From: imbibe@mindspring.com   
      
   QUORA: Is Putin a product of the Russian mentality and culture?   
   answered by Susanna Viljanen, Works at Aalto University, June 28   
      
   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: “Scratch a Russian, reveal a Mongol”. The   
   Russianness - the Russian core value set (or rather lack of it) and the idea   
   of Russian society 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 extraction of riches to the ruling class. A poem of the era describes the   
   brutal Mongol taxation:   
      
   Hundred rubles 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 ruble 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   
   dissent with wanton brutality. 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 peansants   
   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   
   respected; 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.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)