Putin’s Maternal Drama Act III Putin’s Unconscious Identification with Hitler

Wikiccomons

Dr. Matti Tuovinen (1931-2011) , the Finnish psychoanalyst psychiatrist wrote a hallmark dissertation on “Crime as an attempt at intrapsychic adaptation.” https://www.finna.fi/Record/utu.997309565405971?lng=en-gb Touvinen was for many years a prison psychiatrist and hence he knew well the terrain of violence in the unconscious. His essay deeply impressed me when I was delving into the mind of the terrorist. His thoughts are applicable to understanding the mind and body language of Vladimir Putin and in particular the denazification project entailing the criminal assault on the Ukraine.

Like Hitler no matter what Putin does, he has lost this war, thus spoke Professor Yuval Noah Hariri, one of Israel’s leading historians when asked about the comparisons between Putin and Hitler.

Harari said he was not a big fan of the rush to compare the two, though he acknowledged that “there are certain similarities.

However, he stressed, “There’s a very big difference. Hitler had an ideology, and the German people were to a great extent united behind this ideology. Here it’s a war of one man only. It’s not a war of the Russian people. The Russian people don’t want this.” https://www.timesofisrael.com/yuval-noah-harari-no-matter-what-he-does-putin-has-already-lost-this-war/ Some argue that Putin does have an ideology i.e. that of wiping out the Ukrainians but true, he does not have the following like Hitler did.

Israeli Brit. Gen. (Ret.) Yossi Kupervasser has also stated the importance of the narrative campaign noting that Pres. Zelensky has the upper hand. https://jcpa.org/ukraines-president-zelensky-is-winning-the-narrative-campaign/#_edn1

In Tel Aviv on Saturday night the 5th of March there were protests drawing on this comparison between Putin and Hitler:

Some protesters were seen holding signs with caricatures comparing the Russian leader to Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler, a comparison that has become popular among demonstrators around the world since the Russian invasion began on February 24.

Others were seen holding signs with swastikas and other Nazi symbols. https://www.timesofisrael.com/putin-is-a-fascist-hundreds-of-protestors-march-for-ukraine-in-tel-aviv/

The confluence of narrative and imagery is important with the academics pointing to the narrative, the verbage while the crowd signals the imagery.

However, there has been virtually no inquiry into what underpins “the story and the image.” Neither arise de novo out of thin air. Where can Putin’s early development be detected in this unconscious historic drama?

It is estimated that that 95% of thinking is unconscious. I have argued elsewhere that this unconscious terrain is intimately connected with the maternal attachment, the drama under discussion. http://www.mentalitiesjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/The-Utility-of-a-Psychoanalytic-Mentality-concerning-Artificial-Intelligence-and-the-Jihadis-1.pdf

The ideology of Nazism infuses the current political crisis. In psychoanalytic thinking ideologies are emotionally lived beliefs which provide a kind of envelop or packaging for the emotional life of the personal and the political. Emotions run deep arising out of violent fantasies which have coursed through Putin’s being early on in his life.

Key to understanding Nazism and Putin is the trauma that I cited in Act II The Brothers Putin: the Siege of Leningrad and the death of Brother Victor. They have fed Putin’s frenzied obsession with denazification. Is there any proof that he saw himself as a kind of young Hitler? Perhaps the identification surfaces in the above undated school photo of him (Wikicommons) where he creepily looks like a young Hitler in the making.

But isn’t this paradoxical that Putin should unconsciously become Hitler while he screams denazification?

Not at all, if one recalls what is attributed to Karl Marx: Accuse your victims of what you do.

This is the essence of the projection of paranoia. This is Putin’s world in reverse: what is good is bad and what is bad is good.

While the academics may continue to debate if Putin is like Hitler or not, it seems that worldwide people have already decided. For them Putin is merely parading around wearing the Emperor’s New Clothes, that is, of Hitler. His denazification program for the Ukraine exposes his violent fantasy world intimately linked to Hitler. Touvinen’s concept of crime being an attempt at intrapsychic adaptation, meaning that in his perverse world Putin has been trying to put something right, stabilize himself. This concept of intrapsychic adaptation further helps in understanding what Prof. Harari called Putin’s “loose screws.” The tragedy though, is that, in Putin’s Hitler-like-attempt to resurrect his dead Brother Victor in victory, has caused millions of innocent people to be displayed and murdered. While it is too late to undo the devastation done to the Ukraine thus far, or for that matter to put right Putin’s childhood, it is a sobering reminder that early childhood development needs to be taken seriously. It needs to be integrated into strategic planning for geopolitics.