The Sociology of Calamity
Before the Russian People can speak out against the atrocities in Ukraine, they must first form an opinion.
Boris Kagarlitsky
While television and official sociology tell us that the Russian people have rallied behind the government for the sake of supporting the “special operation in Ukraine,” opposition analysts explain how controversial the polls referred to in such propaganda are. Indeed, the number of people who refuse to answer sociologists’ questions has increased rapidly in recent years. Even in the past, surveys have had this problem. The vast majority of people simply refused to talk. The proportion of refusals was as high as 80-90% and increased even more recently. Sociology has become completely unreliable.
But what explains the refusals? Fear of telling the truth? Perhaps. But I am deeply convinced that this is not the main reason. While researchers want to find out the state of public opinion, the main problem is that it simply does not exist. And worse, in the absence of any opinion at all, the survey assumes the existence of an informed citizen who knows of the most important political events, and is able and, most importantly, willing to form its own assessment of what is happening. Unfortunately, this is not the case in contemporary Russia.
The overwhelming majority of people refuse to answer sociologists simply because they have no opinion about the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, or indeed about any significant socio-political issue. Russia has developed an apolitical and atomized society that reacts only to events that directly affect individuals’ personal, family, or professional lives.
Meanwhile, the social composition of the troops fighting in Ukraine is quite deliberately chosen in such a way that there is virtually no communication between the participants in the events and the rest of society. Most soldiers and even a significant portion of junior officers are recruited not just from depressed regions of the country (as has already been written about repeatedly), but from small towns and villages that are unconnected and completely isolated from industrial, administrative, and cultural centers. Moreover, this is an army that is recruited largely under contract.
After the Vietnam War, which provoked strong opposition from civil society, the U.S. ruling circles abandoned the conscription army and replaced it with a contract army. The conscription army is in one way or another a sociological cross-section of society. And what happens to it cannot be separated from the people at home, who are bound to soldiers by many bonds. On the contrary, a contract army, isolated from its own population, becomes a much more convenient instrument for any policy, especially if it has to fight on foreign territory for dubious purposes. This is precisely why neither the two wars with Iraq nor the long and unsuccessful expedition to Afghanistan caused a domestic political crisis in the United States comparable to that of Vietnam.
Despite the declared dislike of “Anglo-Saxons” in the Russian elite, our rulers have successfully learned the relevant experience (especially after the lessons of Afghanistan, which played the role of Soviet Vietnam, and the trauma of the first Chechen war). And although we do not usually trust the words of those in power, I think that the officials were perfectly sincere when they spoke about the inadmissibility of using conscripts in military operations. The Russian army is isolated from society on several levels at once. Social ties are already weak, and in this case, completely absent.
In a society such as ours, the efforts of state propaganda and opposition political education are equally futile. Of course, there are idealized social groups, be they imperial patriots, liberal Westerners, or leftists. But for the most part, they have already made a choice. And the choice is directed against the Kremlin’s policy in Ukraine (some are against it because they do not agree, while others, even though they agree, accuse the authorities of betrayal, inefficiency, and indecision).
The common man is a very different matter. People simply switch on the television when political talk shows and other similar programs begin, and search the Internet for cooking recipes, restaurant addresses, good movies, or erotica. And old men and old women, ready to listen to political propagandists all day long, are then unable to intelligibly retell the content of the programs they watch, except in general terms that something bad is happening in Ukraine, from which the Russian authorities are trying to protect us.
The message that our military is participating in hostilities, killing others and dying themselves, simply does not stick in their brains, and so does not prevent a huge mass of our fellow citizens from living exactly as before, thinking only about current family or professional concerns.
How long will a situation like this last? Probably not very long. After all, reality has one unpleasant feature: it reminds us of itself and makes us reckon with it, even if we categorically do not want to have anything to do with it. Large-scale events change history precisely because they draw into their circulation huge, often multimillion-strong, masses. Mostly against their will. No one can sit back and hide from History. And when a new round of naturally unfolding conflict draws the vast majority of our fellow citizens into its fold, we will find out what they really think about politics.
But to do so, they must first begin to think about politics.
The Sociology of Calamity
Spot on. Apathetic, easily frustrated, easy to hate, and loyal to nobody. That's my people. There may be 5% who have any societal awareness. I thought democratic world had missed the chance to bring Russia to its fold. No I realize there never had been a chance.
The use of a contract Army is a good point but the economy affects all of its citizens. Eventually as people's lives and livelihoods are affected they will take an interest.