The name of Niccolò Machiavelli is often heard on our lips when referring to a certain situation or someone ‘Machiavellian’ (being clever but dishonest and immoral to achieve some means) used to address the different varieties of men (as in mankind) that behave in a not so ‘moral’ way. It is true that Machiavelli was no saint, no lawyer is, but this poor Florentine man did nothing but writing a book full of guidelines for rulers to keep ruling. To be fair, he did propose some ideas considered rather arguably harsh, none the less they are useful not to the common folk but to the leaders of a country. The echo of his work has lasted through time until our days, his ideas can be seen in the way some politicians talk and act.
To illustrate this, we should remember all the times a government has made many promises to its people before an election, and after it, they were just wet paper with no value at all, yet the head of state had many ‘good’ reasons to not fulfill them, which reminds me of a quote from The Prince, a ruler will never be short of good reasons to explain away a broken promise’ (Machiavelli, 1532). Something quite impressive I must say is that words with an antiquity of five hundred years are still relevant today, it is because of that that he fascinates me, seeking power and a way to keep it is not something necessarily bad, it is the actions we follow to achieve that goal that will corrupt us in the end.
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In this paper, I will use the vision of politics and power provided by Machiavelli’s ‘The Prince’ to look into the political behavior of different rulers in our current times, and how his teachings can be linked to our reality.
In fiction, a Machiavellian character can be seen as someone that empathizes little with others and have a hard time connecting emotionally, know how to handle deception and alter the image others perceive of them, they constantly search for their own benefit, control every action they do, starting with their impulses and emotions, they usually have very ambitious and long-term goals, they are relentless when it comes to achieving their goals and they might even appear to us readers or watchers as charming. Characters with these traits are Francis Underwood from House of Cards, Lord Baelish from Game of Thrones, or the Marquise de Merteuil from Les Liaisons Dangereuses. Inside books and movies it is easy to recognize that said characters are acting with some distance from the moral ways of behaving, we might even call them evil, yet how do we identify who is the antagonist in our political environment when every politician hides their true nature? I believe the answer is by looking closely at their actions and overlooking their fancy and elegant words.
The now Supreme Ruler, Vladimir Putin
I will now introduce a big Machiavellian politician, someone to be both admired and feared, Vladimir Putin. This man similar to the fictional examples cited above has always had an inspiring ambition, and we see this from his origins until now. Putin started off from very humble beginnings, he lived his first years in a communal apartment in Leningrad. He studied at School No. 193, located in front of his residence, in the Baskov alley, known for being a poor area, and there he began to practice judo and sambo. Some years later in 1970, he entered the Law School of the Leningrad State University, where he graduated with honors in 1975 with a thesis about the policy of the United States in Africa (Putin and Guevorkian, 2000). He went from being recruited by the KGB, earning the degree of officer (lieutenant of Justice) to becoming the President of Russia and more recently being named ‘Supreme Ruler’ (REUTERS, 2020).
Now, this ruler is a very good example of being both political animals, according to Machiavelli one must have the qualities of the lion and the fox. To illustrate this by tracing back to the years 2013 – 2015, when the Ukrainian Crisis happened, at that time he declared for the first time, in a meeting at the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), that he supported the presidential elections in Ukraine and that the secessionist referendum scheduled two days later should be postponed, urging the pro-Russians to make that decision to facilitate dialogue with Kyiv (Marples, n.d.).
He was the lion, attacking fast and fatal when he tried to annex Ukraine to Russia and he was the fox, acting cunningly and smart when proposing this meeting. So while in the OSCE Putin advocated for dialogue and discouraged the provocation of the referendum, he arranged great paraphernalia of power in a territory that was illegitimately annexed and managed the controversial concept of “historical justice” that seemed to allow him to disregard the borders and skip all international agreements and laws without the slightest trouble.
Putin also followed the Florentine’s advice of when having to do damage, the ruler should try to be forceful and fast so that it is forgotten soon, alternatively, try to do good in a way that lasts over time with promises and small ‘gifts. He showed the world how would threats be managed in Russia when in 2002, a crowded Moscow theatre was assaulted by a group of patriotic fanatics demanding the withdrawal of Russian troops from Chechnya. The President then only requested their surrender, and when the group refused, he called the Alpha group of the Federal Security Service and introduced a narcotic gas through the sewers. What happened later was absolute terror but a very fast solution, the sleeping offenders were shot one by one in the back of their necks ending the situation (Nedkov and Wilson, 2003). Although the whole quarrel cost 130 innocent lives, Putin patented this direct action as a success, brutal but efficient.
Not only he has been able to keep ruling since the year 2000 with four consecutive presidential terms, but he made a poor and corrupted Russia, the legacy of his predecessor Boris Yeltsin, resurface from the ashes and become the strong country that is today. Under Yeltsin's mandate, the Soviet empire lost its pride and the West lost its fear, but now the status quo has changed, and Russia has recovered its brightness.
Sources
- Machiavelli, N. and Parks, T. (1532). The prince. Glasgow: Penguin random house UK.
- Marples, D. (n.d.). Ukraine in Conflict: An Analytical Chronicle. 1st ed. E-International Relations.
- Nedkov, V. and Wilson, P. (2003). 57 Hours: A Survivor's Account of the Moscow Hostage Drama. Toronto: Viking Canada.
- Putin, V., Gevorkjan, N., Timakova, N. and Kolesnikov, A. (2000). First person. London: Hutchinson.
- REUTERS (2020). Kremlin confirms the new title of SUPREME RULER for Vladimir Putin is being considered following his recent changes to Russia's constitution. Daily Mail online.
- Vidal, G. (2019). Why the Right has failed. El Pais. [online] Available at: https://elpais.com/politica/2019/04/28/actualidad/1554643522_520230.html [Accessed 13 Jan. 2020].
- Nytimes.com. (2016). Transcript: Donald Trump’s Taped Comments About Women. [online] Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/08/us/donald-trump-tape-transcript.html [Accessed 9 Jan. 2020].
- Stephanos, D. (2011). Trump, card. [online] Nypost.com. Available at: https://nypost.com/2011/04/03/trump-card/ [Accessed 9 Jan. 2020].
- Delaney, K. (2016). Trump bragged at the debate about not paying taxes and taking advantage of bankruptcy laws. [online] Quartz. Available at: https://qz.com/792408/presidential-debate-donald-trump-bragged-about-not-paying-taxes-and-taking-advantage-of-bankruptcy-laws/ [Accessed 9 Jan. 2020].
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