Taking a Look at Vladimir Putin

Throughout its long history, Russia has been trapped in a continuous cycle of authoritarian regimes; only interrupted briefly with periods of tumultuous democratic transitions that were plagued by poor bureaucracy and weak institutions. Therefore, time and time again, Russia has turned towards authoritarianism. In the late 1900’s to early 2000’s, Russia again saw the fall of democracy coincide with the rise of a competitive authoritarian regime. This rise of competitive authoritarianism in Russia in the late 1900’s to early 2000’s was largely the result of the resource curse which granted Putin’s Administration false economic performance legitimacy. This in turn reinvigorated past strongman ideals, while at the same time solidified negative

Joseph Stalin, from the time that he was a low level revolutionary to the years that he spent as the dictator of the Soviet Union, always knew what he needed to do to achieve his goals. His organized rise to power allowed him to gain a steady flow of followers who would support him for decades to come. Stalin received a minor government position in 1917, but by the time a new leader was needed in 1924, he “had turned the largely routine post of Party general secretary into the most powerful office in the Soviet Union” (“Joseph Stalin) and “had built a personal empire for himself through his control over committee appointments at all levels . . . expand[ing] the leading Party organs with his supporters, who then voted against his rivals”

To modify Winston Churchill’s quote on Russia Putin “…is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.” We can unwrap this mystery by analyzing Putin’s foreign policy through the eyes Morgenthau which will be the basis of this paper. By understanding the mystery we can say that Putin is following a Realist perspective and not the liberalist perspective especially with the Crimean Conflict.

The assumption of power by Joseph Stalin was arguably one of the most significant periods of Bolshevik Russia’s history. Stalin is recognised as one of the most influential men to have ever lead Russia, and he did so through the largest war the world has ever faced, World War II, and through the beginning of one of the most tense periods of modern history, the Cold War. It is easy however, to get lost in the legacy Stalin left behind, and forget about the events leading up to his total control over the communist regime of the 20th century Russia.

The Russian government is creating a notable history of political and economic system changes, as well as leaders. Although the age of the Russian Empire was the beginning of the established long-lasting power, it had some fundamental faults in terms of wealth and equality of its citizens. Tsars and tsarinas had too much power to provide the necessary equilibrium of social growth and development. This problem was developed and used to convert the country into the era of socialism, which later became the communist era. Despite strong hopes of positive changes after the Dissolution of the Soviet Union, the current, “semi-presidential” Russian federation hasn’t gone too far from its wealth-egoist past. However, it raises the question: what

In this text Phillip Barbour examines the life and death of the First False Tsar Dmitri in an attempt to find his true identity. Barbour uses extensive primary sources to describe the events of Tsar Dmitri’s life, both from Russian and non-Russian sources. While Barbour is not able to conclusively identify Dmitri’s true identity he does provide a comprehensive understanding of his life. While Barbour tends to rely on outdated historiography, this text will be a good source for a general understanding of how Dmitri gained and lost power and the social, political, and cultural mechanism behind his

Putin is former KGB and he has deep Soviet ties as well as ideology. Russia is a one party dominant state. Putin utilizes his power in order to keep his people in check and assert his dominance. The annexation of Crimea in 2014 was a great show of his power to everyone in the world. Russia occupies Crimea but they have vitrually no power, this is another example of Russia assymetrical federalism. Putin and the Kremlin have been known to take out most people who oppose them. For example Anna Politkovskaya a journalist who was suddenly killed because she was speaking out against the government. Another example is Alexey Navalny who is a political activist and he often times gets arrested right before an organized protest takes place. Vedzhie Kashka is just another example of the tyrant that Vladimir Putin

Putin grew up very poor with three entire families in an apartment in St. Petersburg. Russin President even remembers hunting rats in his apartment stairwell.

The Russian government is one of constant ideological change, from the October Revolutionist Lenin to the extreme values of Josef Stalin. It can be argued that power always corrupts, as seen in the character Napoleon from Animal Farm by George Orwell and Vladimir Putin with their characteristics of corruption, centralizing government to suit their own needs, and the use of fear to keep their power.

In Putin’s Kleptocracy: Who Owns Russia?, Karen Dawisha relates Russian President Vladmir Putin’s rise to power. She overarchingly claims that Putin is an authoritarian leader who has obstructed and even reverted Russia’s path of democratization, citing, amongst many factors that enabled his ascension, his “interlocking web of personal connections in which he was the linchpin” (100), money-laundering to tax havens and personal projects, and the complicity of the West. With copious research, journalistic interviews, legal documents, and even sporadic informational diagrams, it is evident why her book is so popular amongst scholars and history enthusiasts. Unfortunately however, in spite of the grand yet oftentimes substantiated claims she generates, a more subtle yet noteworthy assumption is made: that the state is a protector, as Olson proffered. She employs this theoretical underpinning from the beginning, though is not representative of Putin’s actual authoritarian regime.

It seems that Putin has been able to build up his power in a variety of ways throughout his political career. Even throughout power struggles, Putin had been able to prevail. What does Putin have to attribute to his rise in power, was it luck or strategy? Well according to the rhetoric of Gerschewski, there isn’t simply one solid reason or force behind the stability of an autocratic regime. Gerschewski wrote, “Today’s autocracies cannot rely (at least in the long term) entirely on their abuse of power in a strictly hierarchal, pyramid-shaped political order as the unconstrained tyrants of the past – from whom all of the power is derived – might have done” (Gerschewski, 2013, pg. 7). Moreover, Gerschewksi suggests that autocracies rely on three pillars rather than one sole concept. The three pillars include, Legitimation, Repression, and Co-optation. Within the article he placed emphasis on observing three processes that take place within and between the pillars in an effort to properly explain the stabilization processes (Gerschewski, 2013, pg. 12).

A&E Television Networks”). In the prince, Machiavelli states “And as the fact of a private individual becoming a prince presupposes either great ability or good fortune...” (Machiavelli 48). As a “private individual” Putin rose to power by both good fortune and ability. After returning to Leningrad ranked colonel, Putin became a supporter of Anatoly Sobohak, a liberal politician (“Bio. A&E Television Networks”). In 1991 after Sobohak won the election as mayor of Leningrad, Putin became his head of external relations and his first deputy mayor in 1994 (“Bio. A&E Television Networks”). In 1996 he resigned and moved to Moscow after Sobohak’s defeat (“Bio. A&E Television

The thesis of Nigar Ibrahimova shows how Machiavelli and Vladimir Putin are compared , how Putin exercised virtú in the light of Machiavelli’s doctrines and how he took advantage of this virtú in his politics. An example of how Putin exploits virtú, as stated in the thesis of Ibrahimova is his employment of cruelty to deal with the oligarchs. During the Putin’s terms in presidency, he witnessed how corrupt the corrupt the oligarchs were, causing chaos in Russia. So what he did, while employing cruelty, he charged them with taxes, strip them off their power in media and political parties and finally arrested them, thus eliminating them in the process. In that way, his exercise of virtú was

In recent times, no one can take total power by force alone; you must offer something favorable to the people in order to obtain support. Unfortunately, there are some countries that follow a dictatorship system, which is a form of government that includes social and political power to ensure that the individual’s capability remains strong. Vladimir Putin is a contemporary dictator of Russia. His rebelliousness as a child has led him to his leadership. His cold-heartedness to his rivals and invasion towards countries has led to an opposition towards him. Vladimir Putin’s experience as a street thug led him to his leadership, which easily rose him to power: Not only has he committed crimes against humanity, but he has made groups of people and countries oppose him.

By Putin’s own admission, he hunted rats for food as a child growing up poor in St. Petersburg, this explains volumes on his personality. Critics might ask how he felt hunting his own relatives in those ghettos, but that would be to axiomatic a parallel to make.