> "calling them weak, docile, etc." - I'm not aware of this going on in any meaningful scale.

That is a shame because they actually are. I feel the same coward and pity venal attitude with the Hungarian people - being a soulmate of Russians in this regard - whom I grown up with. They would be very vocal about being proud and brave but the actions only show shortsighted submissive conformity to ruthless tyrants for pity same day breadcrumbs - from the wealth taken away from them. Or just liking if others take charge, instead of the freedom to act that comes with taking responsibility for own actions. Smart people using their talents to screw with others, or just laying low in the hope to get by, whatever happens. Whatever! (a good few even participating for similar reasons, and of course there are scores participating, since Putins and Orbáns would just be laughing stock without the complicity and active support of masses)

At first I wanted to argue with your point (suggesting that the elites are to blame much more than ordinary folks) but thinking more, I just want to correct.

Submissiveness that you mention implies that people understand their interests, what's just (in broad sense), and just don't want to act. And we expect that finally they'll wake up and rebel. I also went to street protests in 2021 when Navalny was enjailed, expecting something to change, but was reminded of what I knew from sociology earlier.

Studies showed that it's not submissiveness in post-totalitarian people that stops them. It's rather immoralism and double-think. People see status-quo challengers as suspicious, and discredit them. They distrust the government -- that's why Russian opposition speakers insist that "Putin has no broad support". But they also hope the state will take care of them, and constantly seek signs of this. They hate state officials, but discedit those who challenge them and goes in politics -- especially those trying to pursue interests of common folk.

These traits of character developed as defense to totalitarianism -- interference with private life and demand of loyalty, and daily hardships.

This was describen in a book "Simple Soviet man" (1993) by sociologist Yuri Levada, summarizing his studies of post-Soviet people's views and their contradictions. There are brief descriptions of it in Englihs, try searching for them.

Good thoughts, sounds true, thanks telling!

> Putin has no broad support

Putin's support is so broad that he never dared to prove it with some real elections. But for some reason he only competes with candidates who were hand-picked by his administration and posses a very questionable reputation. And even against them he resorts to cheating and adding himself votes via various tricks. Broad support, right.

I see you're not into serious talk, just attacking, but I'll respond: you're absolutely right and wrong both. Sure, if you try hard and look for only core supporters, you can get a figure of 25, 20, 15% of voters. If you look at elections and the real % of votes from all people, even correcting for manipulations, you'll also get a this modest figure of, let's say, 15-20% of core supporters.

But what are the rest of people doing? They passively accept the elections. There's a curious poll results by Levada team showing that 2/3 of people distrust the elections, yet 2/3 accept the results afterwards as legitimate. They don't rebel and so on. And the reason is what I wrote above.

You may even suggest that Levada's pollsters are manipulating people with questions, and theorize that in some way you could find what people REALLY think. The problem is why don't they assert it? Is it a real opinion that is not told and that not turns into action? And also, unlike sociologists who try to correct for bias and not influence the answer, the government actually does manipulate people all the time, and makes the undecided middle be loyal.

So insisting on this, "Putin has no broad support", you ignore the mode complex and sad reality.

> But what are the rest of people doing? They passively accept the elections.

So, people not rising in rebellion barehanded against Putin's well funded, armed and organized occupation army counts as Putin's broad support in your book. Serious talk, right.

You're too angry to even read carefully what I write. Enough, dude, calm down.

I actually admire your audacity: you've made two straw man arguments * in a row (#1: "you're not into serious talk", #2: "you're angry") , and then pre-emptively accused me of doing it. That's the spirit!

However, you motivated me to do a more thorough evaluation of your claims. You cite Levada's poll as some kind of evidence, and draw your conclusions from their data. However, we all know for a fact that all independent organization have been either squeezed out of country, or banned, or destroyed/closed. TV Rain, FBK, Ekho, Novaya Gazeta have all ceased operations in the country. Facebook and Twitter are outright banned. So the only reason Levada continues operating it that its reports are acceptable for Putin's administration. No, they don't use it as bluntly as their other instruments, but it's foolish to think of it as anything else but of yet another propaganda tool at Putin's disposal.

So no, just as we can't trust the election results numbers produced by elections officials, we can't trust Levada polls either.

The rest of your argument that 'if people don't rebel against Putin, they support him' is not only flawed, but also deeply immoral. Never having lifted anything heavier than a computer mouse, you, sitting on a comfortable sofa, have no moral right to accuse people for refusing to perish in an unarmed suicide attack vs a military force. Unlike you, I do have an experience of confronting Putin's police, being beaten and detained by them, but I too do not consider myself in position to ask anyone to rise in a doomed rebellion. The regime will fall only when it'll run out of money to pay for its security - when even the riot police and rosgvardya thugs will be hungry, only then there will be a window of opportunity for the regime change. No sooner.

* - or was it 'ad hominem' attacks? You have to forgive me, I'm relatively inexperienced confronting demagogues.

You're so liberal that you made no question, but keep putting lots of accusations in my mouth and deriding them.

Regarding Levada's data -- as they say, don't trust science and the world will be full of surprises.

> All those "decadent" western democracies went through periods of very violent internal wars, centuries of constant internal "cold wars" where the main objective was "democracy"

> Russia never had that

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Revolution

Look I know it's been 100 years and we understand now that the Soviet Union ended up being a force for authoritarian evil. And that all the communist republics having "Democratic" in their name sounds as ridiculous as North Korea doing it today.

But it didn't have to be that way. The ideals of communism and marxism are pretty inspiring and humanist - on paper. They'd never been tried. That they were corrupted by Lenin then Stalin - if they were even incorruptible in the first place - noone knew that at the time. The only objection the west had to any of it for the entirety of the 20th century was that it intervened with the flow of capital and economics. The proof of that is China which, is obviously the main global competitor to the west, and the risk of an actual war over something like Taiwan is non-zero, it is a far cry from the constant imminent threat of thermonuclear annihilation.

And just because the Soviet Union became the symbol of everything that stands against freedom for 50 years in the 20th century, doesn't mean that in the moment the Russian Empire was any better. Ordinary Russians at the start of the 20th century were some of the most repressed and unfree people in the entire world.

They fucked it up but they did try.

Then "real" democracy came in, and turned out to be in many ways worse for the median Russian. The median Russian quality of life was worse in the 90's than in the 80's. While the oligarchs got richer and crime took over the country. The people turned to a powerful leader like Putin and legitimately reinforced his power because he made the country safe.

In the end your conclusion is correct. "Russia" needs to die, needs to end as a concept. It needs reinvention from the ground up. And I don't know if the median Russian is capable of creating something better.

Anyone with an ounce of brain or integrity left a long time ago.