Decivilising Russia - Sociologist Svetlana Stephenson explains how the criminal culture of security forces and racketeers among the elites has pushed Russian society towards militaristic madness
The militant forces that rose to power in Russia at the end of the 1990s have increasingly normalised violence in internal and international policy, and have managed to suppress the groups that were interested in peaceful development. Rather than creating a state monopoly on violence, they have diffused it across society. The war in Ukraine is a culmination of this process of decivilising Russia.
Sociologist Svetlana Stephenson discusses why the segments of society who rely on violence in domestic and foreign policy have prevailed in Russia, and how this has led to the war in Ukraine.
In early March, the media widely circulated a video in which an elderly woman says of Ukrainians: “You need to kill them all, and their children too. They’re a rot which has spread and they don’t like us. They are neither brothers nor sisters to us.” Her words, which clearly echo the rhetoric of Russian television propaganda, expressed a horrifying and shocking desire for violence. Such views are by no means isolated. Many of those who support the war are in favour of radical ways to solve the “Ukrainian question”.
How does one explain this brutalisation of a part of Russian society? How did it happen that the violence, cruelty, and aggression that exist deep in human nature but are usually suppressed have now surfaced so brazenly?
