In every respect he’s a normal nice person, except that he 100% supports Putin, and sees Russia as the good guys, and the West and NATO as the baddies. I know this, because I’ve made good friends with a Russian, who lives in Russia, who travelled extensively in the West. Hence, there’s more Putins through the entire Russian system. And the tribal nature of human nature makes them support their tribe against other nations. The population sees this as normal due to herd mentality. Putin is at the top of a culture which, for 100 years, has been in-bred in the roots of Communism and an unending dictatorial system.
He also has a weekly blog, “Ukraine’s Orange Blues.” A specialist on Ukraine, Russia, and the USSR, and on nationalism, revolutions, empires, and theory, he is the author of 10 books of nonfiction, including Pidsumky imperii (2009) Puti imperii (2004) Imperial Ends: The Decay, Collapse, and Revival of Empires (2001) Revolutions, Nations, Empires: Conceptual Limits and Theoretical Possibilities (1999) Dilemmas of Independence: Ukraine after Totalitarianism (1993) and The Turn to the Right: The Ideological Origins and Development of Ukrainian Nationalism, 1919–1929 (1980) the editor of 15 volumes, including The Encyclopedia of Nationalism (2000) and The Holodomor Reader (2012) and a contributor of dozens of articles to academic and policy journals, newspaper op-ed pages, and magazines. Alexander Motyl is a professor of political science at Rutgers-Newark. Perhaps only in the short term, but given the horrors of the Putin regime, even a brief respite would be something to be thankful for.Įxpert Biography: Now a 1945 Contributing Editor, Dr. A less stable, more uncertain, and more chaotic Russia will be in no position to wage a major land war, suppress dissent and democracy, and sustain an imperialist agenda. Putin’s departure would thus be good for Russians, Ukrainians, and the West. A quasi-democrat may be better for Russia, while a clone and radical would herald a continuation of business as usual, but all three would usher in a period of substantial elite infighting and systemic instability. This brings us to an interesting conclusion. He will also lack Putin’s ability to balance radicals and moderates within the political elite.Ī radical will therefore be weaker than Putin, far less capable of enacting his policies, and far more likely to fall victim to power struggles, palace intrigues, and widespread opposition. As a result, he’ll lack Putin’s popularity and legitimacy with the people. The comparison begs a similar question: could anyone have been worse than Hitler? Would Heinrich Himmler, Joseph Goebbels, or Reinhard Heydrich have invaded more countries? Killed more Poles, Ukrainians, and Belarusians? Exterminated more Jews? Would their version of Mein Kampf have been even more unhinged?Ĭan Someone Who is Not Putin Really Replace Putin?īut whoever Putin’s radical successor might be, he will, like the clone, have one fatal flaw: he won’t be Putin. James Fallon, Professor of Psychiatry and Human Behavior at the University of California, Irvine, has called Putin a psychopath and compared him to Adolf Hitler. Just what, exactly, would a successor have to do in order to be worse? Use nuclear weapons? But almost all analysts agree that Putin could easily resort to them if the mood strikes him. Scores of his political opponents have been assassinated hundreds of Russians were killed in apartment bombings in 1999, intended to serve as a pretext for a renewed assault on Chechnya. Tens of thousands of innocent Ukrainian civilians have been killed Ukrainian cities have been leveled. Would a radical Russian imperialist-say, someone like Igor Strelkov, the war criminal who initiated the war in the Donbas in 2014-be worse than Putin? It’s hard to see how.įor starters, it’s important to remember that Putin is a mass murderer, a war-monger, and an imperialist who destroyed Russian democracy, replaced it with fascism, and embarked on genocide in Ukraine. Weakness may open the door to instability, power struggles, chaos, and civil strife, at which point either the clone will stabilize his rule, or he will be replaced by a quasi-democrat or a radical Russian imperialist. Remove Putin and replace him with a clone, and you diminish the clone’s ability to continue with Putin’s policies.Ī Putin clone is, thus, sure to be weaker and less legitimate than Putin. Putin, the hyper-masculine embodiment of a vigorous Russia, is essential to the stability and legitimacy of the regime. After all, Putin has spent over two decades building a hyper-centralized regime with himself at its core. And yet, a Putin clone will suffer from a fundamental defect that will undermine his rule: he will not be Putin.
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