Why Russians should take collective responsibility for the war: How to apply the experience of overcoming Nazism in Germany to modern Russia

by DerGun88

27 comments

  1. TL;DR:

    >If the principle of collective political guilt is not applied to Russia now, the problem will not be solved, but simply pushed into the future, and not too far away. And then Russian imperialism will return, yet with the face of another dictator. And the recipe for overcoming Russian imperialism is quite simple. First, there is the need for pressure from the West – the constant emphasis on the collective guilt of Russians for the crimes of Putin’s regime. Secondly, the readiness of the Russians themselves to bear political responsibility. Because thorough, radical changes cannot come only from outside. Only incentives can be external, but change must be carried out and initiated by Russian society itself. And this means taking responsibility for a state called Russia.

    Full article:

    >**Why Russians should take collective responsibility for the war: How to apply the experience of overcoming Nazism in Germany to modern Russia**
    >
    >Some Western intellectuals prefer to call Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine – a Putin’s war or a Kremlin’s war. And they have an explanation for this: they say that ordinary Russians are not guilty of the crimes of the authoritarian regime. Some also appeal to the fact that Russian culture is a part of the world’s culture, and therefore all Russian people cannot be blamed for what is happening in Ukraine. In short, they are convinced all the blame lies solely with Putin’s regime. However, eighty years ago, the West took a completely different position regarding Nazi Germany. Just like it is now, no one denied the importance of German culture, but it was the German people who were to blame for the Nazi crimes – all of them, not just Adolf Hitler and the elite of the Third Reich. The principle of collective responsibility for war and war crimes was at the heart of Western policy toward Germany. What exactly did this principle entail? And was it justified?

    (continued in replies)

  3. Articles like this prove that Putin was right and Western oligarchs have an agenda to rule the world.

  4. I thought collective punishment was against our rights as human beings?

  5. Yep, it is not first and not last russian leader who did this -> people love to have crazy dictator -> people should take responsibility along with him.

  6. Russia won’t be occupied, which means that they are unlikely to change. They will continue to be the spiteful, hateful, genocidal, imperialistic and aggressive shithole that they are today for generations to come.

  7. >Because any power in the twentieth century comes from the people.

    Dropped here.

  8. Imposition of collective responsibility – looks like the shortest path to revanchism and a new war

  9. *’Hitler was the only bad Nazi, the rest were just following orders…’* /s

    When someone says “Russians are forced to support the war”, remind them that a majority greedily support their imperialism, and the minority are forced by other Russians – not by Putin himself.

    AFAIK, Putin hasn’t personally killed, kidnapped, raped or tortured anyone in Ukraine. But there’s plenty of evidence of Russian people doing those things, even to civilians – on a genocidal scale. Russian sympathy propaganda is a real obstacle to stopping Russia.

    It takes TENS OF MILLIONS of Russians to enable Putin’s regime. Those include cooperating government employees, military, police, media, educators, factory workers, snitches, taxpayers, etc etc. People say *’But a Russian who refuses to cooperate with Putin’s regime will suffer consequences!’* Who is enforcing those consequences? The answer is not Putin, it’s OTHER RUSSIANS.

    No one is saying that each individual Russian is as culpable as Putin. Rather, the point is that the COLLECTIVE responsibility of all cooperating Russians easily exceeds Putin’s individual responsibility – and a tax-paying Russian who isn’t opposing Putin is cooperating. This isn’t even a difficult moral calculus.

    Human beings have agency, make choices, and are morally accountable – whereas animals can’t be blamed for what they do. When someone says “The Russian people aren’t to blame”, they are asking you to view Russians like animals. People who plead for blamelessness for Russians are not only spreading Russian sympathy propaganda on the basis of ‘humanitarianism’, they are ironically de-humanizing Russians to do it.

    It’s as if people should treat a country waging war as if they are… a country waging war.

    edit:

    These threads are being brigaded hard by pro-Russia accounts. Imagine not holding a country responsible for waging an unjustified war, committing war crimes, and threatening countries with nuclear attacks.

    Obviously Russia must be driven from Ukraine, but Russia must also be collapsed and the west must not make the same mistakes as it did after 1991.

  10. I dont think that generalising like this is good…at all. A lot of russians support Putin, but generalising a whole nation like that is not healthy thinking

  11. I am very glad to see that Western World finally starts getting an actual understanding of what modern russia is.

  13. The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men. Plato

    Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn’t mean politics won’t take an interest in you.” Perikles

    I guess the Russian public doesn’t learn much about ancient philosophers such as Mark Aurel or Ovid.

    Well I guess they fucked around and now they will all find out.

    Their silence is complicity.

    The Russians are collectively responsible for these atrocities.

    Every Russian soldier is a perpetrator. Every Russian journalist and state worker is a silent or active accomplice.

    Guilty by association for many and responsible by association for all who live inside the Federation. They know what is going on and remain docile as a collective.

    That makes them partners in Putin’s crimes and the victim of his crimes.

    Just as the Germans couldn’t excuse themselves. They follow criminal orders, and they blame others never themselves for the atrocities that their countrymen commit.

    Or they make excuses as to why that is not applicable to them.

    Putin has kept them in childlike ignorance because tyrants can only rule through apathy malice or fear.

    140 million scared to death Russians who let this continue for 20 months and a good chunk of them even openly support the attempt to expand Russia’s borders.

  14. Didn’t Osama bin Laden say this essentially in his message to the west after he hit the twin towers?

  15. But like nazism was never truly exterminated of Russia. Especially 10 to 20 years after the war finding nazis in government positions was quite normal

  16. Germany is not a fitting example since it was occupied and forcibly reeducated. Which is impossible to do now. So collective responsibility cannot be applied.

  17. When I see a .ua in a websites domain name, the article loses credibility immediately.

    Anyway, read about how imposing collective responsibility on Germany after ww1 worked out for them. It’s your history, Europe. Learn it.

    Edit: But why even discuss such hypotheticals? You’re entertaining an idea that Russia is about to lose its own country, and it’s up to Europe to decide what to do with it. Fantasy land.

  18. Hello, I’m from Russia. Who gave you the right to decide something about our responsibility?

  20. They currently live under a brutal dictatorship. We have no idea what happens once Putin is gone.

  21. Of course. How about collective responsibility of the Palestinians for the war?

  23. Not only Russia, but and West also should take collective responsibility as for start of Ukrainian war ($8,000B and 2014-2021 years pacification), as and for 2022-2024 years during which 40% of World’s economy and 55% of World’s military spending, not so much help Ukraine restore territorial sovereignty as “de-escalate/stabilize”, by Sullivan, “bleeding Russia.”

    If in 1994 year Ukrainian would found out that after begin of ethnocidial war the West will help Ukraine by ~1,5% of NATO weapon stocks, and by $120B (including credits and money to replenishment expired weapons) while giving to Russia $424B, they wouldn’t give away nuclear arsenals even if this would mean war as with Russia as and with the USA.

    2014-2024 years Western “too little, too late” help, of course except ten countries, could be named in any way, but not as manifestation of Christian and humanistic values.

  24. Lol. Collective punishment is illegal under the Geneva conventions

  25. lol really? The amount of hypocrites in here is amazing. saying that while raping and murdering literally on the other side of the world

  26. You mean the Germany who has a very real neonazi problem?

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