Global Security and Intelligence Studies Volume 5, Number 1, Spring / Summer 2020 | Page 80

Global Security and Intelligence Studies
Putin’s Humiliation
Capitalization
From Ivan the Terrible, Peter the
Great, Lenin, and Stalin, the immense
Russian landscape has
been governed by a variety of dynamic
and powerful figures. Authoritarian
and hierarchical in nature, these guided
and forced Russian constituencies into
subjugation through various revolutions,
wars, and ideologies. This collective
history of these past leaders contributed
to a uniquely developed and
entrenched schema and identity among
the Russian populace. Both the Russian
elite’s and laypeople’s embrace of a historically
bound identity has often associated
with the tenets of toughness, resiliency,
collectivism, stability, realism,
and paternalism.
Alfred Evans highlights a distinctive
Russian identity that mutated
from its history of specific conditions
and traditions. Evans states, “from the
very beginning, Russia was created as
a super-centralized state. That’s particularly
laid down in its genetic code,
its traditions, and the mentality of its
people” (Evans 2008, 903). The Russian
people who bore the brunt of horror
and destruction during World War II,
who saw a cosmonaut ascend to the
outer reaches of space before anyone
else, who cherished the advanced technology
and quantity of their nuclear arsenal,
and who bore the many burdens
behind the Iron Curtain, all shared a
specific and hardened identity fully incorporated
into their collective and individual
psyche.
Using Saurette’s humiliation theory
as one of its foundational points,
this study begins to identify specific
Russian emotional factors of Russian
leadership and society relating to how
“humiliation ... can act as the basis
from which to theorize and investigate
its influence in global politics” (Saurette
2006, 496). The variety of emotions
and values, including, honor, respect,
and mythology, are at the forefront in
explaining Putin’s motivations and the
Russian apparatus’s desire to tap into
the critical and collective humiliation
element widely entrenched in Russian
society. Specific Russian dynamics, including
humiliation, were experienced
for a certain period after the fall of the
Soviet Union. This humiliation dynamic
has been captured and molded,
allowing the Russian government to
dictate a specific influential Russian national/foreign
policy.
The unforeseen collapse of the
Soviet system brought about an unexpected
change of the longstanding bipolar
international paradigm. Mikhail
Gorbachev’s and Boris Yeltsin’s progressive
and reformative perestroika
platforms encouraged many Russian
patriots to hope a new Russia
would successfully transition to an
economy and political system similar
to the West. However, some of Russian
society and some Russian elites were
more resistant and unaccommodating
to the dramatic changes that intended
to mimic Western values and conventions.
The transformation was haphazard,
uncertain, muddled, and embarrassing.
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