The Psychopathology of a Heroic Past: Experience Beyond Historical Memory
Denial of memory, compensatory recollections of heroism, and the sacralization of a criminal past: This is an excerpt from Dr. Mikhail Reshetnikov’s book “Psychological Trauma,” where he explores how wars unleash humanity’s darkest instincts, deforming the psyche of participants, destroying the cultural framework that makes us individuals, and why the destructive experience of war affects not only former participants but also the moral state of society as a whole.
War and the Deformation of Memory
The traditional Russian glorification of military history has undergone significant changes in recent years, influenced by the political and moral evaluation of the Afghan and Chechen conflicts, as well as by more complete and objective information about the horrors of the Civil and Second World Wars.
Without delving into detailed justification, I want to note that heroization is usually reserved for victorious wars and always serves a compensatory function. Defeat, including moral defeat—even in a successful campaign—creates a fundamentally different social and psychological situation for its participants, the effects of which last a lifetime.
In 1989, based on the Afghan experience and, initially, a skeptical but increasingly shocking comparison with the experiences of World War II veterans, I called war an “epidemic of immorality,” echoing N.I. Pirogov’s famous definition.
This conclusion was not based on isolated cases of marginalized language and behavior, nor even on the inherent immorality (by 20th-century moral standards) of resolving conflict through physical destruction of the enemy—often accepted and justified as a necessary evil. Rather, it was the real criminalization and psychotization of individual behavior in combat conditions.
The Dark Side of Heroism
Analysis over recent years led me to a difficult conclusion: alongside real heroism, mutual support, and the positive attributes of war, acts such as looting, murder (including among one’s own), medieval torture, cruelty to prisoners, perverse sexual violence against civilians (especially on foreign soil), armed robbery, and pillaging are not isolated incidents but characteristic phenomena of any army once it enters enemy territory—especially when there is a language barrier.
Later, and usually much later, war becomes associated in the minds of its participants with the fear of death, the humiliation of captivity, unforgivable guilt, and the inevitability of retribution. Unlike the publicly proclaimed heroic memories, these feelings are silently projected onto all interpersonal relationships, especially within families, forming part or even the entirety of their emotional landscape—where the silent horror of the day is replaced by the screams of night terrors.
Today, even popular literature describes some behavioral and psychopathological equivalents of this persistent anxiety: fear of being attacked from behind, delusional identification with the dead, obsessive self-punishment, and so on. These are the most obvious, extreme, and thus easily identified manifestations of PTSD, behind which lie agonizing memories of the past.
It might seem easiest to forget everything, but memory does not let go. We often overlook that these memories are deeply personalized by friends who remained in the past, and erasing the dead from memory is, for most, akin to killing them again—something usually impossible. The survivors feel obligated not only to remember but to avenge betrayed hopes, tarnished glory, violated honor, and humiliated dignity. Any action that touches these painful nerves can provoke disproportionate, sometimes shockingly cruel reactions.
War Trauma in Families and Society
In observing Afghan veterans’ families, I noticed that some parents willingly share their experiences with their children, always embellishing and casting their military past in a positive light. Others completely reject their past, making it seem so horrific that it cannot be mentioned at home. Similar reactions were observed in Germany among the children of Nazis and are now seen in Russia among descendants of those involved in the mass repressions of the 1930s.
The common thread is that real participants in combat (or later criminalized) actions have no way to verbalize—and thus reject—their criminal experiences and painful memories, which are rarely discussed even among their own. Even when former fighters see psychiatrists or therapists, most cannot bring themselves to talk about the atrocities they committed—torture, murder, sexual violence, and massacres—acts whose reality I do not doubt.
To avoid a one-sided view, it must be said that the opposing side committed similar acts. For example, Soviet food convoys were not only ambushed by Mujahideen, but the dead soldiers were mutilated in horrific ways.
Over time, memories of such “combat” situations seem to fade, following the familiar script: “I did this,” says memory. “I couldn’t have done this,” says conscience. “And gradually, memory recedes.” But this is just a metaphor. In reality, it is on this “broth of unspoken memories” that the virus of future psychopathology grows. Even in long-term therapy, such topics are often avoided by tacit agreement, making the therapeutic relationship as unbearable as any other.
Therapists unfamiliar with this specific (combat) experience will inevitably encounter something unknown and incomprehensible, while the suffering veterans will feel unheard and misunderstood, their semi-criminal and criminal experiences becoming an ever-heavier burden. Perhaps this is why, according to American data, the number of Vietnam veterans who have committed suicide long ago surpassed the number killed in the war. The suicide rate among Afghan veterans is also rising.
The Silence of History and Its Consequences
Analysis of numerous sources on past wars shows that this specific combat experience always remains outside historical memory. Survivors’ silence transforms into the deafness of subsequent generations, as what some could not say, others cannot hear. The denial of the full, repulsive reality of war and the growing production of compensatory heroic memories is the eternal dilemma of survivors, shaping their ambivalence toward the past and all forms of postwar behavior, including artistic and scientific myth-making. But the burden of painful memories does not diminish. The traditional Russian sacralization of such (criminal and semi-criminal) experience affects not only former participants but also the moral state of society as a whole.
The most agonizing aspect is the hopelessness—the inability to reject these memories. If veterans spoke the truth about violence, murder, looting, torture, and so on, they would not only be misunderstood but not even listened to. Thus, a chasm of misunderstanding always separates real participants from everyone else—including family and even qualified therapists.
It is also not understood that tens of thousands of people whose memories are poisoned by criminal experience pose a real threat not only to themselves but to society as a whole. Unfortunately, we still lack reliable statistics and must rely on American data, which show that rates of addiction, crime, antisocial behavior, divorce, and family and social discord among local war veterans are several times higher than in the general population—even though the U.S. spends $2–3 billion annually on veteran rehabilitation.
It is important to note that isolated use of medication has little positive effect and often drives the illness deeper, where it erupts as shocking crimes and negative emotions.
Specifics of Local Wars and Their Aftermath
Another feature of local wars: When the entire country faces a military threat, the division between front and rear is lost, and every soldier ultimately defends his home and family. Here, there is unity—a national war is the clearest manifestation of national unity. In a local conflict, the situation is different: the country continues its normal life, and only a portion of the young generation, those of draft age, are thrown into the bloodbath.
Another paradox: Despite the horrors and criminalization of war, returning to civilian life, young people feel an inexplicable need for life to be different—more honest, noble, and sincere. Disappointment comes quickly.
This is the root of the feeling among veterans of “discredited” wars that much in life is pointless. A characteristic feature is a cultivated disregard for health, masking survivor’s guilt—feeling that they have already received more than those who died. The value of this “second” life, won by chance, is much less, and this attitude is passed to future generations, coloring all moral standards and making their future inherently tragic. If life is of little value, what is valuable?
This also explains the ease with which former fighters join criminal organizations, easily crossing the barrier against killing again. Prolonged threat of death fundamentally changes mentality, blurring the lines between good and evil, heroism and crime.
Culture, Prohibitions, and the Erosion of Morality
Culture is not only about art, architecture, or literature, but also about prohibitions. We are not born knowing them; we learn them through socialization—first from parents, then from society. Contrary to pseudo-scientific claims of innate morality, we do not like these prohibitions, but we must obey them. This elevates humans, who become so not because of, but despite their nature, by submitting to social morality.
War nullifies these laws, especially the prohibitions against killing, theft, and sexual violence.
Humans differ from most other creatures not only in thought, upright posture, and speech, but even more in hypersexuality and hyperaggressiveness. No other species puts so much effort into inventing new ways to destroy its own kind. Even the bloodiest animal conflicts end with the first blood and the loser’s retreat. Killing one’s own kind is not a biological goal. No other species, however sexually driven, overcomes natural barriers like humans do. Hypersexuality and natural aggressiveness are typical human traits, but in normal conditions, we suppress them—even from ourselves.
This is why war, which removes these prohibitions, can be so attractive. Up to 12% of former Afghan combatants (sample from 1991, 2,000 people) would like to serve in any army, regardless of country, as a contract soldier.
Thus, war is equally a crime against the individual and against culture, as it destroys the cultural framework that makes us individuals and exposes our animal nature, which is the same and equally impersonal in everyone. Notably, as our research in Afghanistan showed, intellectuals die first, as they are least able to adapt to combat conditions. Typically, during first contact with the enemy, up to 75% of ammunition is fired into the air out of shock, even by well-trained soldiers. A real soldier emerges only after being filled with hatred for the enemy and internalizing the logic: kill or be killed—usually after being wounded or losing a comrade.
The idea that society, having taught people to kill, must also be responsible for rehabilitating professional killers—or else has no moral right to judge them for using this skill in civilian life—has yet to gain acceptance.
Society still turns away from this problem, blaming a moral crisis caused by the specifics of the Afghan or Chechen wars, or the modern situation in general, and tries to see it as a rare, uncharacteristic phenomenon. The older generation, in particular, resists even indirect attempts to address this issue, often attributing it to the “perversion” of researchers or claiming “this didn’t happen” in the Great Patriotic War. Only recently has more reliable information about Nazi atrocities emerged; about “retaliatory” actions, almost nothing. I cannot cite my respondents’ testimonies, so I will end with foreign data: At the 1992 Berlin Film Festival, a documentary presented eyewitness accounts of Soviet soldiers raping over 2 million women in Poland and Germany in 1945. Some survivors, then 15–16 years old, reported being raped up to 100 times. In some cases, to avoid court-martial for spreading venereal diseases, girls were shot immediately after being assaulted.
This was the generation that raised mine. We do not know what guilt, shame, and personal tragedies they endured. I cannot believe that, 15–16 years later, looking at their own daughters, they did not remember those unfortunate Polish and German women. But we do not know. Today, we can only guess at the painful conflicts in the souls of many modern combatants. There is no methodologically sound rehabilitation, and moral deviations are outside Russian psychiatric science. This means the next generation is unprotected from the direct or indirect transmission of hidden criminal experience.