Close to a hundred years ago, Vladimir Lenin died. With the father of the Russian Revolution and chairman of the Soviet Union gone, many members of Lenin’s inner circle assumed they would take charge of the new state. They never anticipated the fast rise of Joseph Stalin, and that would be their great mistake.
Stalin would quickly rise to become the Soviet premier, ordering the assassinations of potential rivals and enacting totalitarian rule. During Stalin’s premiership, numerous Politburo members, military personnel, and teachers, as well as countless civilians, were purged, tortured, or deported on his orders. Even decorated war heroes like General Georgy Zhukov would fall to Stalin’s paranoia. Stalin wanted to rule through fear, and he successfully programmed Soviet citizens and influential people to never go against his orders.
Fast forward to 2023, and the new tyrant in the Kremlin, Russian President Vladimir Putin, has enacted a quieter replica of Stalin’s fear-based rule.
Referencing his admiration for Stalin and how he ruled the nation, Putin knows the autocrat’s aura and methods are vital in retaining power until he dies.
Putin’s Control over Russia
Vladimir Putin is a career KGB officer who quickly rose through the ranks and spent most of his time in the German Democratic Republic. After the Soviet Union collapsed, Putin found a role as President Boris Yeltsin’s deputy and started to amass vast wealth. Along the way, he learned the ins and outs of corruption, embezzlement, and the cutthroat business of oligarchy.
Consolidating his own presidency, Putin immediately declared a total war against Chechnya. Accusing Chechens of carrying out the Ryazan Bombings, he exploited the nationalistic fever of the nation and never presented any evidence for his claims. The Ryazan Bombings are controversial, as evidence possibly links Putin’s own Federal Security Services (FSB) to the attacks.
During his presidency, Putin has assassinated journalists and figures in Russia and abroad. To satisfy his strongman aura and please his ultranationalist base, he has continuously engaged in military conflicts — first in Georgia, then in Syria and Ukraine. Displaying Russian military prowess is a central priority for the Kremlin, which has used deadly force to keep its population and its former colonies under a boot for centuries.
Conflict with Wagner
Putin’s key to decades of rule has been to facilitate conflicts between factions ambitious for power — so long as those conflicts never challenge the president directly. The infighting ensures that someone else will always take the fall for Russia’s problems, while Putin sets himself up to look like the hero of Moscow by intervening to settle the conflicts.
Originally a shadowy private military company, the Wagner Group exemplified how Putin oversees this factional infighting. During Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, late Wagner Group CEO Yevgeny Prigozhin was wont to issue scathing audio recordings and threats to the Russian Ministry of Defense.
The Kremlin allowed such infighting because blame for the war’s poor progression was not directed at Putin directly. Wagner blamed Sergei Shoigu, the Russian minister of defense. But the feud escalated as Putin became complacent. Prigozhin would start a mutiny and become the first genuine threat to Putin’s two-decade-long rule.
Initially promising exile and amnesty to Wagner’s leadership in exchange for an end to its mutiny in June, the Kremlin killed them in a decapitation strike. Moscow also enacted a law forcing all non-military combatants to swear loyalty to the Russian flag.
Ongoing Purges
Along with destroying Wagner’s leadership, the Kremlin has openly purged military officers. The biggest ouster is of Sergey Surovikin, who earned the sobriquet “General Armageddon” for his use of scorched-earth tactics in Syria and Ukraine. He was assumed to be in cahoots with Wagner’s mutiny. The FSB detained the general and placed him under permanent house arrest, and he was relieved of command.
Maj. Gen. Ivan Popov, another decorated Russian officer, has also been dismissed and detained due to his criticisms of the failed war effort. Mysterious deaths have come to other officials, such as a general who had served as top commander in Ukraine.
Putin has also targeted military bloggers. He invited numerous bloggers to the Kremlin to ask their opinions on the war, but it has also been assumed he shook them down over criticisms. Notorious war criminal Igor Girkin was arrested for his daily criticisms of the war in Ukraine and of Putin’s leadership — criticisms that could land him in prison for several dozen years if convicted.
A significant theme in Putin’s regime has been loyalty over criticism, which means the autocrat will now purge even the most competent officers and hardliners. He sees their critiques as threats to his rule. Incompetent officials with poor organizational leadership, such as Shoigu and Gerasimov, will stay in power. Their undying loyalty is what Putin wants above all else.
Now securing his hardline rule and staffing his inner circle with loyalists, Putin has heightened the role and impact of Stalinism in the Russian Federation. Making an example of Wagner’s leadership will have numerous effects, on the war in Ukraine and on Russian society.
Putin has made it clear that when you play the Game of Thrones, the rules are the same in Russia as they are in Westeros: You win or you die.
About the Author and His Expertise
Julian McBride, a former U.S. Marine, is a forensic anthropologist and independent journalist born in New York. He reports and documents the plight of people around the world who are affected by conflicts, rogue geopolitics, and war, and also tells the stories of war victims whose voices are never heard. Julian is the founder and director of the Reflections of War Initiative (ROW), an anthropological NGO which aims to tell the stories of the victims of war through art therapy. As a former Marine, he uses this technique not only to help heal PTSD but also to share people’s stories through art, which conveys “the message of the brutality of war better than most news organizations.”
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