“Fear is the Principle of Tyranny”
Lev Gudkov’s “Theory of Fear”
Deutsche Fassung
Abstract
Political scientist Helmut König examines the Putin regime through the lens of Montesquieu. According to Montesquieu’s classification of forms of government, Russia’s political order constitutes a tyranny. Its fundamental operating principle is fear. However, König expresses reservations regarding Lev Gudkov’s “theory of collective fear,” arguing that fear in present-day Russia does not stem from a revival of traumatic experiences from the Stalin era. He maintains that the intergenerational transmission of fear cannot be empirically demonstrated. The protests in Russia during the winter of 2011-2012 and protests against the Lukashenko dictatorship in Belarus in the summer of 2020 ultimately failed. Yet, for König, they demonstrated that any individual can over-come their fear when something new emerges in the relations between people.
(Osteuropa 7/2026, pp. 37–44)