Collective Guilt is Not Only a Bad Idea, It’s Bad Psychology

On 18th February Kamala Harris, speaking at the Munich Security Council, announced that Russia must be held accountable for committing crimes against humanity in the invasion of Ukraine. In defending the “international order”, there is growing pressure within NATO to seek justice through the International Criminal Court. Philippe Sands, however, wants to address blame more specifically at Putin and is proposing a special criminal tribunal to investigate what he refers to as a “leadership crime.”

Ironically, it was the Soviet jurist, Aron Trainin, sent by Stalin to establish the legal framework for the Nuremberg Trials, who introduced the concept of the “crime of aggression” aimed at making Germany’s Nazi military and political leaders accountable for the invasion and occupation of other countries. 

“Leadership crimes” are not pointing the finger at the masses nor at those who follow orders, but at their leaders – the leaders who dictate these crimes and legitimize them. This is an important distinction that raises questions about collective responsibility and what we call collective guilt, an accusation usually made in retrospect. If we blame Putin for the invasion of Ukraine, what does this say about the Russian people? Are they also guilty of crimes against humanity? This is in effect what has happened with post Nazi Germany. Should Russia be any different?

In the West we are aware that the support for Putin and the Ukraine invasion within Russia is, firstly, not universal and, secondly, largely controlled by state propaganda and censorship, including massive crackdowns on public dissent. Over 20,000 dissenters were arrested last year alone with most activists now either in exile or in jail. We also know the power of “false truths”. This does not excuse the Russian people from their responsibility as citizens but it certainly restricts their ability to make informed choices or even to trust their day to day media. 

Looking back at Nazi Germany, we are also aware of the pervasive propaganda and persecution that effectively silenced dissent amongst the population. Those leaders responsible for the regime’s crimes and many of those who were complicit in carrying out orders have been brought to trial. Hitler escaped the consequences of his defeat by suicide. At the end of the war there was a widespread assumption that the German people were collectively guilty for the crimes that had been committed in the name of their country and, as such, should feel guilty. This assumption not only pertains to Germany but to other nations in the aftermath of genocide, e.g., Rwanda, Kosovo, Khmer Rouge, and so on. But is the idea of collective guilt actually valid? And is it helpful to us in understanding how these crimes come about and how to prevent them?

What we are seeing now in Russia is how an autocratic leader is able to sweep an entire country into a vortex of madness. It happens gradually over years and the interpretation of history becomes the leader’s greatest lever and self-fulfilling narrative. This is how evil takes hold of large groups, creating a new rationale for aggression in which the paranoid fantasies of murderous intent are projected onto the “other”, the enemy. It is not so dissimilar to the Nazi regime and Hitler’s rationale for invading Poland. Within this mad vortex, the population can be neither guilty nor innocent, they become believers in a world infected by evil. If we label the Russian population as “guilty”, as we did with the Germans, are we not, as Viktor Frankl argued in relation to post war Germany, simply mirroring the racism that is being directed against the Ukrainians by the Russians?

Sands’ idea of “leadership crimes” underscores Hannah Arendt’s warning, “When all are guilty, no one is: confessions of collective guilt are the best possible safeguard against the discovery of culprits.” It is Putin and leaders like him who must be held accountable first and foremost for crimes against humanity. 

See Coline Covington’s forthcoming book, Who’s to Blame? Collective Guilt on Trial, to be published by Routledge in May 2023.