Is Putin a product of the Russian mentality and culture?
Definitely. The former President of Finland, Juho Kusti Paasikivi (as President 1946–1956) described the modus operandi of the Russian society as such:
"The immutable Russian policy is to get whatever they can with the least possible effort, and then ask for more. They never sacrifice their immediate benefits for future goals. They never take into account what has been said, but what has been done. They try to exact a high price for anything that they understand they have to do in any case. They are immune to ethical, humanitarian and abstract juridical arguments, being affected only by practical and realistic points of view."
We have a saying in Finland: “Scrath a Russian, reveal a Mongol”. The Russianness - the Russian core value set (or rather lack of it) and the idea of Russian socity is product of the Mongol Yoke - the 250 years of slavery under the Golden Horde 1237 to 1480.
No matter what the Russians themselves say about it, the Mongol Yoke was a disastrous period to the Russian society, Russian culture, Russian state apparatus and Russian mentality. This era saw Russia departing its Scandinavian and Norse roots and becoming a Central Asian society.
Do not get it wrong. The Mongols were brutal, ruthless and cruel rulers without absolutely any interest of the welfare of their subjects. They never saw their domain as a state - a thing to be protected, developed and grown rich - but rather a grounds for exctraction of riches to the ruling class. A poem of the era describes the brutal Mongol taxation:
Hundred roubles he took from a prince
fifty from a boyar
one from a peasant
Who couldn’t pay, he took his son
who hadn’t a son, he took his wife
who had no wife, he took himself
One rouble equalled 1/8th of a Russian pound of silver. Inability to pay the taxes meant being taken as a slave by the Mongols. The Mongols retaliated any dissence with wanton brutally. As result, there never were any rebellions against the Mongol rule until 1378.
The only way to survive such rule was to ditch any moral compass and ethical backbone and assume moral relativity - the concept that there is no right and no wrong, but everything depends on one’s vantage point - and a similar cruelty towards one’s subordinates and similar servility towards one’s superiors as the Mongol rulers and servants demonstrated.
The Khanate never had any vestiges of rule of law, but the word of the Khan was the law. This led to arbitrariness by the ruler and the idea that violence makes right. Laws in Russia exist only to prop the status of the powerholder and as a tool to punish any subordinates who think they have any rights.
There is only a rooster’s step from moral relativism to logical relativism: that there is no objective truth, but everything depends on who presents it. There are two words for “truth” in Russian, and three words for “lie”: “istina” means a scientific truth while “pravda” means truth as the one who insists it sees it; “lozh” means a blatant lie, “vranyo” means bullsh1tting (as a deception) and “nyepravda” as untruth. There is a constant state of greyshades between lie and truth in the Russian mind.
While the rest of the Europe assumed Feudalism and Capitalism and rule of law and restriction of the power of the ruler, Russia developed into Authoritarian Patrimonialism. This is a form of statehood which has never existed in Europe - perhaps the Ottoman Turkey is the closest thing. In Authoritarian Patrimonialism, the ruler is the supreme ruler of the land, not to be questioned by any means, he rules with force and no laws bind him, and all power springs from him. All economy is state-owned or state-controlled and there is no law-guaranteed right of ownership, but a limitless right of possession by the close circle of the rulers.
In Authoritarian Patrimonialism, the subjects are little better than worker ants. Serfdom ended in Russia de facto only in 1974, when kolkhoz peasants got a freedom to move to towns if they wished.
Russians fail game theory. They see everything as zero-sum games and they cannot understand the concept of mutual benefit. This is why Russia can never tolerate independent Baltic states - their security is off from the Russian security and their wealth is off the Russian wealth.
Russians prefer having enemies over having friends. This is a consequence of failing the game theory. Having enemies means you are feared and thus repected; having friends means you are weak and vulnerable.
Vladimir Putin is a perfect product of this kind of society. And same inverted: Russia is astonishingly immune to any attempts to reform the society, and it always returns back into Authoritarian Patrimonialism. While Nazism was a short spell of lunacy in Germany, Communism fit to the Russian idea like a nose on a human face. Communism was a perfect application of the Authoritarian Patrimonialism - the revolution changed absolutely nothing.
Yes, and whoever will replace Putin, will replace nothing. His successor will be a similar product of the similar mentality and similar culture.
Very good read. Thanks for sharing.
