Russia and power: unmasking the historical origins of the present crisis

Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022 has brought with it catastrophic suffering for the people touched by this brutal assault, triggering an enormous humanitarian crisis. Thousands of Ukrainian civilians have been killed, millions have been forced from their homes and displaced, both outside and inside the country, almost half of the Ukrainian population has lost their jobs, infrastructure and numerous residential areas have been destroyed, and people’s lives have been upturned.

The trauma that Russia’s aggression has inflicted on the people of Ukraine is extreme and lingering, and we all stand with those who are aching from the atrocities of this war. However, it is dangerous and fundamentally wrong to assume that the war on Ukraine is a local conflict. It is a full-scale attack on world peace, freedom, and human values. Putin’s “special military operation” holds a warning for the world: not only does it threaten to alter the post-World War II international order, but it also effectively demonstrates the ugly face of a looming civilization catastrophe. Thus, in our support for Ukraine, we must be united against the Putin regime’s political violence and its vicious assault on independence and freedom in Ukraine and elsewhere, including within Russia itself. This horrific war has terrible implications for Russian people as well. A dictator and his dictatorial regime hold a nation hostage. Deprived of freedom, it suffers the devastating consequences of state repression and human rights violations.

Today’s Russia is perhaps the most representative example of dictatorship’s threat to humanity and global civilization. Instead of the “end of history” predicted by Francis Fukuyama in the 1990s, recent decades have witnessed the intensification of geopolitical antagonism in the world. The darkest imaginable scenario is now being realized before our eyes. Great power syndrome is dangerous; it makes aggression and military conflict possible. But it is a dictatorship obsessed with maintaining a grip on power and fueled by imperial ambitions and the idea of national exceptionalism that made the current bloody conflict inevitable.

There is no consensus among experts of Russian politics about the ultimate character of Putin’s regime and its intrinsic workings. While many agree that it is a highly centralized form of government where all branches of power are essentially subordinated to a single person—the president himself, they recognize that a ruling political class (Russian political elites), however small this group may be, should still be able to affect and feed into the decision-making process.¹ In contrast, other experts stress that the Russian political system is not a “regime” at all, but rather “a personalist dictatorship, where the whims of one man, and one man only, determine policy” (Judan 2022).² Still, considering the current state of affairs, both on the war’s front line and within Russia itself, it is hard to believe that Putin’s regime could retain and even further tighten its political control without his and the state’s reliance on the support of political elites, or at least a selected group among them which actually constitutes the dictator’s “inner circle.”

Because dictatorships do not operate with the consent of the people, they must gain authority through other means, particularly coercion and co-optation (Fjelde 2010). Thus, dictators use promises of power and wealth to transform potential opponents into supporters. Finding those who will allow themselves to be bribed requires careful calculation; coercion forces compliance through fear of punishment. The dictator serves as a higher legislative, executive, and judicial authority, and this one supreme authority is that which gives the dictator the absolute and unchecked power to make decisions, act upon them, and declare their constitutionality without being challenged by any officialdom within government. Yet the dictator can only maintain power as long as those subordinate to him are willing to obey. Thus, despite the seemingly unlimited power available to the dictator, the dictator must fear their closest subordinates (“inner circle”) because without them handling all of the day-to-day tasks (including directing individual sectors of the economy, building infrastructure, maintaining the military, etc.), the dictatorship would collapse. In order to maintain power, there is hence no other choice but to force others into agreement, which is done, again, through coercion and corruption. Endemic corruption is a determining feature of Putin’s regime. Contrary to other corrupt systems defined by bottom-up structural models, Russia has developed a top-down structure of corruption. Instead of oligarchs ruling and competing with each other for power and wealth, in Russia, the allegiance of the elites to the president almost entirely determines their political and business success. The president’s “inner circle” are cronies who maintain a complex web of corruption and are necessary for Putin to ensure his own status quo.

Putin’s inner circle may be small and shrinking, but it is they, his cronies, who pursue the government’s illicit interests and are behind legally and morally problematic actions. They are completely disconnected from the needs of the populace and adopt a political strategy that involves manipulation, deceit, mercilessness, ruthlessness, and unscrupulous conduct. One cannot stop wondering whether we are living through a Machiavellian bout, witnessing how a calculated, cunning, and underhanded form of political behavior is being used to promote and sustain an aggressive power and justify the absolute rule of a dictatorial regime. Among the precepts espoused by Machiavelli in The Prince is his infamous declaration that there is no virtue but only virtù (power) in politics. The first political theorist to divorce ethics and politics, he counseled that the sovereign “should have no care or thought but for war; for war is the sole art looked for in one who rules” (Machiavelli 1965, p. 70). It seems the ideas of the Florentine Renaissance author became naturally transposed to present-day Russia’s reality, ravaged by the fallout of the Ukrainian conflict. Only Machiavelli’s cold political pragmatism is based on his first-hand experience with Florentine political affairs mainly under a republican government. He does not embrace violence for its own sake, and for him, the meanness may be permissible and justifiably used only if it is necessary for the good of republic. Contrary, in Russia’s authoritarian political system with all might concentrated in the hands of a single man who over two decades in power has transformed into a dictator, aggression and viciousness became an aim in themselves and are largely employed to benefit this man’s power.

At this point, it seems to be undeniable that contemporary Russia is a dictatorial state, where entire authority “runs through the glorious leader” and his political power remains unchecked and unshared by political elites or any “ruling” groups at all, including his own “inner circle.” Moreover, Putin is not shy to exploit the members of his close circle; he even publicly undignifies them. Perhaps the most striking recent illustration of such shocking behavior occurred during a televised meeting at the Kremlin that the Russian president held with his closest advisers on the eve of the invasion of Ukraine. Publicly humiliating the head of his Foreign Intelligence Service Sergey Naryshkin, he made the chief spy feel like a fool in front of a large audience, both within and outside the country. But Putin, the dictator, wanted the world to see who the tsar is here and to know that he can hold everybody in check.

After his full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which the world watched in shock and disbelief, the question of Putin’s political agenda and his endgame resurged as a key topic for debate. Not only journalists covering the war but also numerous experts on Russia still puzzle about what mission Putin pursues, providing multiple—sometimes conflicting—accounts of his domestic and geopolitical goals (Hill and Stent 2022; Eltchaninoff 2018, 2022). To be sure, it is difficult to identify one single aim he seeks to achieve, and this is true of both domestic and world affairs. The picture of the world Putin wants has changed over time as well. However, a political record that includes decisions and actions he has undertaken over more than twenty years in office offers a striking picture of a man who is extremely consistent in consolidating and bolstering his own power and deterring rivals at home and abroad. It might sound paradoxical and even beyond belief, but Putin does not appear to have any well-formed vision for Russia or any firmly set agenda for its geopolitical goals. He frequently changes his course, and not because he is trying to effectively navigate global politics and to adapt to changing demands internally, but rather in order to strengthen his power and authoritarian rule. Putin is not the sort of charismatic leader who has a well-thought and well-executed plan for Russia. He is more of an opportunist than a skillful strategist. He frequently acts spontaneously and makes counterintuitive decisions, often in contrary to expert advice. Whether these decisions are necessarily successful remains an open question, but at least they can be presented to the public as such. The war in Ukraine did not only clearly demonstrate the failures of unprofessional planning and incompetent military leadership but it also exposed the untruth and cynicism of Putin’s propaganda, putting the idea of a capable dictator in jeopardy.

The dominant explanation of the ongoing military confrontation points to Russia’s imperial ambitions in Ukraine and Putin’s effort to appropriate his country’s own imperial past to shape its modern national identity. A common account of Putin’s attempt to destroy Ukraine blames Russia’s hostile, colonialist regime, from which the country allegedly has never freed itself. There are also people who believe that the problem leading to the present confrontation originates in nostalgia for the Soviet Union—of which Ukraine was once an integral part—and the aim to regain the “great-power” status that Russia lost with the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. As I have suggested elsewhere, in my opinion, Pan-Slavism might be more on target (Bykova 2022). For the narrative of Kremlin propaganda regarding Russia’s claim to Ukraine is not based on the argument of Ukraine being a former part of the Soviet Union or the Russian Empire, but rather on a belief about the shared ancestral descent and cultural roots of the two countries. The common cultural heritage of both is traced back to Kievan Rus’, the medieval federation of Slavic nations.

Undoubtedly, all the above explanations are highly credible and immensely valuable for gaining a grasp on the bloody conflict’s historical origins, which are extremely complex and multi-faceted. However, all of them remain silent about the actual reason behind the Russo-Ukrainian crisis which has turned into a brutal war of attrition. If this vicious, incessant attack was motivated by either imperial ambitions or colonial syndrome, or the humiliation caused by the breakup of the Soviet Union, why strike now, and even more so—why be so stubbornly persistent despite fearless Ukrainian resistance and the world’s indignant response? Dared to hypothesize, I would suggest that the key to understanding this paradox is Putin’s power grab, which expounds the true motivation and actual reason behind his senseless and vicious attack on Ukraine and the dramatically worsening situation within Russia itself. All of these are caused by Putin’s desire to maintain and advance his own power, both internally and externally; recent and current developments provide strong evidence for this claim.

To be sure, when Putin ascended to power, many saw him as a sort of a transitional figure fit for the moment. A capable administrator “acceptable” to key forces within the Russian economic and political landscape, he was trusted to be able to restore a secure way of life lost after the dissolution of the USSR without threatening “established interests” (Rachman 2022). Now looking back at his prolonged journey in power, it is clear that Putin’s personal and political goals underwent serious transformation, shifting toward a naked power grab (Judan 2022). This transformation appears somewhat analogous to the degeneration process described in Plato’s Republic, wherein democracy turns into tyranny and a democratic boy into a tyrannical man. To be sure, Putin was never a democrat (at least in the Western understanding of the term), but when he began his rule in 1999,³ he presented himself as a semi-democratic populist and technocrat with a strongman agenda. Since then, Putin and his rule have changed dramatically, and the goal of grabbing absolute (unrestricted) power has become his personal obsession.

This certainly has not happened overnight. Yet already during his first term in office, he moved to assume the authority of the state and to establish his authoritarian leadership. Paradoxically, the war in Chechnya, instead of damaging his reputation within the country, made him a national hero and a true patriot who stands up for Russian interests and is able to protect people from terrorism. The wave of fear that spread across the country after apartment buildings in four Russian cities were bombed, allegedly by Chechen terrorists, was so strong, that Russians met the Second Chechen War (1999-2009) with strong enthusiasm and broad approval. Serving as prime minister (under Boris Yeltsin), Putin was addressing the consequences of the attacks and his handling of the crisis greatly boosted his popularity, helping him attain the presidency a few months later.

It is widely thought that Putin’s unrivaled power has been achieved exclusively through fear, oppression, and propaganda. While the notion that Putin turns to cruelty, violence, and tight control over the media to preserve and uphold his near-to-absolute power is generally accurate—and this is something that we can clearly observe in Russia today—his power also depends, and to a great extent, on his popularity. As some observers rightly emphasize, public opinion plays a much bigger role in Russian politics and social life than is usually acknowledged (Greene and Robertson 2019), and Putin is determined to manipulate the diverse forces of political groups and social structures and gain their agreement in order to uphold and advance his dictatorial regime.

He is a populist but one whose popularity is effectively cultivated and nourished by propaganda. The Kremlin does not merely care deeply about the level of popular support for the president, but also crafts an image of him for the public and orchestrates propaganda campaigns to shape or promote certain political agendas for people to adopt. Not without help of his official image-makers, Putin portrays himself as a strongman, and he readily reinvents himself in an attempt to maintain his own political survival and consolidate his power. Putin launched his presidential career in the early 2000s as an economic liberal (sometimes even presenting himself as a “system liberal”) who was relatively pro-Western. After mass protests against electoral fraud in 2011-2012 threatened his political stability, he reinvented himself as a conservative who prioritizes the status quo. Defending conservative values, he now claimed to protect Russia against a globalized world of Western decadence. In an attempt to maintain popular appeal, he turned his ire from domestic economic elites to international organizations and structures, essentially expanding his criticism of Western powers into denunciation of anything Western. Similarly, while at the beginning of his political career Putin kept his distance from nationalists, later when he started playing the card of long-running resentment (about Russia’s loss of empire and the humiliation that resulted from the dissolution of the Soviet Union), he willingly seized the opportunity to be identified as a conservative nationalist.

The annexation of Crimea in 2014, condemned in the West as a flagrant violation of international law, was widely seen in Russia as a great accomplishment. The Kremlin framed it as proof of the nation’s fightback, and not only for the Ukrainian Maidan that took place about a month earlier but also for Russian victimization and indignities of the preceding years. Putin’s approval ratings soared to record highs over 80% (Statista),⁴ and he was consequently throned as the indispensable national leader and a true patriot vigorously protecting his country and its citizens. For Putin it was a moment of a true triumph when he managed to come close to achieving the ultimate goal of any dictator: assuming total control over a country and a nation which has now identified itself with its leader. His army’s successes in Georgia in 2008 and, especially, in Syria in 2015, when through Russia’s military intervention he saved the Assad regime from near collapse, cemented his image as a strongman inside and outside of his country. In addition, his numerous invasions and military operations won him worldwide recognition as a skilled and decisive political leader who rejected Western control and called into question the established world order.

All of this greatly contributed to his own image of himself as a highly accomplished ruler well versed in domestic state affairs, global politics, and geopolitical realities. Thus, when in 2018 Alexei Navalny and other opposition actors began openly challenging his leadership and the regime’s status quo, he felt threaten. This led to even stronger monopolization of power and affirmation of the central authority of the state that Putin has employed to bolster his own personal position. Using warfare is one more—however extreme—means to do the same. Given that the next Russian presidential election is in 2024 and the 2020 amendments to the Constitution of Russia make Putin eligible to seek reelection, strengthening his position and reinforcing his popularity look like a credible goal.

Adept at cunning and deceit, he now tries to channel national aggrievement into support for a bloody war against the independent neighbor who was once claimed to be a “brother” and treated with brotherhood-like affection. No doubt that in launching his “special military operation,” Putin was clearly counting on a swift victory which would further strengthen his position as a ruler. Yet the invasion that was meant to solidify Putin’s regime and secure his place in history has clearly gone wrong. He is now a dictator at war, a war that he cannot win. Despite his escalation in Ukraine and growing oppression in Russia, his defeat in war is inevitable.

The urgent task of today is to end a war that brings enormous loss of life and devastation to the people of Ukraine. Whether Putin will be able to hold on to power after losing on the battlefield and whether his regime can endure after total defeat in war remains to be seen. What is more, the future of Russia is at stake. The war in Ukraine has completely changed the optic through which Russians see their tomorrow. The stability and relative prosperity (at least by Russian standards) that many Russians associated with Putin’s regime are gone. Putin has plunged the country and its citizens into the depths of a terrible crisis, making Russia a rogue state and Russians unwanted in Europe and elsewhere. Will Russia survive the ordeal? Whatever answer history has for us, it seems to be clear that the next decades will be marked by Russia’s civilizational struggle for its very existence and culture. To sap Russia’s vitality enough to manifest true change will require Russians to critically reflect on the country’s imperial past, free themselves from the myth of Russian exceptionalism, and reject a victim narrative based on national identity.

I do not believe in the concept of collective guilt of a nation or the communal process of spiritual purification brought forth by Karl Jaspers (Jaspers 2001). This, however, does not eliminate the importance of taking responsibility. We cannot escape bearing some responsibility for the actions of the society we are part of. In today’s fractured world, we all have obligations toward humanity and each of us has a duty and responsibility as citizens of our states. It is difficult to admit that your home country is the aggressor, but it is dangerous to live in illusion. In the aftermath of the war, it will be hard for Ukrainians to easily restore their relationships with Russians, and it may take generations of people on both sides of the border to overcome the war-imposed gap between the two nations and their peoples. It is crucial for Russians to recognize their responsibility for the atrocities done in their name, however painful it may be. The entire Russian nation must deeply feel the tragedy and pain that Putin’s Russia has inflicted on a neighboring country and the world.