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Contemporary culture leans heavily on the image of the weak triumphing over the strong, on justice over injustice. In news headlines and film titles, we read time and again about heroic resistance to dictatorships, tyranny, violence, and war. Reality, unfortunately, is a lot more complicated and dark.

In literature, resistance usually leads to victory. In real life, it is accompanied by frustration, powerlessness, fear, and leads to countless defeats. We all know the story of David defeating Goliath, but how many Davids throughout human history have been so thoroughly crushed by a Goliath that no one even noticed?

If you take an outside look at the modern Russian resistance, which has spent decades unsuccessfully opposing Putin, its results seem catastrophically bad. Inside the country, we have a decimated civil society, corruption, opposition leaders killed or imprisoned, and people who have fallen into a state of apathy. Externally, there is the attack on Ukraine and an alliance with the worst political regimes on the planet.

But based on what results should we evaluate the resistance? Particularly given that the enemy has practically limitless resources and no moral barriers. In Russia, for example, authorities can dole out a multiyear prison sentence to someone for touching — merely touching — an armed police officer and thereby "causing him moral harm". Are the people who came out with no weapons against armed forces to blame for the fact that they couldn’t win? After all, even David had a slingshot.

Right now, we don’t know whether the Russian anti-Putin resistance will figure among the heroic movements that have brought down tyrants. Right now, it seems like we’re infinitely far from that point. But even now, we know of people who have spent years speaking out against authoritarianism, dictatorship, and war. We know of journalists who continue to do their jobs while their profession is banned; of activists helping people desert from the Russian army and assisting Ukrainians. We know of hundreds of political prisons and of their loved ones who have not abandoned them; of politicians landing in prison and perishing there; of teachers who try to keep propaganda out of their schools; of normal people attempting to convince their loved ones that what they see on television isn’t the truth.

The anti-Putin resistance is a couple of decades old, but the Russian tradition of resisting evil is centuries long, and was rarely based on the hope of a swift victory. Soviet dissident Alexander Daniel once told the author of this text that "the majority, it seems, even probably the overwhelming majority [of dissidents] had no hope for the future". Tsarist dissident and emigré Alexander Herzen wrote in "My Past and Thoughts" about the harm hope can cause. However, this gloomy realization did not stop Daniel, Herzen, or any number of others from resisting. Even when it’s impossible to win, we can save ourselves, our family, friends, values, and sense of self-esteem.

In this context, the very existence of Russian resistance and the incredible tenacity of protestors seem like a miracle, a reason to be proud of one’s compatriots and a source of hope.

Ilya Krasilshcik