The electoral conscience: why did people forgive the Lubyanka executioners, but not Gaidar

Marina Shapovalova, writer

There is a strangeness in the ease with which people forgive the sadistic guards and Lubyanka executioners who have lived to the point of deep gray hairs, blazing with hatred for Chubais or the late Yegor Gaidar.

Those who tortured and tormented, who turned the life and death of millions into an unbearable nightmare, if they were not previously buried with honors, live in warmth and satiety, more often in honor and respect, marked by orders and personal pensions. And nothing. Nobody cares. At best, about them - indifference, or even reasoning, they say, what now to remember. And at the same people, when they mention the reformers of the 90s, they almost gnash their teeth. Only curses to the deceased. With the living, perhaps, there would be many who would like to get even.

One explanation: someone else's pain does not bother. They mocked others who do not exist - we do not hold evil against their tormentors. And these, from the 90s, are the culprits of our worries. What kind of experiences - there is no objective measure for the suffering of others. To each their own seem terrible, no comparison. What exactly is the fault of the "culprits" - it is also not a question: whom you blamed for your troubles, they are guilty of everything for you.

But there is also another explanation. Envy.

Former executioners are not envied. With all their well-being, for there is something dark, stinking in its foundation. What you don't want to touch with your thoughts, because from such thoughts there is a kind of confusion in your soul. Though small, but unpleasant, vaguely disturbing. As if the suffering of those killed long ago is a reproach to you: after all, by pure chance they got there, not you. It is better to get around this superstitiously, not remembering in vain either the tortured or the tormentors. Forget. And they forget.

There is no doubt about the "culprits" from the 90s. Whether it's about reformers, bankers or oligarchs - none of those who hate would feel guilty in their place. Indiscriminately and outrageously accusing them of theft, they themselves have no doubt that, if they could, they would have stolen as much as they could, and then they would have enjoyed sailing on yachts. Conscience does not give alarming signals.

Therefore, envy burns with hellish fire from within.

Original is here.