We Russians have to do it

Russian television does not show pictures of ruined Ukrainian cities or the bodies of children. Police beat and arrest young Russians who bravely protest the war, while the majority of the population is silent: there is no mass protest and strike. It hurts to see that many of my fellow citizens are supporting the war against Ukraine: they are putting Z on the windows of their houses and cars.

Russian television now repeatedly shows an interview with actor Sergei Bodrov, a cult figure in Russia. “You can not speak ill of yourself during a war,” he said. “Even if they are wrong. Even if your country is mistaken during the war, you should not speak ill of yourself. And this is done by the population, which is ready to support “theirs”, even if Ukrainians are shot.

The modern world is separated from the majority of Russians by a revolution, the most important of all humanity – the transition from the supremacy of the collective consciousness to the priority of the individual. People have identified with a tribe for thousands of years and depended entirely on the tribal leader: the prince, the khan or the king. Only in the last few centuries has the emergence of a fundamentally different human social order in which the individual is free. Before the famous text, which begins with the words “We the People” (US Constitution) was written, a new humanity was to be explored.

This huge gap of civilization has not yet been bridged. This is the drama of my country: a small number of my compatriots want to live in a democratic society, but the vast majority continue to kneel before power and agree to this ancestral way of life.

If, for generations, all those who think of themselves are eliminated, the only virtue that will win will be silence and contentment with the government. But can these people be blamed if that was the only strategy to save them? Where does the one who is not silent end up today? They go to jail. Or have to flee the country before it is too late.

Two attempts to introduce a democratic social order in Russia have already failed. The first Russian democracy, since 1917, lasted only a few months. Second, in the 1990s, several years went by with great difficulty. Whenever my country tries to build a democratic society by establishing elections, a parliament and a republic, it opposes a totalitarian empire.

Dictatorship and dictator create slave population or slave population create dictatorship and dictator? Eggs and chicken. How can this vicious circle be broken? How can a new Russia start?

Hitler’s Germany found a way out of the vicious circle of dictatorship. The Germans learned a lot about dealing with the past and taking responsibility and were able to build a democratically oriented society. However, the revival of his nation was based on total and devastating military defeat. Russia also needs this zero hour. A new democratic beginning in Russia is impossible without paying the price and acknowledging the country’s guilt.

There has been no de-Stalinization in Russia, nor the Nuremberg Trials for the Communist Party. Now the fate of Russia depends on you Deputinization. Just as the “ignorant” population of Germany was shown concentration camps in 1945, so the “ignorant” Russians were to be shown the ruined cities of Ukraine and the corpses of children. We Russians must openly and boldly admit our guilt and ask for forgiveness.

The German writer Georg Büchner wrote in a letter to his girlfriend in 1834: “What is it that lies, kills, steals in us?” Only this question can accelerate the most important revolution of mankind in Russia: the realization that the responsibility lies not with your superiors, but with you.

The role of Russian society

Neither NATO nor the Ukrainians can Deputation Russia. We Russians must clean up our country ourselves. Will my people get used to the situation? The world after the war will support the reconstruction of Ukraine. But Russia will be destroyed. The disintegration of the empire will continue in full force. Other peoples and regions are pursuing Chechen independence. The Russian Federation will disintegrate. But the centrifugal force of the peoples and regions of the last empire of the world can be cleansing and rehabilitating as well as destructive. The Russian conscience must learn to recognize that there may be several states where Russian is the state language. The empire must be cut off from the mind and soul with a malignant tumor. Only then will the new states be able to carry out reforms.

Is it possible to establish democracy without a critical mass of citizens, a mature civil society? “The beautiful Russia of the future” (this is the motto of Alexei Navalny) should start with free elections. In this case, who will invite them and by what criteria? The same tens of thousands of frightened teachers who rigged Putin’s election? And are you sure that the “national traitor” of the democratic opposition, and not the “patriot” who fought against the “Ukrainian fascists”, will win Russia’s truly free elections?

Waiting for a benevolent king The population will not be able to become a responsible voter in an hour. And who will carry out the democratic reforms? Under Putin’s regime, officials steeped in corruption and crime should not be allowed to build a new state. And all of them are painted.

The world is calling for the creation of a “Russian Nuremberg”. Who will arrange and carry out these trials in Russia? Who will do this great review of the past? Who will identify the culprits and punish the perpetrators? The culprits themselves? Putin can be ousted and replaced, but how can millions of corrupt officials, hired police officers and smug judges be suddenly replaced?

The only way for Russia is a long and painful revival. And all these sanctions, poverty and international marginalization will not be the worst we find along the way. It will be more terrible when there will be no internal renaissance for the Russian people. Putin is a symptom and not a disease.

Mikhail Shishkin is a novelist and the only author to win the Russian Booker Prize, the Russian National Bestseller, and the Grand Book Prize.

Translated by Emma Reverter