The expression “civil war” is entering common usage, and this seems to me very dangerous. Dangerous because it completely distorts the meaning of what is happening, reducing it to some sort of irrational state in which “citizens,” for reasons known only to them, suddenly start “killing” each other out of nowhere.
In principle, it is quite difficult to find a pure example of a “civil” war in history; citizens are almost always drawn into conflict by some groups. And in the case of present-day Ukraine, the phrase “civil war” does not fit at all. Before us is a confrontation between the state and the people—that is, citizens exist only on one side.
Nevertheless, social laws have not been abolished and they continue their quiet work. In particular, what is commonly called the principle of “divide and rule” is at work. Essentially, these words describe the solution to a purely economic problem: reducing costs. If we are talking about forceful control of a large group of people whose purpose is obtaining income (tribute), then one of the best solutions is to pit these people against each other, so that they are less aware of the forced tribute collection and of the people in whose favor it is collected.
This is a traditional policy several thousand years old, and over time it has proven its effectiveness.
How and why does this work? The thing is that we think in patterns, and this is inevitable. No reasoning is possible without a preceding theory; this is how our consciousness is arranged. We must classify everything, hang a label on everything, put it in a little box, and then establish (or invent) connections between the classified phenomena. Such is human nature; classification already begins at the level of the language we speak and think in. Therefore, each of us has our own picture of the world, which, of course, can change and be corrected. In some areas, this picture is quite close to what can be called “reality,” while in others we simply reproduce “commonly available” (as a rule, erroneous) information. But, one way or another, such a picture exists, and a person without it is unthinkable.
In general, as a result, regarding a large class of social phenomena, myths form—that is, popular and simple universal pictures of the world into which people divide according to myths, inserting facts of surrounding life in order to convince themselves that the picture of the world is whole and nothing threatens it.
So, “divide and rule” is a game with labels, little boxes, inscriptions, and, above all, with myths. As a rule, it works best in those areas where the majority is incompetent and where their picture of the world is based not on their own experience. History is not painful for historians, for those professionally engaged in it; it troubles laypeople who try to find justification for their actions there. The same can be said about “politics”—the loudest are not those who study it, but those who “engage” in it over the kitchen table and so on.
The method of this game is to “help” the client place an event into their picture of the world, into a myth, so that they themselves become convinced that this myth is correct. For example, provocation is an ideal method of such work. If in a conflict there are two sides and some unpleasant event occurs, the bearers of myths immediately identify it as the will of those who play the role of villain in their myth. Since both sides do this, the provocateur wins.
In Ukraine, two stable myths describing “politics” have taken shape. Moreover, their bearers are predominantly concentrated in different regions. Now it so happens that the state is identified with one myth, and the forces opposing it are identified with the other. Generally speaking, in the rhetoric of state supporters you will hear “Washington’s regional committee,” “Banderites,” “America,” while in the rhetoric of opponents you will hear “Russia,” “Putin,” “Ukrainophobes,” and so on; these lists will be very long.
The task the state is currently solving is to attribute the protests as much as possible to one mythology, in order to paralyze the supporters of the other mythology, not to give them a convincing reason to participate in the protests. And the best result for the state is for the confrontation between people and the state to transform into a situation where supporters of the two mythologies will voluntarily destroy each other, but, I repeat, we are still far from this.
Why am I writing about this? Unfortunately, the “divide and rule” strategy is strong precisely because the state does not need to make great efforts to implement it. People will do everything voluntarily on their own; they just need to be heated up. Currently, I observe mass “unfriending” online, a growth in intolerance and aggression, and, of course, I myself am not without sin here. But people, unlike other creatures, can rationalize everything—including the fact that they place events in little boxes and hang labels on them. If we do not want the conflict between the people and power to develop into a civil conflict, we must always remember that to recognize a fact, it is not at all necessary to add the “hand of Moscow” to it. We must remember that several years before any Maidans, the authorities were ruining people, taking away businesses, and openly mocking people. And this—not the “hand of the Washington regional committee”—became the real cause of the protests. We must remember that every label hung on an opponent now is a small victory for the regime. And if you consider yourself a heroic network samurai, it would not be amiss to recall that samurai were prescribed, in difficult situations, to give an answer after first counting to seven. This is not so difficult to do, and it may someday save someone’s life, believe me.