Why do some Russian people still support Putin’s war against Ukraine?

The Great Terror in Russia and how it influences thinking to this day:

I believe that you cannot comment about a country or a society without knowing something about where it has come from. In Russia’s case, not to examine what was perpetrated on the population during the Soviet years would be to ignore the elephant in the room.

When I lived there, I did many road trips around the country. Once, I was visiting the towns and cities in the Golden Ring and in a small town called Suzdal, I came across a museum dedicated to the memory of all those who died in or were incarcerated in the camps which formed the Gulag prison system. This was the first indication I encountered that Russia was prepared to recognize or face what happened in the recent past. The museum is comprehensive and pulls no punches — it details every one of the, quite literally, hundreds of camps which were spread throughout the length and breadth of the Soviet Union. The Gulag was not a Siberian phenomenon although the best known camps were situated there. The museum details what life was like in these camps and attempts to chronicle and account for the sheer numbers that were forced to live there.

Anyone with even a cursory knowledge of Russian history will be aware of what happened during the Stalin years of 1924–1953. Many millions of people were arrested, taken away and never seen or heard from again. It has to be assumed that they were murdered by the secret police. The overwhelming majority of these people were ordinary innocent citizens. Also, a vast system of forced labour prison camps was constructed, known collectively as the Gulag. People were transported in their millions from all corners of the Soviet Union and forced to live and work in unspeakable conditions. I have read many accounts of what happened and it seems to me to have been the greatest horror perpetrated to so many people in history. There are reports that a similar regime existed in communist China but greater details on that have to emerge. There is a wealth of information on the Gulag. Horrendous is an oft misused word but here it is appropriate.

In the Second World War, known here as “The Great Patriotic War”, the Soviet Union lost more than thirty million people, more than every other country combined. Yet the internal terror killed far more. Not only did it destroy the lives of millions but it terrorized an entire nation and left an indelible mark on its culture.

Why was this evil regime introduced? As far as I can ascertain, there were two main reasons. Stalin believed that forced labour would revolutionise the country’s industry and bring it into line with the major industrialized countries of the west. It didn’t work. Great strides were made in industry during this period but not in the forced labour camps. Transport conditions were so primitive and overcrowded that many died before even reaching the camps. Conditions were so bad when they got there that most of those incarcerated died. Those that survived were usually too weak to be in any way productive. But the second reason for the proliferation of the camps definitely succeeded; this was to spread terror throughout the population. Most of those sent away were guilty of nothing; many were indeed loyal party members; others were merely suspected of being in some way hostile to the regime. People were encouraged to spy on each other and “out” suspected dissidents. No one was safe; no one knew the day or the hour when the knock on the door would come. Some even spoke of a relief when it finally did come, as even though they knew they were destined for an uncertain future, it released the terrible tension and stress that they were living under.

How did society survive at all? Mankind is resilient and has an infinite capacity to adapt and survive. Everyone was aware of the terror and affected by it but it eventually became a way of life and they developed ways to survive and to communicate. Was the entire country paralysed during this period? In a sense, yes, but life had to go on; work had to be done; children had to be reared, but there were always question marks about the future.

The magnificent 'Church on Spilt Blood' in St Petersburg.

Some people argue that the entire nature of the civilization was altered. So many people were killed, so many banished to camps, so many forcibly transplanted, so many moved around that Russia is now an admixture of races. Perhaps this was part of the plan but people are resilient. I have met people who told me that their parents or grandparents were transported to far flung parts of the Soviet Union but they survived and prospered and their children or grandchildren have now returned to their homeland.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn, in his masterpiece, “The Gulag Archipelago”, describes the regime vividly and in painstaking detail. It is a tragic and absolutely heart rending story but his overriding message is one of hope, of people’s ability to survive and to even overcome the worst excesses of despots. You have to read the book to appreciate the horror of it all.

Has it affected Russian people’s thinking to this very day? Of course it has. One of the more stark ways it has affected people is in what I call “short term thinking”. Many Russians don’t think beyond next week, never mind next month or next year. Business partners have asked me why I prepared long term plans as their focus was always on ensuring we are still in business next month! The absence of availability of long term credit is further indication. Has it created people’s apparent apathy towards each other unless they are close friends and family? Very likely, I can’t see how it wouldn’t. It was impossible to trust anyone, as the regime lauded those who “were brave enough” to inform on close friends and family, with even children being encouraged to inform on parents. So, people kept to themselves as if you were seen as too close to someone, you could fall victim to “guilt by association”. There are so many stories of entire extended families and friends and associates being rounded up and banished that many families and groups literally disappeared off the face of the earth for ever, their stories never told, their torment not recorded.

There have been long and bloody conflicts in many other places, most notably for me, in my own country. The Irish conflict is so recent that the scars still run deep. In South Africa, they made an effort to heal the wounds with a State sponsored truth and reconciliation commission. There is no such body in Russia and it is unlikely that there ever will be. But that is fine; people know what happened, even if they don’t like to talk about it. Many say that there cannot be an open investigation as there were so many involved in perpetrating the terror and that their descendants are all still here, many in positions of authority. They may well be but I don’t hold with this view. Peoples are not evil, individuals are. Solzhenitsyn is in no doubt as to who caused the terror and neither am I. Most of the communists insurgents involved in the Revolution were idealists; a few were mass murderers and psychopaths; we know all the idealists were eventually executed and the rest is tragedy. Did the Nazi regime make the German people evil? The answer is rhetorical. The same can be said for the Russian people. One madman did not define an entire people.

It is in the past and Russian people have survived and thrive. There is absolutely no doubt that it will impinge on and affect the collective consciousness for generations, maybe even longer. Is this a positive as it ensures that what happened here can never happen again? In the past I would have said yes, but now I am not so sure.

What it does explain to me, to some degree, is the absolute refusal of many Russian people to condemn the invasion of Ukraine and to insist that the Russian State, i.e: Putin is correct and that Russia will eventually win the war. While most of my Russian friends readily condemn what’s happening as madness, quite a few, mainly the older ones, refuse to do so. The unswerving loyalty to the State, regardless of logic, no doubt rooted in fear, is too deeply embedded in the psyche. This is Stalin’s legacy and together with Putin’s ironclad control of the media, keeps Russians stuck in the past and unable to see the evil that is being perpetrated in their name.