Lev Shlosberg: On Politics and Violence
Lev Shlosberg’s Telegram channel, 30.09.2024
Illustration: The Stoning of St. Stephen, a biblical story from The Acts of the Apostles.
Hopes for internal change in Russia, whether related to Prigozhin’s rebellion, Ukraine’s invasion, or outright bets on a revolution, all concern the same fundamental issue: the permissibility of violence in politics. Attitudes toward the use of violence in politics are a crucial dividing line when it comes to collaboration, alliances, and coalitions.
18+ THIS MATERIAL (INFORMATION) HAS BEEN PRODUCED AND DISTRIBUTED BY THE FOREIGN AGENT LEV MARKOVICH SHLOSBERG OR CONCERNS THE ACTIVITIES OF THE FOREIGN AGENT LEV MARKOVICH SHLOSBERG [This capitalised section is a text Lev Shlosberg is obliged to add under the ‘foreign agent’ law to any publication he makes; we include it here solely to give readers an idea of the pressures under which civil society actors operate in Russia]
Hopes based on the use of force in politics are attractive for people in diverse circumstances, who are united by certain motives, some of which are value-based and others of which are psychological in nature.
Hopes for change through violence are often founded in feelings of despair and powerlessness to change anything in one’s own life. People lose the hope of living to see change happen naturally and draw the paradoxical conclusion that change must be accelerated: political birth by Cesarean section in the hope that a healthy organism will be born.
Hopes for change through violence are often associated with a loss of real ties to society and a transition into delusion, where conclusions about society as a whole are drawn from the views of a segment of those who hold similarly radical ideas. An unshared reality is a kind of political trauma that destabilizes people and prevents them from perceiving and understanding what is truly happening.
The hope for change through violence is always associated with a repudiation of the value of human life as such, a conscious agreement to sacrifice parts of society to achieve practical political goals. The maxim “the end justifies the means,” rooted in medieval Jesuit philosophy and practice, becomes a maxim on immorality and amorality in a modern interpretation, if we understand morality as that which aligns with human dignity and respects human rights and freedoms.
The hope for change through violence is always associated with populism and a deliberate deception of society. All of the central slogans of the Bolshevik revolution were as deceptive as they were compelling: “Peace to the peoples,” “Land to the peasants,” “Factories to the workers,” “Power to the soviets.”
Peace turned into civil war with millions of victims; instead of ownership of the land came barbaric dekulakization and the forcible creation of collective farms; instead of the ownership by labor collectives came total state ownership; and instead of power in the hands of elected soviets came a terrorist ideological apparatus. Society was promised freedom, but they got gulags.
The hope for change through violence breeds a lack of fundamental legitimacy for states created through violence. The means used to gain power predetermine the nature of the power, as well as the substance and forms of its policies.
Violent seizure of power leads to the formation of a violent state, one with totalitarian aims, meaning it completely suppresses freedom and democracy.
The saying “violence is the midwife of every old society pregnant with a new one” comes from Karl Marx, the founder of the ideology of class struggle (Capital, Volume 1, Chapter 31). Violence is appealing as a means of political activity, with those who organize it seeking after power for its own sake, outside the boundaries of values and moral principles. A struggle for power coupled accompanied by a denial of the value of human life was a hallmark of classic Bolshevism.
Any attempts to apply this ideology in 21st century Russia will lead to results no different from those of the first quarter of the 20th century.
A politics based on subjugation and repression cannot be fought with the use of violence that denies the human right to life. The repeated mistakes of Russia’s bloody history lie in the path of anyone who tries to achieve power with weapons in their hands.
Natural political changes can only come to fruition from within a society that is suffering from a lack of freedom. Violence does not speed up the passing of history; it only moves it backwards.
Posted: September 30th, 2024 under History, Human Rights, Russia-Ukraine relations.