Ru anti-Putinists need to stop trying to shift the blame for Ru's imperialist war onto the West. Responsibility for exacerbating, enabling, or insufficiently constraining Ru imperialism can be parsed only after acknowledging that imperialism permeates not just the regime, but society as well. The Ru opposition is still far from this position, instead preferring to blame the war on the regime only and its kleptocratic nature.
@PopovaProf
I apologise if I come across as rude, but I've now read this several times and I don't feel I understand the scope of your point.
Are you saying that before discussing Wester influence on the past actions of Russia they need to do something like a land acknowledgment about Russian imperialism?
Or do they need some deeper penance? Or should they give up on the topic forever because they are all so personally complicit in the war?
If I read @PopovaProf correctly, a popular trope in Russia is a rather childish belief that the war "somehow happened" because "the West" wasn't decisive enough in preventing it, as if a child accused of stealing cookies argued "if you didn't like, why didn't you stop me", thus kind of removing responsibility for the deed for the deed from him/herself, at least in their mind.
@kravietz @tobychev that's a big part of it. Some are ascribing even more responsibility to the West-- the West didn't just fail to prevent Ru going rogue, it made it go rogue by "humiliating" or failing to integrate it in the 1990s. My point is, even if there's a kernel of truth to some of these claims (for some there is, for others--there isn't, imo), Western responsibility is secondary to the responsibility of Ru society for sanctioning these processes.
Thanks, that brings some clarity, but could you maybe specify more concretely what processes you judge that the anti-putin opposition has condoned, and in which manner they did it?
(Also, is anti-putin opposition really such a homogeneous group one can consider its members as interchangeable when talking about responsibility?)
@tobychev The anti-putin oppo is very heterogeneous-- all the more disappointing that there are so few among them who focus on Ru society's embrace of Pu's regime and the revanchist, imperialist character of the war. Before looking for blame in the West, any Ru needs to look inwards. This take by Sharafutdinova illustrates my point:
@PopovaProf
I think I get your point: a large part of Russians seem to unquestioning support Putin, is that what you mean?
Because I must say I find the formulation "they respond [...] collectively" very confusing, it sounds like she accuses the pollster is talking to a choir...
The statement following the quote is not much better: "they support whatever is thought to serve the collective interest" sounds to me as more or less what you expect from anyone responding to a question about how to resolve a interstate war: by expressing their understanding of what constitutes the common good of the country.
Only the "expressed by the president" hints at a different interpretation, and it took me a good while to get to the guess I opened with.
@tobychev My takeaway is majority of Russians perceive Pu is speaking for Russia and thus for them too. Not sure what you mean by "unquestioning support"-- strong support or default support. Whatever you mean, though, I think that's super hard to parse. My point is only that *for now* majority of Ru support how Pu is waging the war and why/how strongly/for how long should be the focus of debates in Ru, NOT what the West did in the 1990s.
Arkhipova had good points on the political culture of Russian society back in April, especially where she speaks about the “herd conformity”
That's exactly the childish part of it — they remove responsibility for their own actions from themselves, and attribute it to a multitude of external factors, in a way that resembles magical thinking. The "failure of integration" completely ignored the fact that the integration requires some form of compromise and structural reforms... which were never implemented in Russia wholeheartedly.
And this part is from my experience very deeply buried in the Russian society — people kind of want "independent judiciary" as it sounds cool, but not so independent to convict them for drunk driving without a possibility to buy your way out with a bribe, so they don't really want it independent 🤷♂️
@tobychev
@kravietz agreed on the first paragraph. don't disagree w the second, but it is a more or less common challenge for places where courts aren't powerful or trusted
@tobychev fair questions. My point is before focusing on Western actions and responsibility, they need to recognize that Ru imperialism is a more fundamental cause of the war and Western actions are only marginally relevant. Otherwise, the focus on Western responsibility is largely an attempt to absolve Ru society of responsibility and it's objectionable