Kurginyan: The defeat in the cold war brought about a posttraumatic syndrome

17.03.2023, Moscow, Russia.

The defeat in the cold war brought the people of Russia to a condition that can be called a posttraumatic syndrome, said political scientist, philosopher and the leader of the Essence of Time movement Sergey Kurginyan on March 10 speaking on the program Conversation with a Sage on the Zvezda radio station.

Kurginyan indicated that in Russia today we still lack any serious discussion of what happened in 1991 and whether the cold war was lost. And we cannot discuss our country’s future if we fail to acknowledge its defeat in the cold war and all the devastation it brought.

According to Kurginyan, the defeat in the cold war is indisputable: Russia lost territories that had been successfully defended through a huge sacrifice during the Great Patriotic War. Now we have to take these territories back piece by piece. As a result of that defeat, the most advanced productive forces of the state were devastated along with design bureaus, the army, the healthcare system etc. Russians became a separated people, and the Russian population suffers severe discrimination in the post-Soviet republics.

It would be too strange and peculiar to deny our defeat in the cold war, with all the territories and other things that we lost, Kurginyan stressed.

When so much is lost, people suffer from posttraumatic conditions. A striking example of such conditions in society took place after the USA lost the war in Vietnam.

They admitted that it was a defeat and that the defeat was a trauma that entailed a posttraumatic condition,” he stressed. Having acknowledged the defeat, the country began to overcome it.

The consequences of a trauma cannot be cured if the patient refuses to acknowledge that he is injured. He says, ‘I have no trauma.’ What can we do then? Kurginyan believes.

The political scientist noted that the defeat in the cold war definitely affected certain groups inside the Russian society. For example, the Russian army was an army after a defeat, and it suffered a substantial demilitarization that usually takes place after a war is lost.

It was an army after defeat! It was a substantial demilitarization <…> A profound demilitarization! <…> Kurginyan said.

He believes that in order to take revenge we must acknowledge our overwhelming defeat in the cold war and to start overcoming the posttraumatic syndrome in our society.

Source: Rossa Primavera News Agency