“Obey and shut up” – Russian recruits in training
Image: AP
The historian Martin Schulze Wessel explains why Russia repeatedly and ruthlessly burns its own soldiers. In an interview, he says, Putin’s regime will not be able to survive a defeat.
Professor, dozens, maybe hundreds of soldiers of the Russian invasion army have just died in Ukraine because nobody at their base in Makiivka was looking after their safety. Ukrainian Chief of Staff Valeryi Zalushnyi says this negligence is due to the fact that since Tsar Peter I, Russian officers have followed the model of “dershimorda” – i.e. the motto: “Obey and shut up, otherwise you’re screwed”.
In Gogol’s comedy “The Revisor”, Derschimorda is a violent, irresponsible policeman, i.e. a figure of everyday social life. But the Russian army is the reflection of its society. And in Russian history, since Peter the First, that is, for 300 years, there have been periods in which blatant deficiencies in the leadership and morale of the army were a result of social ills.
