«Stockholm Syndrome» as the ultimate goal of a totalitarian regime: from origins to modern times

Abstract

The article talks about totalitarianism, the desire of the authorities to keep people in subjection, the famines, fear and torture in the USSR. The author shows the difficult life in Ukraine and emphasizes that it occupied an important place in the empire, which was the Soviet Union, where there were hot and famine wars. To denote the phenomenon of obedience in society, D. Graham uses another name - "social Stockholm syndrome". The researcher proposes to apply this concept in a broad sense, ie bearing in mind the traumatic psychological dependence not only of hostages but also of other social groups. Attempts to understand the psychological basis of post-Soviet society (most often deformations of Ukrainian national identity, loss of historical memory, social passivity, inferior elite, etc.) are often found on websites and blogs, where the term "Stockholm syndrome" is used to explain Soviet worldviews. Historian Lyudmila Hrynevych also compares the Holodomor and the Holocaust, but in a different aspect. Analysis of the consequences of the Holocaust shows that many people who witnessed and suffered torture, in spite of everything, managed to cultivate a new desire to live and develop business and social activity. Signs of "social Stockholm syndrome" include symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder in Holodomor victims and some symptoms of historical trauma in their descendants, a strong emotional connection with the aggressor, the dominance of the Soviet cultural paradigm over the national, lack of self-consciousness, rejection of selfconsciousness victims of genocide, fear of liberation (desire to return to the USSR), fear of revenge, aggression against the descendants of the "rich" who destroyed the Soviet Union, expectations of the return of the "leading role" of the Communist Party and the revival of the Soviet state, rationalization and distortion of "episodes" of violence aggressor ("caring Stalin") both in the direct participants of events, and in their descendants who through the relatives have mastered the changed memory of the past.