Mr. Putin: Operative in the Kremlin, Part 7 of 14
Men who crave power often act as rebels when they are young: they crave dominating others but cannot stand to feel dominated by others. This might explain the rebellions of Putin when young.
Anyone following the news last month will vividly remember the astonishing meeting on February 22nd when Vladimir Putin humiliated his spy chief, in a broadcast that all of Russia got to see. For context, it is important to remember that this kind of ritual humiliation has become a part of Putin's reign, and he's been doing this for many years:
As the nachal’nik (the tough boss), among Mr. Putin’s most celebrated performances were the regular public dressing downs of his subordinates, various bureaucratic miscreants, or greedy oligarchs – on TV and at public meetings. These staged exercises in ritual humiliation occur at especially critical moments of public discontent on specific issues. They give Mr. Putin the boss the chance to show he is personally in charge (although not to blame) and that he can and will get things done, no matter how large or small the issue. In each of these instances, Mr. Putin makes it clear that he has personally monitored the situation and has then stepped in, just when he is needed, at the twelfth hour. As Russian analyst Maria Lipman has pointed out, the fact that Putin “is the boss” legitimates and enhances his role as Russia’s top leader in the eyes of the broader public.
There are multiple examples of Mr. Putin playing the tough boss. One of the best documented is an incident in 2009, in a so–called factory monotown, Pikalyovo, near St. Petersburg on Putin’s home turf. In the midst of the period when Russia was reeling from the effects of the global economic crisis, hundreds of Pikalyovo’s residents were laid off from the town’s cement works, which was part of the massive Russian conglomerate Basic Element. The town was completely paralyzed when protesters, demanding restitution, blocked a major road and created traffic jams that extended for hundreds of kilometers. After local authorities proved incapable of resolving the situation, Vladimir Putin and an entourage from Moscow swept into town to dress down the nominal factory owner: high–profile oligarch and Basic Element chairman Oleg Deripaska. Putin’s antics, which included calling Deripaska and factory managers “cockroaches” and ordering the cement factory to start production again, brought an end to a set of events that had dominated TV and newspapers and gripped Russia’s attention.
Such performances quietly invoke ancient Russian beliefs about the so-called Good Tsar.
Men who crave power often act as rebels when they are young. That is, they crave dominating others and they cannot stand to feel dominated by others. At the extremes, such men end up in prison, but there is another group that is able to go along with orders enough that they can rise up in a hierarchical organization, while still committing small acts of rebellion, if only to maintain their self-esteem. Given the extent that his time in power has revealed Putin to be a dominating psychopath, the need to defy orders might be the best way to understand the small acts of rebellion he engaged in when he was younger:
The public humiliations of subordinates and the tough boss or action performances are, in fact, an innovation for Putin since he became Russia’s predominant leader. Although Putin was always renowned as the fixer (dating back to his days in St. Petersburg with Sobchak and his team in the mayor’s office), many of the stories from his earlier periods show that he often deployed a softer, quieter, more subtle behind–the–scenes approach to get results. Before he became prime minister and president – even when he was engaging in outright coercion – Putin was known for doing small, and sometimes larger, favors for people with whom he came into contact, including strangers. He related his rationale directly to one prominent Russian opposition figure, who once had been astounded to learn that Putin – who was then head of the FSB and had no personal connection to him whatsoever – had bailed him out of a potential corruption scandal by quietly defying a direct order form a higher official to gather compromising material. When this political figure later had a chance to thank Putin, he also asked him why he took the risk of doing such a thing. Putin merely shrugged and replied: “You never know who people might turn out to be.” Putin wants to have various means of making people feel beholden to him.
The above quotes are taken from this part of the book:
Mr. Putin: Operative in the Kremlin
Fiona Hill & Clifford G. Gaddy
Copyright © 2013 The Brookings Institution
––––––––
Page 123 (Part of The Outsider)
As the nachal’nik (the tough boss), among Mr. Putin’s most celebrated performances were the regular public dressing downs of his subordinates, various bureaucratic miscreants, or greedy oligarchs – on TV and at public meetings. These staged exercises in ritual humiliation occur at especially critical moments of public discontent on specific issues. They give Mr. Putin the boss the chance to show he is personally in charge (although not to blame) and that he can and will get things done, no matter how large or small the issue. In each of these instances, Mr. Putin makes it clear that he has personally monitored the situation and has then stepped in, just when he is needed, at the twelfth hour. As Russian analyst Maria Lipman has pointed out, the fact that Putin “is the boss” legitimates and enhances his role as Russia’s top leader in the eyes of the broader public.
There are multiple examples of Mr. Putin playing the boss. One of the best documented is an incident in 2009, in a so–called factory monotown, Pikalyovo, near St. Petersburg on Putin’s home turf. In the midst of the period when Russia was reeling from the effects of the global economic crisis, hundreds of Pikalyovo’s residents were laid off from the town’s cement works, which was part of the massive Russian conglomerate Basic Element. The town was completely paralyzed when protesters, demanding restitution, blocked a major road and created traffic jams that extended for hundreds of kilometers. After local authorities proved incapable of resolving the situation, Vladimir Putin and an entourage from Moscow swept into town to dress down the nominal factory owner: high–profile oligarch and Basic Element chairman Oleg Deripaska. Putin’s antics, which included calling Deripaska and factory managers “cockroaches” and ordering the cement factory to start production again, brought an end to a set of events that had dominated TV and newspapers and gripped Russia’s attention.
Putin’s PR handlers have determined that the public loves to see him admonishing figures they do not like in the same language that they would use if they had the opportunity. In keeping with Mr. Putin’s mining of historical parallels, these performances as the tough boss, the nachal’nik, pick up on the traditional Russian idea of the Good Tsar. In the imperial era, there was a general popular belief that the tsar was always ready and willing to fix any range of large or small things for the narod.
––––––––
Page 124–125
The public humiliations of subordinates and the tough boss or action performances are, in fact, an innovation for Putin since he became Russia’s predominant leader. Although Putin was always renowned as the fixer (dating back to his days in St. Petersburg with Sobchak and his team in the mayor’s office), many of the stories from his earlier periods show that he often deployed a softer, quieter, more subtle behind–the–scenes approach to get results. Before he became prime minister and president – even when he was engaging in outright coercion – Putin was known for doing small, and sometimes larger, favors for people with whom he came into contact, including strangers. He related his rationale directly to one prominent Russian opposition figure, who once had been astounded to learn that Putin – who was then head of the FSB and had no personal connection to him whatsoever – had bailed him out of a potential corruption scandal by quietly defying a direct order form a higher official to gather compromising material. When this political figure later had a chance to thank Putin, he also asked him why he took the risk of doing such a thing. Putin merely shrugged and replied: “You never know who people might turn out to be.” Putin wants to have various means of making people feel beholden to him.
––––––––
Page 127
THE ART OF THE SOVIET JOKE
As Russian leader, Putin has carefully deployed populist language and jokes like this to embellish his thuggish image and his position as an outsider to the Moscow elite. The use has often been offensive, in multiple senses – especially when he resorted to his crudest references like “wiping out” Chechen terrorists in the outhouse, or suggesting, in an exchange with French president Nicolas Sarkozy, during the 2008 war with Georgia, that he would hang Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili “by the balls.” The vulgar language underscores that Putin will be ruthless in pursuing someone else’s “offense” or “insult.” The references and the jokes are directed at those around him. They are, in many respects, a recruitment tool to forge a personal link, emphasize and illustrate a point, and bring people around to his way of thinking. This is a tactic Mr. Putin learned as a case officer in the KGB, an issue we will return to later in the book. However, it is clear from many of the jokes, which are steeped in Soviet popular culture, that they resonate most forcefully with Putin’s immediate gender and age cohort – his generation of men now in their 50s and 60s.