucks big time, but many ordinary russians are ok. It's really quite sad.
I wont say more so I wont be banned....

[Stefu]

Sonic, It's not a troll. It seems rather correct to me as well.
I was just making a comment.

It's not the article that's the troll, it's DinoDoc's "Hi Serb " at the end.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Stefu
It's not the article that's the troll, it's DinoDoc's "Hi Serb " at the end.

Your troll detector is in working order. Too bad that none of the Russians seem to be here at the moment.

[BeBro]

Question is, if this "we" is only a soviet product, or wheather such thinking is much older in Russia...

[Nubclear]

Link please?

[Eli]

Originally posted by Tassadar5000


Link please?

It's an opinion article. Why do you need a link?

[Nubclear]

Originally posted by Eli


It's an opinion article. Why do you need a link?

Cause I want one.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Tassadar5000
Link please?

The author works for the Gazeta Wyborcza. Go play with them if you insist on begging for a link to an opinion article.

[Sonic]

Originally posted by BeBro
Question is, if this "we" is only a soviet product, or wheather such thinking is much older in Russia...

Yes, such thinking is older. In Czar times it was also so as far as I know...

[Ironikinit]

It's a USA Today editorial. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...atoday/4600550

I thought it was pretty good when I read it, but not really earth shattering or anything.

[David Floyd]

Serb's not gonna like this

[Myrddin]

It deserves a SO WHAT?

Russia is different, and knows it

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Myrddin
Russia is different, and knows it

And what is being highlighted in the original article is a cost of that difference.

[Myrddin]

Russians accept that cost, but will also point out there are inherent costs in other countries too, like American gun culture

[Bereta_Eder]

The writer is just pissed that Russians still use "we" to refer to the accomplishments of their people under Soviet rule.

That's a normal thing to do and the only problem is the writer's utter repulse for the fact that Russians accept that they have a past which included great achievements and he doesn't like that past, its achievements or their identification with it and them.

Funny thing is that neither do many Russians, but they were still Russians when they send the first man in space...

[Bereta_Eder]

And that's worth remembering and that's still "we".
The same way it's "we" for Americans to send the first man on the moon. State over indivindual has nothing to do with it.

The writer needs to get a clue...

[Bereta_Eder]

/end troll.

[Jules]

So when Hitler invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, proclaiming a racial war in the East to enslave the Slavic peoples and secure Lebensraum for the master German race in Mein Kampf, the Russians were just supposed to roll over and die?

Furthermore, I find Dino's attack on Russian patriotism (their sense of "we") astonishing considering his fellow conservatives are invoking that very same sense of "we" to justify the war on terror, a possible war against Iraq, informing on our Muslim neighbors and so forth. "We have to defend the American way of life," we are told. So why don't Russians have the right to be just as patriotic as Americans; why can't their leaders invoke national pride just as ours do? Or is this just a sneaky way to attack Russia's communist past?

[David Floyd]

So when Hitler invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, proclaiming a racial war in the East to enslave the Slavic peoples and secure Lebensraum for the master German race in Mein Kampf, the Russians were just supposed to roll over and die?

No, but ordering the NKVD to murder soldiers who were forced to retreat - giving soldiers the option of charging into German machine guns or Russian ones, in many cases - was absolutely immoral and totally unjustified in any and all circumstances.

Not to mention the whole idea of conscription being immoral and unjustified in any and every situation, but the US unfortunately did that as well.

Many of the actions of the Soviet Union during WW2, though, were far, far worse than those of the US or Britain, and even on par with or worse than Nazi and Japanese atrocities (in terms of "evilness" if not in terms of scale).

[Ironikinit]

I assumed that the emphasis on the word "we" was a literary reference to a fairly famous Russian science fiction novel.

Readers would do well to keep in mind that the intended audience of the editorial isn't a Russian audience, it's obviously an American one. IMO the piece is partly intended to explain why events in the Moscow theater hostage crisis played out the way they did and also why the results of the crisis are what they are, particularly in regards to Russian public opinion about how their government handled it. Americans might well be puzzled if they are not familiar with the Russian de-emphasis on individuals and their rights.

[David Floyd]

Actually, come to think of it, the US and Britain committed some horribly evil acts as well:

US dropped the atomic bomb on civilians
US and Britain murdered civilians by carpet bombing and firebombing them
US and Britain cracked down on dissent and certain political parties

So in retrospect, no side was really any better than any other, some sides just murdered more people during the war (Nazi Germany, Japan, and the US being the top three, though I'm not sure about the order, although the Soviet Union murdered more people in its history, of course).

[Jules]

David Floyd,

I agree with much of what you said. America certainly doesn't have a glowing record during war either. That's one of the reasons I felt compelled to respond to the piece. Mainly I was questioning Dino's motives for posting the piece, and in general to defend the idea of national loyalty and pride (the sense of "we" that was disparaged so in the article). Also to point out that Russia was savagely attacked by the Nazis. The nation had to be defended, especially given Hitler's twisted designs for Eastern Europe. Obviously they didn't do a perfect job of it; as you correctly pointed out the defense of their nation was quite brutal. Nevertheless they succeeded and I believe they have the right to be proud of that achievement. I think Russia is freer today than at any time in its history. That might not have been possible had the Nazis triumphed.