The concept of mankind as a family drives deep in Russian tradition. This principle is called sobornost, meaning a spiritual community of many conjointly living people. Sobornost was a cultural doctrine to promote unity and cooperation as opposed to individualism, and was eventually taken up as an illustration of the Mystical Body of Christ. The attitude of sobornost embraces all who are guilty of wickedness in open acknowledgement of personal guilt and personal wickedness. All are Adam, if not Cain. All are the Grand Inquisitor. All are guilty.
There was a practice in old Russian towns that illustrates sobornost and the mentality that moved people to live out its love. When a condemned criminal was carried off in a cart to execution, the people would follow behind, weeping for the doomed felon. They would cry out to him, begging him to pray for them when he reached the other side; even exclaiming that he went to die in their place—all being worthy of a death in one way or another; all being guilty. Is such compassion misplaced, even towards a grave offender? It is difficult, to say the least. The only thing to cling to in times of depravity is that hate is not a solution. Hate only makes more monsters. As Fyodor Dostoevsky famously said, “To love someone means to see them as God intended them.”