Russians who Never Grew Up – the Source of Soviet Nostalgia and Support for Neo-Totalitarianism, Kadyrova Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, November 3 – Russians who lived in Soviet times got older but didn’t grow up, Moscow psychoanalyst Elena Kadyrova says. As a result, they do not want to take responsibility for themselves but have others do it, an attitude that is the source not only of nostalgia for the Soviet past but also of support for neo-totalitarianism.

            “The psychology of a child in an adult is in essence the psychology of a slave,” of someone who rejects freedom in the name of security provided by others, she suggests in a new Novyye izvestiya article (newizv.ru/article/general/03-11-2019/kompleks-vzroslogo-rebenka-komu-sovetskiy-soyuz-kazhetsya-uteryannym-raem).

            And it is important to understand, Kadyrova continues, that “what is harmonious at one stage of personal and social evolution is transformed into a pathology at another.” Those who want to remain in a kindergarten “for their entire lives” see no advantages “in capitalist relations of Western democracies.”

            “On the contrary,” such adult children feel “threatened by the existential chill of loneliness and defenselessness in economic jungles” and do not see that they are offered anything valuable in exchange – nothing besides freedom,” the psychoanalyst says. For them as for small children, freedom isn’t something desirable but a source of fear.

            Therefore, Kadyrova suggests, “the Soviet economic model presupposed the sacralization of the authorities and the infantilization of the population,” the very same “construct” at the root of “various modifications of authoritarian and totalitarian systems” – including Putin’s Russia today.

            But there is one big difference between the Soviet system and the Putin one with regard to this psychological state. In Soviet times, few were able to grow up and take advantage of freedoms; now, within the elite, many are. They value their ability to operate on their own, and that inevitably will have an impact on the rest of society, as a model or scarecrow depending.

            Thus, Kadyrova continues, “it would be a mistake to make completely pessimistic predictions about the future starting from this previous experience … especially because our local crisis reflects a global crisis of all human civilization which faces the threat of destruction” caught as it is between war and consumption patterns.

            Whether Russians or others can navigate between these dangers remains to be seen. What is clear is the psychology of infantilism the Soviet system promoted continues to cast a dark shadow on Russian development.