"Guilt". War Dictionary by Nikolai Karpitsky

Source: PostPravda.info 01.04.2026
URL: https://postpravda.info/en/stories/dictionary-of-war/guilt-and-the-feeling-of-collective-guilt/

 

Are all Russians guilty of the war? Can we speak of collective guilt, or can guilt only be personal? How does a sense of collective guilt arise?

Guilt

Guilt is always connected to an action. The subject of an action may be an individual, a state, or a social institution that possesses a unified decision-making mechanism. If such a mechanism does not exist, then guilt cannot exist either. A subject bears guilt for an action in two cases: either when it was originally based on malicious intent, or when – regardless of intent – the action led to injustice and caused harm to people. Unlike the state, a people cannot be the subject of an action and therefore cannot be guilty of committing it, since a people represent an imagined unity of individuals, each of whom acts in their own way, while decision-making mechanisms belong not to the people as such but to specific social institutions.

Guilt presupposes political, legal, or moral punishment. Guilt is borne by an individual subject, not a collective one: a person, not society; a state, not a people; a church organization, not Christians, and so on. Punishment must always be applied only to an individual subject, even if the consequences of this punishment affect others. For example, when an outstanding cultural figure is punished for a criminal offense, society suffers, but this is not grounds for exempting that person from responsibility. Similarly, when a state is punished for unleashing an aggressive war, the entire people suffer; however, this is not grounds for exempting the state from punishment – boycotts, sanctions, and other measures, up to and including its complete dismantling. At the same time, each citizen may bear their own personal guilt for inaction or, all the more so, for complicity in the crimes of the state; in every case, however, each person has their own specific guilt.

The Feeling of Collective Guilt

It is necessary to distinguish between actual guilt and the feeling of guilt. Although a people cannot bear collective guilt, a person may experience a feeling of guilt for their people, since a feeling of guilt can relate not only to one’s own actions but also to the actions of other people or groups with whom one identifies. For example, children are not guilty of their parents’ actions, but they may feel guilt for them. Thus, although collective guilt cannot exist, a feeling of collective guilt is formed on the basis of common identity. A person can experience it together with those with whom they identify: family, church, people, country, and so on.

In mythological and religious contexts, the feeling of collective guilt and guilt itself are practically indistinguishable; therefore, it is entirely justified to say that God, fate, history, or higher powers punish a people for guilt.

Types of Guilt

Criminal guilt is determined by the fact of committing a crime that is legally defined and punishable by law. It is always personal in nature. Even if a crime is committed by an organization, each of its members is legally responsible for their own personal guilt. In addition to criminal guilt, Karl Jaspers distinguishes political, moral, and metaphysical guilt.

If the residents of a country supported the regime, they bear moral guilt for this; ignorance, lack of understanding of the situation, or the absence of its legal qualification cannot serve as justification. Moral guilt is personal in nature, since it concerns specific subjects and their actions.

Political guilt is the guilt of all citizens for the regime they endure, even if they themselves are victims of that regime and did not directly participate in its crimes. This is where its collective character manifests itself. Since factual guilt cannot be collective, political guilt is expressed in the feeling of guilt and in a willingness to bear responsibility for the crimes of one’s own state and of one’s fellow citizens who supported the regime.

Metaphysical guilt is expressed in a feeling of responsibility for one’s own inaction when crimes are being committed nearby. Every Russian bears metaphysical guilt for Russia’s crimes, because there is always something they could have done but did not do. Since this remainder cannot be precisely determined, metaphysical guilt is given not as a universally valid fact, but as a feeling of personal responsibility for not having done everything one could. At the core of metaphysical guilt lies a feeling of shared human solidarity; the denial of metaphysical guilt is a sign of indifference toward other people and toward their right to life.

Metaphysical Guilt and Responsibility for Russia’s War Against Ukraine

Hannah Arendt draws a distinction between guilt and responsibility. While criminal and moral guilt are factual in nature – that is, they are determined by the actions of a specific subject – political and metaphysical guilt may be unrelated to one’s own actions and, in such cases, manifest only as an inner feeling. Accordingly, what Karl Jaspers called political and metaphysical guilt is understood by Hannah Arendt as a form of responsibility rather than factual guilt.

Guilt for Russia’s war against Ukraine is borne by the state as a social institution, as well as by all those who are complicit in this crime. At the same time, an individual citizen of Russia may experience a feeling of metaphysical guilt for not having done everything possible to stop the war, and a feeling of political guilt for their affiliation with the aggressor state. These experiences express both the personal and the collective responsibility of a citizen for the war unleashed by their state. Although this feeling is experienced individually, it can be shared by others, leading to the formation in public consciousness of a collective feeling of guilt for the war, on the basis of which an understanding of collective responsibility arises. If a person ignores this responsibility, they bear personal guilt for their own irresponsibility.