A few months before the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, Russian poet and director Yevgeny Yevtushenko asked: “Do the Russians want war?” This burning issue is the title of the book just published by political scientist Vera Grantseva, who grew up in Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Now a teacher at Sciences Po Paris, she returns to the roots of Putinism and describes the atony of a people caught between denial and fatalism and who have never been able to digest the trauma of Sovietism. Interview.
L’Express: What is the state of mind of the Russian population today with regard to the war?
Vera Grantseva: Russian society has experienced several phases: shock, rejection, cohabitation, then polarization between those who oppose this war and those who, on the contrary, believe that it is just and support it wholeheartedly. A year later, people understood that they couldn’t change anything. Long passive, the silent majority has moved closer to the pro-war camp – not out of conviction but because of political pressure and the repressive laws adopted in the country. Today, a certain fatalism reigns in Russia. Like any autocrat, Putin has done everything to make Russians apathetic, apolitical and submissive.
The other tendency is the escape from reality. Most Russians try to ignore the fact that war exists. When I speak with my contacts in Russia, from Kamchatka to the Urals, and from different social backgrounds, I realize that most are in complete denial. The war does not affect their lives, it does not exist among them, in their cities.
However, there is a minority who are directly affected by the conflict. Today, 1 in 5 Russians knows someone who died on the front. What greatly marks Russian society is this gap between, on the one hand, these widows who, on Instagram, share their pain and do not understand why their husband died and, on the other, the fact that their The tragedy remains ignored by those around them, who continue to live normally.
Does the Russian population feel, as we sometimes hear, nostalgia for the Soviet era?
Rather than nostalgia, I would rather speak of a burden from the Soviet past. It manifests itself especially among Russians who are between 60 and 70 years old and therefore did not experience the horrible Stalinist years or, subsequently, the Khrushchev era. For them, Sovietism is Brezhnev, a period of stability and social equality. Later, they experienced perestroika and the chaotic mafia transition of the 1990s. When they analyze the past, they therefore associate the Soviet Union with stability and democracy with chaos and banditry. And this is exactly the message they send to their children and grandchildren. “The Soviet Union was a great time!” This is exactly the message that the official propaganda hammered home. I remember my grandmother who always said: “We shouldn’t criticize the Soviet Union, we are very happy!” She knew that in order to survive, she had to repeat this phrase like a mantra.
In the 1990s, everyone thought the Russians would condemn their totalitarian past, but there was a sort of collective Stockholm syndrome. The executioners were not condemned for their crimes, it was the past, it was better to forget it. In fact, there was no “Nuremberg of the Soviet Union.” This is why Putin, today, manages to impose on Russians the idea that the Soviet Union was not so bad and that the repressions were not so terrible… It is also for this reason that Russians no longer believe in justice. Why resist since the executioners will continue to reign? This is why I would rather speak of “the burden of Sovietism” than of nostalgia.
Political scientist Vera Grantseva, teacher at Sciences po Paris.
© / DR
Putin, who has never come to terms with the breakup of the Soviet Union, refers to this period no less often…
Yes, he refers to it often. It is also interesting to note that he always speaks of the war in Ukraine as a “special operation”. These are the same terms that were used by the Kremlin in 1968 when Soviet tanks entered Prague. At the time, Putin was 16 years old, he was following on public television the intervention of the Red Army against what Moscow called the “nazification of Czechoslovakia”! Putin didn’t invent anything…
In your book, you quote a phrase from Russian journalist Ilia Krasilshchik: “The Russians have failed as a nation.” What does that mean ?
This is something that is debated in Russia, but tends to explain that, if Russian society is today a “scorched earth”, it is because of Soviet totalitarianism and its still existing trauma. You know, there are still many Russians who criticize the government. But when it comes to agreeing on something, a means of action or a direction, they cannot do it, because they no longer believe in anything: neither in capitalism, nor in democracy, nor socialism… And that, I think, is a direct consequence of the authoritarianism that Russian society experienced during the Soviet era: the fact of holding a propaganda narrative, of celebrating a “happy socialism “, although everyone knows very well that it is false… Most Russians have come to the conclusion that the political systems are nothing but lies. The only thing they want is to be able to live a life without major upheaval, peaceful and stable.
And this is what creates the apolitical character of Russian citizens today. I refuse to call them a “servile people”, given all the revolutions Russia has experienced. Unfortunately, the Soviet burden has killed in them the energy to come together and influence politics, which makes the Russian people a very fertile breeding ground for any kind of authoritarian rule, which Putin has been able to use brilliantly. We still underestimate the consequences that the trauma of totalitarianism had on Russians in the 20th century. Because the idea of submission to the regime as a means of survival has been passed down from generation to generation. This is what we call “Homo sovieticus”, a notion still present in Russia. And, in power, in Moscow, Homo sovieticus has numerous representatives: Putin himself was born in the 1950s, like everyone around him. Everyone wants revenge on the Soviet Union. They want to show that in the notion of the Soviet empire, it is the imperial idea which dominates and must be restored to its greatness, and not socialism.
What do Russians really think about the war?
On the basis of an independent sociological study, it was understood that Russian support for the war is window dressing. People know that when they respond to a poll, they must acquiesce to Putin’s ideas, but behind it, they do not support the causes of the war. In reality, Vladimir Putin set a trap for the Russian people by dragging them into a conflict they did not want. If we look at Russia before the war, no one expected the invasion of Ukraine, it was a real shock for the Russian population.
But, at the same time, the Russians do not want to lose the conflict. In my book, I compare Russian society today to German society under the Nazi regime, which was driven by a feeling of not wanting to be humiliated. And, like the Germans under the Nazis, Russian society fears the post-war backlash because of the crimes that will have to be punished. This is why there has not been, and there still is not, any strong resistance to this protracted conflict. Putin made them hostages. So if Putin wins, it will be bad for them, because he can drag them into new wars. But, if he loses, it will also be negative for society.
The crucial question is therefore to understand what victory means for the Russians, and under what conditions we consider the outcome of this war as a victory. Russians know that the only acceptable path is the one Putin wants. Everyone is afraid. As a result, it is very difficult to understand what the people really want, due to very strong propaganda and censorship. I have the feeling that he is lost and doesn’t know how to organize himself.
A part of the Russian population seems, despite everything, to continue to resist through small actions, initiatives of daily life. Do you have the‘hope that these modest actions will help stop Putin ?
It is a hope, in the sense that it shows us that the Russian people are capable of wanting to live in democracy. There are men and women who, through grassroots movements, are ready to campaign for democratic values and human rights. Certainly, there is no guarantee that these initiatives will materialize into real political trends. But this reality shows that there are still healthy trends in Russian society. It remains to be seen whether Putin’s regime will continue to trample on all these hopes. No matter what, they can always be reborn. Look at what happened with the fall of the Soviet Union, which had locked down society for seventy years. A rebirth is always possible.
What hopes do you identify?
Let’s look at Russian youth and the gap that has formed between them and Putin, particularly on the subject of traditional values, war… Even official polls have not succeeded in hiding their ills: frustration, anguish, the Depression. This means that they are experiencing deep discomfort, that they do not want to die in this war, nor do they want this conflict to last for decades. Another sign is the work of independent Russian journalists. Having become very influential, they carried out very constructive and necessary work to rebuild Russia. Certainly, these trends, like others mentioned in the book, only affect a small part of Russian society, but they open up a field of possibilities.
* Do the Russians want war? by Vera Grantseva (Ed. du Cerf).