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Vladimir
Zhirinovsky
The seeds which produce a tyrant and dictator, like the seeds which
generate other abnormal aberrations are planted in the early life of the
individual. In the case of Vladimir Zhirinovsky of Russia, it is easy to
assess his potential as a ruthless dictator if the chance would arise that
he could one day exert complete political control. This is because he has
expressed himself forthrightly in media interviews and in an autobiography.
It has been said that a country and people get the type of government that
they deserve, but the rise of Zhirinovsky to total power would be a complete
disaster for Russian citizenry and conceivably for the rest of the world.
In this day when psychohistory and one's sensitiveness to the origins
of violence and abberation are probed unto the third generation, it becomes
easy to make such analyses of a person whose position and power enables
him to express pressure and influence events. Their early abuse or love determines future wholesale
national happiness or sadness, and war or peace for their country.
The recent national elections in Russia marked
the continued rise to power of Vladimir Zhirinovsky. He is the leader of
Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, who a couple of years ago unexpectedly
won first place in national elections. He is a nationalist in the best
fascist tradition. Like Adolf Hitler his goal is to remap Europe in order
to eliminate centuries old injustices. And like Hitler he advocates the
use of military power to those ends.
What were some of the primal forces which molded Vladimir Zhirinovsky
in his youth? In his autobiography, The Final March South, he writes
that ". . .life itself forced me to suffer from the very day, from
the moment, from the instant of my birth." He complained that due
to his father's early death, his mother had to work long hours and as a
result, no time or energy was expended on him. "I was always in the
way. . . I was somehow superfluous," he writes. Unable to make friends
with either sex, he writes that he felt more and more isolated. It was
this unhappiness, this bitterness, which drove him to enter politics.
Why politics? What better avenue can there be for an angry person who
feels himself to always have been a victim from childhood and aspires to
seek revenge for the deprivation he suffered. Easily assuming that his
countrymen feel the way he does, it becomes easy to project his rancor
against the bad parents and attempt to change them. Thus Russia becomes
the mistreated child of his youth and with power he will attempt to right
the wrongs inflicted upon him.
And who are the bad parents against whom
the anger and wrath is to be directed? The United States and Europe are
the guilty parties who are stopping Russia from realizing its just and
deserving destiny. Zhirinovsky admits that he would not have entered politics
". . .if. . .my friends from childhood had been next to me, my beloved
girl(friend), then maybe I wouldn't have done anything political."
But a tyrant can neither exist nor survive in isolation. A collective
sense of injustice among co-conspiritors must necessarily exist. As had
Hitler, Zhirinovsky also has his supporters and bullies who also suffered
from deprived childhoods and are grateful to join with him in seeking revenge.
As of yet Zhirinovsky has not achieved political control. One tyrant who
has already done so, with lamentable results, is Saddam Hussein of Iraq.
Saddam Hussein
The early childhood of Saddam Hussein is similar to that of Zhirinovsky.
His upbringing was no less unhappy and unloving. Many believe that Saddam's
father deserted him and his mother when he was a child. His stepfather
was a crude person who disliked him. He was not allowed to attend school
and was passed back and forth between relatives until age 10 when he ran
away from home. His mother did not want him to be born and rejected him
both before and after birth.
A Wall Street Journal article (Feb, 1991) quoted a recent Iraqi
emigre to Israel who knew the mother of Saddam. After losing an older beloved
teenage son to cancer, and in a state of much distress, she attempted suicide.
Before Saddam's birth, she would pull out clumps of her hair and pummel
her pregnant abdomen with her fists. In the Journal article she
is quoted as having said that she did not want her baby and asking "after
losing my husband and child, what good can this baby do me?" Even
Saddam Hussein's official biography recounts his unhappy childhood.
Dr. Eliezer Witzlum, a Jerusalem psychiatrist and psychohistorian wrote a paper on Saddam, and feels that his maternal rejection is the
root of what psychiatrists call Saddam's psychopathology. Because of maternal
deprivation and inadequate bonding, Witzium believes that Saddam Hussein
"may never have developed basic trust in other people. You see it
in abused children in clinical situations," he said.
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