"Necro-imperialism". War Dictionary by Nikolai Kapitsky

Source: PostPravda.info 10.04.2025

URL: https://postpravda.info/en/top-news/necro-imperialism-the-core-of-modern-russia-dictionary-of-war/

The tragedy in Kryvyi Rih prompted the editorial team of PostPravda.info to choose the term “necro-imperialism” as the subject of the next article in the Dictionary of War by Prof. Nikolai Karpitsky. On April 4, 2025, a missile strike on Kryvyi Rih took the lives of 18 people, half of whom were children. More than seventy people were injured. This attack on civilians had no military purpose. Russia continues, day after day, to kill people in Ukraine. However, when it does so in such a demonstrative and senseless way, an understanding emerges: the main motivation is necrophilia.

An ordinary person wants to live, and therefore seeks to see the world as a place where one can simply live. A Western citizen wants to believe that Russia’s war against Ukraine, though criminal, is still rationally explainable. That gives hope for a peaceful future. The concept of “necro-imperialism,” which reflects the essence of contemporary Russia, destroys that hope, and therefore cannot become popular. A Russian citizen also wants to live and thus seeks to adapt to power. However, their desire to live is in conflict with the necrophilia of that power. They are faced with a choice: to live among necrophiles, as if in hell, or to become one themselves.

Necro-imperialism

Necro-imperialism is a form of imperialism characteristic of contemporary Russia, which emerged as a result of a mutation of imperial consciousness. In the necro-imperial view, death is seen as a universal way of solving all problems, especially the problem of consolidating power. Protecting and ensuring a normal life for citizens is not treated as a task of state power at all, and all people who are not dependent on it are seen as a potential threat. Therefore, killing and destruction become sufficient goals for waging war.

At the root of necro-imperialism lies the fear of the complexity of the world and the belief that evil is embedded in the nature of modern Western civilization, based on freedom, law, and democracy. In relation to the enemy, all moral boundaries disappear—every crime is justified. Evil toward the enemy is treated as good, and good as evil. In mass consciousness, necro-imperialism gives rise to social necrophilia—a suppression of empathy, a denial of others’ right to exist, and a perception of death as a way to simplify the world.

Social Necrophilia

Social necrophilia is the spread in society of an attitude that excludes empathy and compassion, where other people are seen either as objects or as hostile forces with no right to exist. The suppression of empathy on a social level takes place through seeing the surrounding world as alien and hostile. This perception can be spontaneous or result from systematic propaganda that claims all problems come from an external enemy, inherently evil in nature.

The spread of social necrophilia is encouraged by the fear of the world’s complexity, which intensifies along with the degradation of personality and a shift to a primitive perception of reality. When this process affects masses of people, leading to personal and social degradation, the term “lumpenization” can be used. This doesn’t refer only to the lumpenproletariat, but to lumpens in all social strata—lumpen-intellectuals, lumpen-Orthodox, etc. Lumpenization facilitated the rapid spread of necrophilic sentiment in Russian society and the mutation of imperial consciousness. The war hysteria that began with the invasion of Ukraine intensified the necrophilic mood but was not its original cause.

The First Mutation of Imperial Consciousness

Archaic Russian imperialism was not a unique phenomenon—other empires also existed. In the 16th century, it was ideologically shaped as the concept of “Moscow—the Third Rome,” according to which Russia’s mission was the “gathering of lands,” as if the independent existence of nations on those lands had no value outside of Russia. In the 20th century, archaic empires either collapsed or transformed.

In the 20th century, totalitarian ideologies appeared based on a Manichean understanding of evil, according to which evil is attributed to the very essence of the enemy or the enemy side of the world. Under their influence, imperial consciousness underwent a mutation, leading to the emergence of totalitarian imperialism in the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. The Bolsheviks believed that evil lies in the social nature of humans, which meant the world was doomed to class struggle. To cleanse the world of evil, a world revolution was needed. The Nazis, in turn, believed that evil lies in the biological nature of “imperfect” people and justified war for world domination with the need to eliminate them.

The perception of the surrounding world as evil transforms archaic imperialism into totalitarian imperialism, in which power no longer serves the welfare of the empire but rather the continued expansion and strengthening of itself, which, in light of totalitarian ideology, is justified by the need to cleanse the hostile world of evil.

The Second Mutation – The Birth of Necro-Imperialism

The second mutation of imperial consciousness transformed totalitarian imperialism into necrophilic imperialism, or necro-imperialism. Whereas communists set for themselves the illusory goal of fighting the surrounding world, for necro-imperialists the fight itself became the goal.

This mutation culminated with the rise to power of Putin and the security services, though its roots go back to the practices of the Cheka and NKVD, where the killing of innocents was treated as a way to “simplify” society.

In modern Russia, lumpenization is promoted—lumpens take the place of specialists, displacing professionals. A trend emerges of turning lumpens into a privileged social class. Lumpens fear the complexity of the world, so they readily accept the idea that the West is the embodiment of evil and that its destruction is good, because it simplifies the world. As a result, a necrophilic mood spreads in society, according to which destruction and death are seen as a desirable simplification of reality.

Russian necro-imperialists claim that the West imposed a false national identity on Ukraine, which allegedly led to Ukraine becoming part of global evil. In their logic, the destruction of Ukrainian identity is a fight against evil, and the atrocities committed by the Russian army in Ukraine are necessary and justified. The war on Ukrainian territory is understood as a war against the West, and after the destruction of Ukraine, NATO countries should be the next target.

Necro-imperialists are driven by irrational motivations that rationally thinking politicians in democratic countries do not understand. The mistaken conclusion that Russia would not go to war because it would not benefit from it led to European countries being unprepared for war. At the start of the full-scale invasion in 2022, both in Ukraine and in the West, the mistaken belief prevailed that losses in the Russian army would convince the Russian leadership of the futility of war as a way to achieve its goals. This mistake cost Ukraine heavy losses in 2024. The decision to continue a war of attrition that cannot be won stems precisely from necro-imperial, not archaic imperial logic.

“Russia”. War Dictionary by Nikolai Kapitsky

Source: PostPravda.info 18.02.2025

URL: https://postpravda.info/en/top-news/war-dictionary-can-the-word-russia-be-used-as-the-name-of-a-country/

PostPravda.Info is launching a new project called War Dictionary. Its goal is to “correct” or clarify concepts that, for example, politicians often misunderstand. These misunderstandings lead to errors, which frequently result in the loss of lives, tragic consequences on the front lines, and in the future, may even cause a global war. “One such mistake is related to the misunderstanding of Russia’s nature and the reasons behind the ongoing war,” says the author of War Dictionary, Professor Nikolai Karpitsky, a Russian opposition figure who has been in hiding in Ukraine since 2015.

As the Russian philosopher explains, today Russia is waging war against Ukraine while simultaneously claiming that it is actually opposing the “collective West.” Meanwhile, many Western politicians believe that this war is simply a misunderstanding and that peace can be easily negotiated.

So, let’s consider what the word “Russia” really means. Can it be used as the name of a country, just as we call France, Poland, or Ukraine? Or does it refer to any territory that the Kremlin has brought under its control? Perhaps it is an empty term and a product of political ideology? “This term is crucial to understanding the war, which is why it has been addressed first,” explains Professor Nikolai Karpitsky.

Russia

The word “Russia” has two meanings. It is both the name of a modern or previous state entity in northern Eurasia and an ideological construct that replaces the concept of a country. A country is part of the world and is distinguished based on the common historical or cultural destiny of the peoples who consider it their homeland or ancestral home. For this reason, different state formations emerging on the territory of a country share the same name and are viewed as a single nation.

The Modern Russian State – The Russian Federation

After the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia became the name of the largest Soviet republic to gain independence. However, imperial sentiments quickly triumphed in the collective consciousness, and the collapse of the USSR came to be understood not as a liberation from the Soviet Empire but as a tragedy related to the loss of lands belonging to Russia. This was aided by the fact that the Russian government officially declared itself the successor to the Soviet Union. This sentiment became a precondition for justifying the seizure of neighboring countries’ territories, which, in the collective consciousness, is seen as a just war for the return of lost lands.

Today, Russia has lost the key features of a state. Notably, the unity of the legal sphere has been practically destroyed, with arbitrary power replacing law. Regional elections have been canceled, and the central government has lost legitimacy following the re-election of the president in violation of the Constitution. Not only is there an absence of a legal system, but there is also a lack of such an important state characteristic as universally recognized borders. The Russian government effectively nullified them when it announced the annexation of several Ukrainian territories, including those it does not control.

Country of Russia

In the collective consciousness, Russia is a vague and broad concept that can encompass various territories, which do not share a common historical or cultural destiny, such as Dagestan and Chukotka. This understanding of Russia differs from that of any other country, which is typically defined as a territory based on the people who have lived there for a significant period, according to historical standards.

In such cases, a territory is understood as a country with the same name as its nation or a union of nations with a shared historical destiny—Italy, Germany, Poland, Iran, China, India… Various states with different names may historically arise on the territory of a country, but all will be associated with that country. Sometimes, a country can stand out as the historical territory of a nation that later united other nations into a broader state, as in the case of England, which is part of the United Kingdom.

However, it is impossible to historically identify such a primary territory associated with the Russian nation that could be called a country named “Russia.” In Russian social consciousness, there is a complete absence of the idea of a primary territory of the nation, distinct from other territories acquired throughout history. Furthermore, the territory of the medieval Tsardom of Moscow, which could formally be associated with the original homeland of Russians, does not have a distinct name.

In Ukraine, this territory might be referred to as “Moscovia,” but such a concept does not exist in Russian collective consciousness. The other lands and peoples currently united under the Russian state are not bound by any common cultural or historical destiny.

Kyivan Rus cannot be the historical homeland of modern Russia, as its successor is an entirely different country—Ukraine. The Tsardom of Moscow arose through the subjugation of neighboring peoples and the genocide of the population of Novgorod, which differed from the Muscovites in language, social organization, and self-identity. Therefore, the lands of Pskov-Novgorod are mistakenly associated with the historical original homeland of Russia.

As a result, it is unclear where to draw the boundary of this ancestral homeland. The average Russian does not know where the border begins between the lands of other nations that were conquered; for example, they are convinced that the Volga River is inherently Russian. Thus, the concept of Russia as a country remains undefined and is therefore replaced in the collective consciousness by an ideological construct.

Russia as an Ideological Construct

This concept stems from the principle of defining a country not by its culture or the people inhabiting it, but by power. In Russian mass consciousness, Russia is associated not with a specific country but with an ideological construct—specifically, any territory that is or was controlled by the central government.

The boundaries of this image of Russia are not clearly defined and depend on the perspective of the bearer of mass consciousness: Russia, in its current state, includes the entire territory of the Russian Federation and the occupied regions of Ukraine; from the perspective of the recent past, it includes all the countries that were part of the USSR; from the distant past, it even includes Poland, Finland, and Alaska. As a result, Russia is equated with the Soviet Union, Peter the Great’s Russian Empire, the Tsardom of Moscow, and Kyivan Rus, which contradicts historical scholarship.

Russia and Russian Nationalism

Based on this ideological construct, a specific form of nationalism has developed in the mass consciousness of Russians. Since Russia is considered any land controlled by the authorities, it is expected that the authorities will transform these lands to make them suitable for Russian-speaking people, meaning they will provide conditions for everyone to understand the Russian language. This nationalism can take a radical form, in which other languages are seen as relics of the past that can be tolerated, except for Belarusian and Ukrainian, which are considered false or harmful languages because their existence challenges the unity of Russians, Belarusians, and Ukrainians as one nation. This form of nationalism is reinforced by the false notion that Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians are one nation, or at least descended from one nation.

Thus, the modern understanding of Russia has been shaped not by cultural and historical experiences but by ideology and correlates not with a country but with territory controlled—or once controlled—by the central government. This serves as justification for new wars of conquest, including Russia’s current war against Ukraine. It means that the very concept of Russia encompasses ideological attitudes that are destructive and push toward further wars. Awareness of this has led to Russia being frequently referred to as “Mordor” in everyday communication in Ukraine, a term borrowed from Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings.