Russian Denazification, Imperial Fantasy, and Obscene Violence

Denazification will inevitably also be a de-Ukrainization – a rejection of the large-scale artificial inflation of the ethnic component of self-identification of the population of the territories of historical Little Russia (Malorossiya) and New Russia (Novorossiya), begun by the Soviet authorities … The Bandera elite must be liquidated, its re-education is impossible. The social “bog” which actively and passively supported it by action and inaction, must survive the hardships of the war and assimilate the experience as a historical lesson and atonement for its guilt.9

Sergejcev not only compares Ukrainian politics with Nazism, he even claims that “ukronazism” carries not less, but a greater threat to the world and Russia than German Nazism of the Hitlerite version. “The name ‘Ukraine’ apparently cannot be retained as the title of any fully denazified state entity in a territory liberated from the Nazi regime.” As it is more than clear from the quoted lines, what Russia plans to do with Ukraine is exactly what Brecht describes in his poem “The Solution,” apropos the 1953 popular uprising in the German Democratic Republic: After the uprising of the 17th of June / The Secretary of the Writers’ Union / Had leaflets distributed on the Stalinallee / Stating that the people / Had forfeited the confidence of the government / And could only win it back / By increased work quotas. / Would it not in that case be simpler / for the government / To dissolve the people / And elect another?

According to Sergejcev, this is what Russia has to do with Ukraine: dissolve the Ukrainian people and elect/create another people. If we read this madness with Putin’s claim that Lenin invented Ukraine as a nation, we arrive at the conclusion that, for Putin’s ideologists, Ukraine has two fathers: Lenin (who invented it) and Hitler (i.e., the Nazis who inspired “ukronazis” to actualize Lenin’s invention). So what does this imply for the geopolitical situation of Russia? In this case, Sergejcev is quite clear, the true target is the West: Russia has a high potential for partnerships and allies with countries that the West has oppressed for centuries and which are not going to put on its yoke again. Without Russian sacrifice and struggle, these countries would not have been liberated. The denazification of Ukraine is at the same time its decolonization, which the population of Ukraine will have to understand as it begins to free itself from the intoxication, temptation, and dependence of the so-called European choice.10

In short, for Sergejcev, the solution is a radical shift in Russian foreign politics, away from the West and toward nations that have been brutally exploited by Western powers. Russia should take its new place as the leader of the global process of decolonization in all its new forms. The brutal exploitation of Third World countries by Western powers is, of course, a truth that should never be forgotten. However, it is a bit strange coming from Russia, whose history over the last few centuries is one of colonizing expansion: the whole of Siberia up to Alaska, and then down to Northern California, south-eastern Ukraine, which was conquered by Catherine the Great, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia; and now Ukraine will be decolonized by way of Russian colonization! It will be liberated against the will of the majority of its people, who will have to be re-educated to accept colonization as decolonizing liberation.

If global war is avoided, the peace will be fragile, and a looming prospect of war will fuel gigantic new military investments in order to maintain the fragile peace. What makes the peace fragile is not just a conflict of economic interests, but also a conflict of interpretations of the Ukrainian war, which is not just a conflict about facts. Faith thus overrides any knowledge of facts, which means that, from the standpoint of the “Russian truth,” there are no brutalized corpses in Bucha and elsewhere in Ukraine—it is all staged by Western propaganda. The time has come for the West—convinced that Putin and Zelensky meeting will be a step toward mutual recognition—to cease obsessively demanding such. Eventual negotiations should be done coldly, between lower-level bureaucrats—Putin and his inner circle should be ignored as much as possible, treated as criminals we are ashamed to even mention. Ultimately, it is the duty of the Russians themselves to see to this.

In old Yugoslavia, policemen were the butt of jokes; they were seen as stupid and corrupted. In one joke, a policeman returns home unexpectedly and finds his wife alone in bed, half-naked and aroused. He suspects a lover is hiding beneath the big bed, gets on his knees and looks beneath. After a couple of seconds, he stands up with a satisfied expression, mumbling, “Everything okay, nobody is there!” while quickly pushing a couple of banknotes into the pocket of his trousers. This is how accepting poverty and misery in our daily lives is paid by the misery of some form of surplus-enjoyment. In the case of Russia, the suffering of ordinary Russians is paid, not by banknotes, but by cheap patriotic pride of re-establishing Russian greatness.

At a press conference on February 7, 2022, Putin noted that the Ukrainian government didn’t agree with his demands, after which he said: “Like it or not, it’s your duty, my beauty.” The saying has well-known sexual connotations: Putin appeared to be quoting from “Sleeping Beauty in a Coffin” by the Soviet-era punk rock group Red Mold: “Sleeping Beauty in a coffin, I crept up and fucked her. Like it or dislike it, sleep, my beauty.”11 Although the Kremlin press representative claimed that Putin was referring to an old folkloric expression, the reference to Ukraine as an object of necrophilia and rape is clear.12 Russian people will have to realize that they, not the Ukrainians, are the true beauty who is being raped by those in power in Russia.