‘I was never into politics’. Monologue of a Russian draftee who fled Donbas and became a deserter
novayagazeta.eu
"When I was getting ready to go to the warzone, I told my father that I wanted to see the truth. I did see this truth, and I am completely unhappy with it. Someone decided to write their name in history as a great ruler. Of course, you have an idea of who I mean. But I don’t want to mention this name."
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Unlike "many other people" he went to war, invaded a foreign country and killed (or at the very least helped kill) foreign citizens. He didn't stop when he "felt like a murderer", doesn't feel responsible for what he's done, instead of opposing in any way he fled from his country and whines about how homesick he is — and you choose to judge the people who voice their disdain for their choice of words
I'm not sure you are arguing in good faith because you seem to construct some strawmen there, like claiming I was only judging one side while I clearly called the draftee a "stupid asshole" and didn't even judge the original commenter's character but just said his wording was bad.
Anyhow, to the general point: I think it is almost always the wrong take to call out the little guys. Which country hasn't committed atrocities at some point? Is every US-American who didn't do everything to prevent the war in Afghanistan a maggot? Every Chinese who did not revolt because of Tiananmen? And yes, every German who did not die fighting Hitler? I think, no. The ones that did might be heroes, but I think those that did not are definitely not all "maggots" but just normal folks who didn't know what was going on, were afraid for themselves and their loved ones and so on. Which seems pretty human to me.
If you answer yes to the questions above, that is probably a defensible position, but I think the mindset that 95% of your fellow humans are potential maggots rather than just humans that have their weaknesses, like you and I probably do as well, is not very healthy. To me, it is mostly only the people in powerful positions who are pressuring 'their' people into committing atrocities who are the maggots. And yes, that would include Putin.
And lastly, to the concrete case: The guy did leave Russia and is not fighting anymore, so he might be a particularly bad example for you. I guess he mainly did it to save himself but from the article it does seem to me that his opposition to the war is at least a partial motivation as well. To use your line of argument: I think one should rather focus criticism on the political apparatus and the men on the front who are ardent supporters of the war rather than this guy.
"Who hasn't done a little bit of atrocity, huh?" is an extremely weak argument. Yeah, there's skeletons in many closets, but most countries do seem to manage with only a closet and not a mausoleum.
You can't seriously be arguing that the scale of Russian war crimes in Ukraine is comparable to what the US did in 20-odd years. Yes, lots of heinous shit happened and it was an imperialist war started under false pretenses and causes senseless loss of life, but I would like to remind you that there are absolute metric assloads of proof that Russia is committing genocide in Ukraine. This is in no way comparable to the US's actions in Iraq and/or Afghanistan. Yeah, in my opinion Americans should have protested the wars more etc, but Russians _absolutely should be doing something about their fucked up public institutions, the corruption and the kleptocratic "governing apparatus" (ie. including the inofficial side as well; oligarchs wield factual power.)
Seeing Russians as helpless victims of the big bad Putin not only paints them like they have no agency, but also in many ways lets them off the hook a bit too easily. Putin isn't a unique phenomenon in Russia by any means; he's a symptom, not the cause of the problems with Russia and many parts of their governance culture (and, frankly, many parts of their general culture.)
Edit: to really hammer the point home, here's a very recent article about three journalists that Russia recently poisoned while they were in exile. All women too, funny coincidence.
Russia has long ago slipped into the "cartoonishly evil" category, so I'm honestly not going to feel very bad about people dehumanising some of them. Doesn't help that I'm Finnish, and I'm in the first generation in my family in 100 years who hasn't had to either actively fight Russian invaders (yet…), or dodge Russian/Soviet agents because someone in the family stood up to them – not a lot of love lost here, exactly.
I think you misunderstood my point. You seem to mainly be insisting on the point that Russia is doing terrible shit, perhaps even more terrible than what other countries have done in recent history. I am not saying that Russia's invasion is in any way excusable or that it doesn't commit extremely terrible war crimes or anything. That much is obvious to anyone with eyes and internet access and there is certainly no disagreement.
My point about the atrocities in other countries that you partially quoted was not to engage in whataboutism (although I do in fact think that death tolls of many other atrocities are comparable and the death toll of WW II and the Nazi regime in general of course much exceeds that of the Russian invasion). It was just to say that we do historically not see a lot of full-scale revolutionising against atrocities committed by governments in authoritarian or even democratic states where it should be much easier (-> Afghanistan and Iraq wars). And what this shows, I think, is that under the right (or wrong ...) circumstances the majority in any given society will remain silent if their own life or their freedom or that of their loved ones is on the line.
Therefore it does not make sense to me to dehumanise people like the guy from the article (who did in fact run away in order to not murder anymore). Because to be quiet and mainly look out for yourself seems in fact like the human thing to do, however cowardly that might seem.
You could of course argue that he should join the resistance and do everything in his power to fight against the regime – and I agree that this would be be the morally correct action. But the upshot of the dehumanising line of thinking would be that you will have to view a majority of the people around you as potential "maggots" as well, as I already wrote in the other post. And I don't think that is a healthy view. Rather, I think, we should focus on criticising bad structures and people in the positions of power who built these structures. And we should celebrate the Russians who actually do try all they can to stop the war and establish a better regime and hope that this will inspire the people who don't do that yet.
But you're right of course that I might think differently about these things if someone I knew had been killed by Russian soldiers or something like that. Being German of course shapes my views as well because the ancestors of most of the people around me were probably in some way complicit in the Nazi regime. And they do/did not seem like monsters but like normal old people that you would find in other countries as well who were not/less complicit in WW II.
"The little guys" also changed history, started revolutions and overthrown governments. Even if we overlook that and assume those were all "heroes", there is a difference between a civilian person that did nothing to stop a war and a soldier that took up arms and followed criminal and morally wrong orders. "Having a weakness" can only go so far as an excuse.
The point is not that he and people like him should be dehumanized or something, but it's that it's really disgusting that he tries to shift responsibility and appear innocent. Idk, maybe it's cause English is my second language, but I feel that "maggot" is a rather tame insult for this situation.
If you really think most people in Nazi Germany were normal folks who didn't know what was going on, you need to learn your history. A lot of them (if not the majority) supported Hitler, his stances and policies. And while not all of them were ready to take up arms for that, they still were responsible for enabling the atrocities commited. They did end up paying for that - directly with reparations and with a commitment to denazification, but they also probably were despised for years.
And, unlike Germans, Russians have direct access to alternative points of view, but they still either passively support the regime or, like this guy, actively take up arms. And "focusing criticism" will allow them all to get away with it, cause all of them from the bottom to the top chain of command will be able to say "I cared for my family" or "I only followed orders", till only Putin is responsible for what's going on. That's just not right