The Dangers of Authoritarian Leadership

Review of Karyne E. Messina’s (Ed.) A Psychoanalytic Study of Political Leadership in the United States and Russia: Searching for Truth (Routledge, 2024), ISBN: 978-1-03-263774-7, 145 pages, paperback, $39.95

With the war in Ukraine still raging and former President Donald Trump recently found guilty on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, the publication of A Psychoanalytic Study of Political Leadership in the United States and Russia: Searching for Truth is timely. In this book, the authors—an impressive selection of psychiatrists, psychologists, psychoanalysts, and psychohistorians—collectively pose two major questions: One, despite Trump’s numerous trials for sexual assault and criminal business dealings, why does he still have a huge following? Two, why did Putin invade Ukraine? Based on available background data and scientific mental and psychological assessments, diverse perspectives are presented on these two leaders’ personalities, authoritarian leadership styles, and effective leadership. Through an intricate weaving of ideas, profiles emerge on who many consider two of the most dangerous leaders in history.

Karyne E. Messina opens the book with her essay. Based on engaging personal anecdotes and research, she examines U.S. presidents’ propensity to lie and when that lying becomes harmful to the American people. As it turns out, Trump is not the only liar! Messina states, “Biden has been lying for years” (p. 12), for which she presents evidence. She presents a history embedded in suspicious, non-altruistic presidential decision-making in the name of American Imperialism. Messina emphasizes the need for our leaders to tell the truth to build trust, set a good example for our children, and foster the ability to understand where others are coming from for negotiation and compromise. This begs the question—does the truth really matter? Despite Trump’s criminal record, evident sexual abuse of women, and pathological propensity to lie, he still has a huge following; he may even be able to participate in and win the next election.

In her next essay, Messina—who refers to Putin as “a brutal, authoritarian dictator who is responsible for the deaths of many people” (p. 40)—shifts to a childhood psychoanalytic interpretation of Putin to explain who he is today. Based on available research and her knowledge of

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intergenerational trauma and defense mechanisms, Messina suggests Putin was a “replacement child” as a result of his mother’s experiences of extreme hardship, disease, and starvation in Leningrad following its destruction by the Germans during WWII. His mother also suffered the loss of family, including two children, before Putin was born (p. 33). Putting his own emotional needs aside for his mother’s led to psychopathological traits and feelings associated with “aggression, anxiety, psychic pain,” which were then inflicted on others due to no path to psychic healing (p. 34).

Messina also suggests that Putin’s leadership style reflects larger cultural values, such as “strength, authority, and patriotism” (p. 41). Similarly, in his essay, “Interpreting Vladimir Putin from Afar Leads to Over-Simplification of Very Complex Relationships,” Harry Gill claims that Putin is a protector of “Mother Russia” from NATO “encroaching” on ex-territories like Ukraine and violating their agreements (p. 64). With the collapse of the USSR, Gill suggests that Putin has a longing to return to a time of prosperity and opportunity for its people; losing Kyiv and Odesa was a “narcissistic injury to the nation” (p. 63). Having a similar sentiment to Messina’s, Gill argues that what is needed is to “walk a mile” in the Russians’ shoes and develop empathy for a very complex situation in the feelings of Russians who support Putin and thereby gain a deeper understanding of the “other” in efforts to “deescalate conflict” and find compromise (p. 71).

In his essay, Peter W. Petschauer takes a less sympathetic approach to Putin’s need to reunify the Soviet Union he was born into. He suggests that Putin’s turn to violence as a result of intergenerational trauma following Germany’s leveling of Leningrad, coupled with his small stature, led to a Napoleon complex. (Interestingly, no one can agree on Putin’s height on Google.) While Petschauer agrees that NATO was a threat moving Eastward, he outrightly asks if this is why Putin invaded Ukraine. He proceeds to remind us that as an authoritarian leader with Imperialism in his veins, Putin’s invasion should come as no surprise: “Rare is the authoritarian who does not start a war!” (p. 80).

As Volkan and Javakhishvili illustrate in their chapter, one trait of an authoritarian leader is to foster a large group identity based on a “nationalistic belief” (p. 96). The rescue fantasy Volkan and Javakhishvili describe may be one explanation for Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Political leaders influenced by rescue fantasies become “criminal bullies like Putin, who deliberately initiate inhumane actions and oppress and injure innocent people in order to raise primarily their own and their followers’ narcissism” (p. 89). The rescue fantasy can become particularly destructive when coupled with malignant propaganda and a deep understanding of, quoting Hitler’s Mein Kampf (1925), “the emotional ideas of great masses” (p. 95).

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Robert M. Gordon explains in his essay that what drives the masses to follow an “idealized charismatic alpha male” is “insecurity and fear,” even if it is to our “self-destruction” (p. 104). Gordon calls for an effective personality trait assessment to determine leaders’ suitability for office. He provides examples of how that works with his own scientific mental and psychological assessments as tools to inform voters. Spoiler alert: the ratings were not very high for Trump and Putin.

Based on Hitchens’ razor, Messina insists it is important to support all claims with solid evidence or dismiss them. While Trump gives us a lot of solid material to raise eyebrows, when it comes to psychoanalyzing a leader like Putin, it is tricky. Besides the information he shares, can we only speculate on what his behavior and actions convey about his mental and psychological states? According to Gordon, we can go beyond speculation. Leading by example, he used a “purposive sampling” of licensed mental health experts for his scientific assessments. These experts were deemed able to provide objective, scientific ratings of the personalities of Putin, Trump, and Zelensky using “documented statements and recorded observed behaviors” (p. 106).

Austin Ratner closes this collection of essays. Ratner provides an insightful examination of Putin’s ego through an examination of Dostoevsky’s classic novel, The Brothers Karamazov (1879–1880), which Sigmund Freud hailed as “the most magnificent novel ever written” (p. 124). Using Dostoevsky’s psychoanalytic observations of his characters to explain how “feelings can unconsciously distort conscious thinking” that can lead to “impetuous action” (p. 126), Ratner offers an explanation of Putin’s fury and deeply wounded ego that led to Putin’s invasion of Crimea: an animatronic snowflake did not open in one of the Olympic Rings at the start of the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, Russia. Putin’s invasion of Crimea does make one wonder if the snowflake blunder betrayed a wounded ego or if the Games were just a cunning distraction for the invasion. No one will ever know for sure.

No one will ever know for sure is a thought I walk away with after reading this thought-provoking conversation. What we do know—and it is good to be mindful of this—is that authoritarian leaders with dictator-like qualities can be dangerous, particularly if they reel in the masses by playing on their emotional insecurities and fears. These essays have a deep sense of nationalistic pride, which may be enough for many voters to overlook the mental and psychological flaws in their leaders. One cannot ignore, for example, the resounding influence of past traumatic events on large group identity that, as illustrated in these essays, can manifest in very different ways depending on a nation’s societal and cultural values.

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