The Real Reason Average Russians Choose to Believe Tyrants Like Putin

Name: The Real Reason Average Russians Choose to Believe Tyrants Like Putin
Uploaded: 2026-08-15T19:07:15+00:00
Duration: 22 min 56 s
Channel: Elvira Bary

00:00Many people in the West still ask the wrong question about Putin's Russia.

00:06Why do Russians believe the same old story about enemies, traders, NATO,

00:13sacred Russia and the West trying to destroy them?

00:16But belief is not always what it looks like.

00:20In Russia, people often believe the ruler for a much more practical reason.

00:25Because the ruler sits at the center of the system that decides who gets protection, money, status, safety and permission

00:36to succeed.

00:37And once you understand that, Putin's dictatorship stops looking like a mystery.

00:43It starts looking like an ancient survival structure scaled up to a country of 140 million people.

00:51At the top, there's the dominant figure.

00:54Around him, clans compete for access.

00:58Below them, loyal servants get pieces of the national wealth.

01:03Farther down, millions of ordinary people learn the oldest rule in the hierarchy.

01:10Do not challenge the one who controls your food, your job, your documents, your future and your fear.

01:18This is not patriotism in the normal sense.

01:22It is dependence dressed up as patriotism.

01:26And it explains a great deal why incompetent people rise.

01:32Why honest people leave or shut up.

01:36Why corruption becomes normal.

01:38Why public loyalty does not always mean private belief.

01:42And why so many Russians can understand everything and still choose the safer lie.

01:48I am Elvira Barry, a writer born in the Soviet Union.

01:51And today I want to show you the real reason average Russians choose to believe dictators like Putin.

01:57Not because they are uniquely brainwashed.

02:00But because the system has trained them to treat belief as a survival strategy.

02:08Here's our roadmap.

02:10The caste system.

02:12How the regime uses strict social layers to protect itself.

02:16The mycelium.

02:18Why the elite functions like a parasitic network that keeps outsiders away.

02:23Negative selection.

02:25How the system purges competence and rewards people willing to do the dirty work.

02:32The cynics' survival.

02:34How people who understand everything still find ways to live inside the machine.

02:40The price to pay.

02:42What this system costs Russia in capital, talent, trust, and human potential.

02:49If you want more deep dive analysis that fills back the myths of authoritarian power,

02:54please subscribe, like, and share.

02:57You can also join my think tank, support through Paypal or Superthings, or tap Hype Points.

03:03And if you are listening on Spotify, follow the show there too.

03:08It really helps.

03:10Now, let's begin with the caste system.

03:13Because in Putin's Russia, the first thing you need to understand is not what people believe,

03:20but where they stand.

03:23The caste system.

03:27An authoritarian system survives because it successfully divides a society into rigid castes.

03:35This is not just about inequality.

03:37It is about engineering a state of artificial childhood for the majority.

03:44By denying citizens independent resources and forcing them into total state dependence,

03:50the regime strips them of their autonomy, effectively rendering them helpless.

03:56When you have no safety net of your own, your entire survival depends on the power above you,

04:04which is exactly where the regime wants you.

04:07But look what happens as you move up that hierarchy.

04:11In a society divided by chains, freedom becomes the ultimate currency.

04:18Specifically, the freedom from the law itself.

04:21The higher you ascend, the more immunity you gain from the very constraints that bind everyone else.

04:30And this is the most critical point.

04:32You do not climb this ladder through merit or hard work.

04:37It is a closed loop.

04:39Entry into the ruling class requires you to be taken in.

04:43Usually through strategic marriages, deep-rooted student ties,

04:48or years of demonstrated unweathering service to a specific clan.

04:54Your status is only cemented once the system grants you a piece of the state's resources,

05:00tying your personal survival to the survival of the regime itself.

05:04The core of this elite remains remarkably static,

05:09formed from the descendants of Soviet-era party and security apparatchiks,

05:14bolstered by select, compliant figures from the arts and academia.

05:20Status here is not just about what you own.

05:23It is about who acknowledges and accepts your presence in the inner circle.

05:29While those at the bottom struggle to survive,

05:32hoping at best to afford a small apartment,

05:35those at the top live in a tire of luxury that rivals and sometimes exceeds that of global

05:44potentence.

05:45Yet this power is inherently precarious.

05:49Your immunity is not guaranteed by law, but by your continued utility to the regime

05:56and the whims of the political wind.

05:59Because the system is objectively inefficient, it relies on this caste structure to survive.

06:06Those who possess these hard-won privileges will inevitably fight to the death

06:12to keep the current order intact.

06:14The mycelium

06:20To understand how this elite actually functions, forget the idea of a formal organization or

06:26machine metaphor. It is more accurate to view it as a mycelium. A vast subterranean network of

06:34threads that feed and support the entire system while holding the perimeter to ensure no outsider ever

06:42gains a foothold. Every thread in this network is there to serve the collective.

06:49But the primary function of the mycelium is defense. It does not just grow, it guards its territory.

06:58If you want to enter this elite from the outside, you cannot simply bring talent or fresh ideas.

07:05You have to be stayed first. I remember a conversation with a friend who, in her youth,

07:12was offered a position in the marketing department of a major state monopoly, the Russian Railways.

07:19On paper, it sounded like a career-making opportunity. In reality, it was a test of compliance.

07:27She was offered a modest salary and a massive million-ruble budget. The instruction was simple.

07:36Steal the money in such a way that the books look perfect. And then share the spoils with the

07:42person who granted you the position and the one who approved the budget. This is the ritual of the

07:49mycelium. By forcing you to participate in a crime, the system ensures that you are now a part of the

07:56we. You have no clean hands left to turn against the mycelium. You are trapped by your own complacency.

08:04The public will never trust you because you are a thief. There is nowhere left to run. And that is

08:10precisely how the system guarantees loyalty. Within this network, you can switch positions and you can

08:19change roles. But the one thing you absolutely cannot do is try to jump from one clan to another.

08:27That is the only real threat to the regime's stability. And for that, the mycelium does not

08:34offer a promotion. It offers a death sentence. Negative selection

08:43In a functioning society, the goal of any organization is to attract the best and the

08:49brightest. But in an authoritarian system, talent is not an asset. It is a liability. If you are smart,

08:57ambitious, and capable of independent thought, you are a threat to the mycelium. This is why

09:04such regimes are defined by a brutal, consistent process of negative selection. If you are a

09:12talented person living under this system, your path is painfully narrow. You have only three real options.

09:18Immigrate, crawl into a clan which requires, as we discussed, staining your soul and selling your

09:25conscience, or stay outside the system but work as a service provider for the wealthy,

09:30hoping to snatch a few crumbs for yourself. For the vast majority who remain, the choice is stripped

09:37of all nuance. Do you want to be poor and powerless? Or are you willing to look the other way,

09:45while the system inflicts violence and corruption, all in exchange for status and money? The system

09:53considers corruption and petty scam at every level so natural that you will find people who genuinely

10:00believe they are great patriots, yet simultaneously spend their entire lives dodging taxes, funneling

10:09bribes and cutting every corner imaginable. I had a conversation recently with a veterinarian from

10:15Kaliningrad that perfectly illustrates this cognitive dissonance. She told me with absolute sincerity how much she

10:25loved Russia and how correct she believed Putin's actions were. In the very next breath, she bragged about

10:34how she hides her cash income from tax authorities and cheats on medication invoices for her clients.

10:41She was not ashamed. She didn't have to be. She knows the state sees it too, but the state does

10:49not care about her

10:50honesty. It cares about her submission. As long as the patriotic veterinarian keeps a portion of that

10:58stolen money flowing upward, the system closes its eyes. This culture of the useful crook is a direct

11:08inheritance from the Soviet obsession with the simple man, whom they bitter against the rotten intelligentsia.

11:16The state officially viewed the intellectual, the person who reflects and questions, as an inherent threat.

11:25During the Leninist and Stalinist purges, the regime did not just remove people. They actively replaced the

11:33intelligent and literate with those who lacked both education and the capacity for reflection.

11:40They prioritized people who did not know how to think. Because people who don't think don't ask

11:47why the fire is burning. Even in the late 1980s, the state tried to prop up simple workers while keeping

11:55the intelligentsia down. We ended up in a strange reality where factory workers often made twice as much

12:03as someone with a high education, yet the prestige still clung to those who studied. If we stand in the

12:12shoes of a village boy born to illiterate parents, struggling to even write his own name on a payroll

12:20sheet, we understand that the offer to perform dirty work for the state is his only chance to jump out

12:30of the

12:30soul-crushing Soviet poverty and helplessness. He takes that chance. A normal career is

12:37impossible for him because he lacks the intellect and education. But his willingness to abandon his

12:44conscience becomes his greatest competitive advantage. A tool he uses to easily outmaneuver his more

12:53principled rivals. This law and mid-level managers created a specific culture where shouting at

13:00subordinates was the norm, where stealing and inflating numbers were standard practice and where

13:08the prevailing morals were those of the prison camp. And this is another crucial layer. Millions of people

13:17passed through Stalin's camps and the prison system, emerging with the conviction that the criminal

13:24underworld was the only real force capable of resisting or defeating the state. This is why

13:32criminal romance, the glorification of fog life, is so popular in Russia. When you layer this history over decades,

13:41it becomes clear why it was a natural progression for Putin to call on these marginal figures to fight his

13:48war. For those who wanted to do their dirty work for money and status, things they could never achieve

13:56otherwise. The war was a ladder. And for losers of all kinds, the war is a chance to move to

14:04a different

14:05level. They will defend the system and its brutal methods to the end, because only within this system

14:13do they keep their status, their property and their role as the enforcers of the state.

14:21The cynics' survival

14:25When you look from the outside, it is easy to succumb to the myth that the Russian population supports the

14:32war

14:32because they share the regime's values. You see the absence of million-person protests and conclude

14:41that the people must be in lockstep with the Kremlin. Such reasoning shows a total ignorance of how Russian

14:49society is actually wired. To get millions onto the streets, you need a political campaign. You need to

14:57agitate, to call, to persuade. This was never safe, but today you will be arrested within roughly an hour and

15:06likely handed a five-year prison term. And the people arresting you, they are the very cocks we discussed

15:13earlier. The ones who feel no shame in doing the system's dirty work. I recently spoke with a psychologist

15:22from St. Petersburg asking her how the country is breathing. She told me that everyone she knows

15:28is in a state of deep depression. Her slice of society is their intelligentsia. You cannot speak,

15:36you cannot plan for a future because, you know, something bad is coming, and you cannot rely on your

15:43career surviving. As the state ramps up daily repressions, she sees four distinct strategies people use to

15:50preserve their sanity. Internal immigration. Many stop reading the news entirely. She sees this in

15:58many of her acquaintances. They lose themselves in gardening, fantasy literature, and superficial

16:04conversations to avoid the pain of reality. Outsiders judge them for this. But my friend sees it differently.

16:12Those who are safe have no right to condemn them. And honestly, when you view the world through

16:19their eyes, this strategy of waiting and preserving your mental health is entirely rational.

16:28Defensive cynicism. This is the strategy of telling yourself that the world is inherently unjust,

16:35that everywhere is like this, and that there is no truth. These people adopt the beliefs that are more

16:42profitable for them in the here and now, carefully following their superior's lead while pushing away

16:49any deeper reflection. This is how a recent prank became so telling. A prankster, posing as the

16:56Department of Education, ordered provincial school principals to craft and photograph themselves in foil

17:03helmets. Medic applied. When the command comes from above, the brain shuts off. Not because they want to

17:11look like fools, but because they fear the wrath of the system. In their environment, cynicism and hidden

17:19defiance prevail. They nod, they comply, but they look out for their own interests.

17:26Stockholm syndrome. Some people merge with the aggressor, identifying with the state to protect

17:32themselves, hoping the system will see them as one of their own and spare them from punishment.

17:39You see this in the massive amount of performative outrage online. There is no logic here, and moral

17:46arguments cannot pierce through this kind of psychological resistance. The opportunists wave.

17:53There are those who see a wave coming and decide to jump on it. At the start of the war,

18:00some truly believed

18:01Russia was restoring justice and bringing happiness to the world, viewing Russia as an absolute inevitable

18:08force. They joined the side they thought would win. Many weren't simple opportunists. Their personal

18:15fears and desires happened to align with the state's narratives. These became the flaming patriots,

18:22completely blind to the fact that their own actions were leading to the destruction of their own country.

18:30These strategies don't turn people into loyalists. They turn them into citizens of the silence.

18:38They nod when required. They offer the expected slogans. But deep down, they are just waiting to survive

18:46the day. The state counts this as support, but it is nothing of the sort. It is merely their emptiness,

18:54created when people are forced to stop imagining a future that belongs to them. The price to pay.

19:04A system that runs on non-motivated people who don't believe in their work,

19:10on thieves who snatch everything not nailed down, and on incompetent managers who have no clue about

19:18the long-term consequences of their actions is, by definition, a system designed to fail.

19:24In this environment, personal gain is fundamentally disconnected from any collective or national

19:32interest. To put a single ruble into your own pocket, you often have to inflict several rubles'

19:38worth of damage on the state of the project you are supposedly managing. People involved in the state

19:46procurement for sanctioned goods have told me that prices are routinely inflated by free times.

19:54And no one finds this strange. That inflated cost is not just the price of the goods. It covers the

20:02bribes, the kickbacks, and the silent consent of the people who created and funded that state

20:09order in the first place. All of this adds up to one unavoidable reality. Russia is losing its competitive

20:19edge on the global market. For years, this inefficiency was masked by the massive influx of oil and gas

20:28revenues, which acted as a cushion, covering the losses created by the system. But the war has severed the

20:36most important market for these resources – Western Europe. And attempts to simply pivot to other

20:45partners have not filled the void. Meanwhile, the costs of the war continue to climb.

20:51We have reached a point where the massive staffing problems caused by the negative selection process

20:57of Russia is not just a matter of external pressure. It is an internal, structural certainty.

21:13Politics and economics are, at their core, made by people. And it is those people who are making

21:21the final decisions. When the quality of decision-making is this low, and when the system

21:26incentivizes to reward corruption over competence, no declared objective will ever be achieved.

21:35Before you go, I want to ask you something personal. Have you ever been in a workplace, school, family,

21:42or community where people pretended to believe the official story because it was safer than saying

21:50what they really thought? If this video helped you understand Russia more clearly, please like the video

21:58and subscribe. Share it with one person who still thinks public loyalty always means real belief.

22:07And if you want to support this work directly, you can join my think tank, leave us super things,

22:13support via PayPal or tap Hype Points to help this episode travel further. And for those listening on Spotify,

22:21follow the show so you don't miss the next one. Thank you for watching. See you next time.

22:54you

The Real Reason Average Russians Choose to Believe Tyrants Like Putin

Category

Transcript

Comments

Recommended