[Note for bibliographic reference: Melberg, Hans O. (1997) How (not) to explain
puzzling Russian behaviour, http://www.oocities.org/hmelberg/papers/970106.htm]
How (not) to explain puzzling Russian behaviour
A Review of R. Hingley's The Russian Mind
The Russian Mind
Ronald Hingley
The Bodley Head Ltd, London, 1978
ISBN: 0-370-10467-6
The argument
After reading The Russian Mind the author - Ronald Hingley - hopes "that
readers may begin to find Russian behaviour, often so baffling to the outside observer,
considerably less puzzling than it may previously have appeared." (p. 21) In other
words, the argument is that an examination of the Russian mind may explain what appears to
be irrational behaviour from a western point of view. In order to do this, Hingley first
has to answer the question "What is the characteristics of the Russian mind?" -
assuming there is such a thing as a Russian mind. He then has to explain how the Russian
mind causes the behaviour which a western observer finds puzzling. I shall argue that
Hingley only occasionally succeeds in giving plausible answers to these two questions.
The characteristics of the Russian mind
What is the Russian mind and how do we decipher it? According to Hingley "The working
of a mind ... can only be studied in terms of the signal - words, grunts, gesticulations
and so on - which it transmits ..." (p. 52). The primary source used by Hingley in
order to reveal this is Russian literature and language. In addition he makes much use of
secondary sources such as the classical works of Marquis de Custine, Olearius, von
Herberstein, Giles Fletcher and others. The problem, of course, is that both Russian
literature and the classical accounts give conflicting evidence on what is typically
Russian. For example, is the typical Russian deeply religious - as Gogol or Tarsis argue -
or is he only superficially religious as a reading of Gorky and Belinsky suggest (p.
110-111). Similarly, Hingley discusses whether the typical Russian is individualistic or
collectivist, tolerant or xenophobic, rationally calculating or emotionally spontaneous,
secretive or open, kind or cruel and many other opposites. As with the debate over Russian
religiosity, it is usually easy to find literary evidence for both the mutually
incompatible traits. This is a problem because it becomes impossible to use the Russian
mind to explain Russian behaviour if we cannot even determine the nature of the Russian
mind. How does Hingley solve this problem?
One solution to the conflicting claims, is to argue that the Russians exhibit different
typical traits in different situations. For example, some authors - such as Leonid
Andreyev - claim that the Russians are incapable of lying, while others - Giles Fletcher
is one example - argue that the Russians are incapable of telling the truth. Hingley's
solution is to argue that it is typically Russian to lie when dealing with authorities,
but it is equally typically Russian to express his true feelings when dealing with his
friends and equals (p. 91ff).
Another solution is to argue that the Russians somehow exhibit both the contradictory
traits at the same time. For example, consider the following sentence: "To feel
freer, yet somehow cramped, than other people is one of Russian characteristics, including
not a few other polarised opposites ..." (p. 31). This sounds contradictory. A person
may exhibit contradictory traits at different times, but when we take the average over
time and persons (as implied in the word "typical") the result cannot be that
two mutually incompatible traits are typically Russian? In fact, it is sometimes
mathematically possible to solve this apparent contradiction. Consider the case of country
A with 10% atheists, 80% agnostics and 10% Christians. Compare this to country B which has
40% atheists, 20% agnostics and 40% Christians. Clearly, country B exhibit both stronger
religious feelings and stronger anti-religious feelings than country A. One may call this
the bipolar theory - that the Russians have a more extreme belief and value system than
other ethnic groups.
Hingley clearly subscribes to the bipolar theory. For example, he writes that "One
suspects that neither tedium unrelieved nor euphoria unalloyed constitutes the true state
of Russian affairs, but an atmosphere in which individuals are still more prone to embrace
the one or the other more wholeheartedly at any given moment than are the representatives
of many other groups." (p. 19, see also p. 200). However, I am not entirely convinced
about the empirical validity of the bipolar theory. First, it only applies when there is a
middle neutral category (i.e. it would not work if - for the sake of argument - the trait
was being pregnant since this is something one either is or is not). Second, I do not
believe it to be empirically proved that the Russians have a more extreme belief or value
system than other ethnic groups. Even Hingley himself contradicts the bipolar argument
when he writes that "The passionate believers and the passionate disbelieves in the
totalitarian system are ... far less numerous than are the internal neutrals" (p.
212). In other words a distribution of belief in contradiction to the bipolar thesis which
would suggest a small neutral category in the middle and many supporters and dissenters on
the extremes.
A third option when faced with incompatible claims about the Russian mind is to throw
your hands up and say that it is impossible to know which is true. Hingley sometimes uses
this option, as when he towards the end writes that "I can only marvel once more at
the readiness with which, in a Russian context, even level-headed observers will commit
themselves to dogmatic assertions about the unknowable" (p. 212). Although this
option is intellectually respectable, it is not open for Hingley since he wants to use the
characteristics of the Russian mind to explain Russian behaviour. This presupposes that he
at least has a view on what the Russian mind is. It would be unfair to accuse him never
committing himself to a view, but overall I felt he was reluctant to attach himself too
strongly to one view. Too often he simply presents evidence for both sides of an argument
and concludes that it is impossible to know who is right. This is a worthwhile exercise,
but it does not form a good foundation for the second part of his argument: to explain
Russian behaviour using the characteristics of the Russian mind.
How convincing is Hingley's account of the characteristics of the Russian mind? Overall
I was disappointed. Not only is he - as mentioned - reluctant to commit himself to one
view, but even when he commits himself I often find myself doubting the reliability of
some of his claims. For example he writes that the Russians are so friendly to strangers
that they ".. confuse hospitality with hospitalisation ." (p. 45) when they
serve food and drink. Of course (I hope), Hingley uses his poetic licence as a man of
literature and the sentence should not be taken literally. However, consider the following
statements, meant literally, about "the age-old Russian tendency to embrace or eschew
action with a totality of commitment alien to other breeds" (p. 200); the
"Russian's acute sensitivity to audience reaction" (p. 128); "As for saving
money, the notion is incompatible with the Russian ideal conception of himself, being more
suitable to the calculating, despised yet admired Germans" (p. 44); that
"violence stands out as a as a typical element" of the Russian mind (p. 12) or
that the Russians are characterized by "suddenness and unpredictability" (p.
12); that the Russians have an "obsession with authority" (p. 15), and, finally,
that "no feature of the country is more commonly attested ... than boredom" (p.
17).
Some of above characteristics may be typical of the Russians, but my overall impression
is that these debates about national characteristics are futile and often decent into
arm-chair psychology. Even Hingley admits this when he writes that he had to rely on
"hunches" in his presentation, not scientific investigation (p. 22). However, in
the absence of more reliable data I am reluctant to conclude that the Russians are more
conscious of audience reactions than, say, the Swedes; that they are more extreme in their
choice of action or inaction than other ethnic groups or any other large-scale
generalisations.
Using the Russian mind to explain puzzling behaviour
In what way can the characteristics of the Russian mind explain behaviour which seems
irrational to a Western observer? I shall consider six examples of puzzling behaviour and
the explanation given by Hingley: Disproportionate reactions, absurd propaganda, the
idealisation of the peasants and the "going to the people" in 1874, lying, the
show trials, and the totalitarian state. The first three I consider to be interesting, the
last three are less reliable because of the inherent difficulties in proving the causal
connections between the Russian mind and its supposed consequences.
Disproportionate reactions
According to Hingley it is typically Russian to behave in ways in which there is "no
proportion between cause and effect." (p. 15). A small provocation may result in a
large reaction as is exemplified in "Stalin's acts against the Chechens and his own
soldiers", "the elephant-slaughtering Tsar", and "the
princess-drowning Razin" (p. 16). One might invoke the bipolar theory in order to
explain these events. The story would then be that it is typical of the Russians to do
everything in excess - be it revenge or forgiveness - and this explains the tendency to
disproportionate relationship between cause and effect.
The above story may be true, but it is difficult to know because the explanation is
partly circular: We use examples of Russian behaviour to prove that the Russians have a
bipolar mind. We then use the characteristic - the bipolar mind - to explain the same
behaviour which we used to prove the trait. This is clearly circular (although it need not
be if the behaviour used to establish the trait is not the same as the behaviour to be
explained by the trait). This does not mean that it is uninteresting if an author can
point to a pattern of excess in Russian behaviour, only that it would not be valid to
explain this pattern by the same variables which were used to establish it.
In fact, we do not have to invoke a Russian culture of "everything in excess"
in order to explain the disproportionality between cause and response in Russian
behaviour. When I choose how to respond to an event it seems irrational to be constrained
by the "size" of the cause of the event. All that is relevant - from a rational
point of view - is how to best satisfy my aims. A somewhat theoretical example may clarify
the underlying logic.
Assume Russia invades Svalbard (a small island under Norwegian sovereignty) using only
a small force, little violence and old conventional weapons. How should the US respond to
this? The options range from using nuclear weapons in a all out war on Russia to the other
extreme option - doing nothing. The key point, however, is that the only rationally
relevant considerations for the US in choosing what to do, is how best to achieve its aims
in the situation which has arisen after the Russian invasion. If the best way to achieve
their aims is to threaten to use nuclear weapons, then this is what they should do
(rationally speaking). To say that this would be a disproportionate response to a
conventional invasion of a small island is not relevant; A rational response is
proportional to the aims, not to the cause of the situation. Using this logic there is no
need to invoke a Russian culture of excess in order to explain the pattern of
disproportion between provocation and reaction. The simple assumption of selfish and
rational behaviour may do the job in many instances. In fact, what needs explaining is the
puzzle that the Western mind seems to believe that there should be some kind of
proportional relation between provocation and reaction. (For more on this see the writings
of P. H. Vigor, C. Donnelly and J. Sherr who all emphasise the rational aspect of the
Russian mind, especially in Russian military mind.)
When discussing disproportionate response I am reminded of the following episode from
the Stalin era: People at a meeting had started to applaud Comrade Stalin and his
achievements. It soon became apparent that nobody wanted to be the first to stop
applauding and so they continued to applaud for a long time. Eventually one person though
that enough was enough and he stopped. All the other participants then followed his
example. The next day the man was taken by the secret police. One may argue that execution
or being send to the GULAG was a disproportionate response to the "crime" of
being the first to stop applauding. However, from Stalin's point of view it is perfectly
rational. By being the first to stop, he revealed that he was independent minded and as
such he was a threat to Stalin's power which in turn made purge the rational response.
Absurd propaganda
One well known slogan from the Brezhnev era is "the economy must be economic."
The absurdity of this - and other equally absurd slogans - cries out for an explanation.
Why on earth did the authorities create and use these obviously meaningless slogans?
Hingley suggests an interesting mechanism which may explain the existence of some of the
absurd slogans. Assume you have the job of producing propaganda for the Soviet regime.
Assume also that you know that reality is much grimmer than the picture or reality you are
expected to produce. Now, refusing to do your job is out of the question given the grave
consequences it would have. However, "one kind of protest he can make with relative
safety" is to exaggerate the propaganda to absurd heights. In the words of Hingley:
"By subtly overdoing his performance, he can deride the whole process, separate
himself mentally from his humiliating position, and thus preserve a measure of
self-respect" (p. 84). This psychological mechanism is at least one possible
explanation of the existence of absurd slogans. (For another example of the same
mechanism, see Hingley's comments on Leonid Leonov's novel Skutarevsky (1932) on p.
85)
The mechanism described by Hingley is not the only way in which the absurdity can be
explained. A simpler explanation would be that in a system in which your job depends on
the good-will of your superiors, you tend to agree with the boss even if he comes up with
stupid ideas. Hence, no one dare to tell the North Korean leaders how ridiculous their
self-congratulatory ads makes them look in the eyes of a western reader (reference: Jon
Elster). For the same reasons, no one dared to oppose Brezhnev even if he suggested a
meaningless slogan. (For more on why people express false beliefs, see T. Kuran's latest
book on preference falsification)
Going to the people
In 1874 several hundred Russian intellectuals "went to the people" i.e. they
left the universities in order to live with the peasants - to learn from the wisdom they
believed existed in the peasant commune and to teach the gospel of the revolution.
Needless to say the happening was a fiasco. The intellectuals did not fit in, and the
peasants treated them with suspicion. How are we to explain this bizarre event?
One possible explanation, suggested by Hingley, is that the intellectual
peasant-fanciers "idealised the Muzhik [Russian head-peasant], as some have come to
idealise the - once no less oppressed - black people of America: out of a guilty
conscience rather than from intimate knowledge" (p. 150). Another explanation could
be that the peasant commune represented one obvious difference between Russia and Western
Europe. Thus, in an age of seeking greatness in the past it represented a convenient focal
point which could be used to idealise Russia and avoid idealising the West at the same
time. In either case we use "the Russian Mind" to explain behaviour which we
initially found puzzling.
Vranyo, show trials and totalitarianism
I now turn to three examples of behaviour which Hingley tries to explain by reference to
the Russian mind, but which I think is less interesting and reliable than the previous
three examples.
According to Hingley vranyo - the telling of innocent lies for amusement and not
self-advantage - is typically Russian (p. 77ff). He then draws the parallel between this
and the ritualised lying to tourists after 1917. In my opinion the two are very different
and vranyo does not explain the obviously skewed picture presented to tourists. Hingley
admits the two phenomena are not exactly the same, but he still draws the parallel with
the implicit assumption that there is a relationship. In this I believe he is wrong.
Telling small half-truths may be a way of providing amusement in a dull day, but telling
tourists that there were no prostitutes in Russia, no AIDS problem, no drug problem and
that the radio was invented by a Russian - is not half-truths told for amusement. These
are proper lies, or lozh as it is called in Russian - not vranyo and I fail
to see the parallel between the two.
Another example of an unreliable linking of the Russian mind and a puzzling phenomena,
is Hingley suggestion that the show trials may be explained by a Russian "national
love of skandaly , ' scenes' ". (p. 73). The connection between this love and the
show trials is presented by Hingley as follows: "Small wonder that the rulers of a
nation so histrionically inclined should have resorted to theatrical devices when seeking
to bolster their authority. The most spectacular example was the trilogy of Stalinist show
trials of 1936-38" (p. 74). My objection is that I simply do not think that the
Russian love for scandals (if this is greater than other nation's love of scandals) can
explain the show trials. What, then, is my alternative explanation?
The puzzle about the show trials is that Stalin could have eliminated his enemies
without going through the trouble of extorting false confession and highly publicised
"trials." So, why did he do it? One possible reason could be that he needed
someone to blame for the lack of progress and for the many mistakes committed when they
tried to build communism. The creation of scapegoats must - of course - be a public event
since Bukharin and the others could not defuse the situation if they were not publicly
blamed. Now, I do not know enough to say that this is the true explanation but to me it
sounds more plausible than to invoke a "love for scandals."
Even worse - I believe - is Hingley's suggestion that "The whole of Russian
history can be plausibly related to the rhythm of the skandal and the subsequent
tamping-down operation or counter-skandal" (p. 74). Maybe this is not meant as
literally as seems, but in any case I do not think the suggestion is more plausible than
Gorer's suggestion that much of Russian history can be explained by the practice of
swaddling. The history of a nation is the result of many interacting factors and the
search for a single driving force, a single key which explains it all, is mistaken.
Lastly, I believe it is wrong to explain the authoritarian and totalitarian state of
the Tsar regime and the Communists (respectively) by reference to the characteristics of
the Russian Mind. Hingley advances at least three such suggestions. First, the long
experience of overwhelming force, arbitrarily imposed and commanding total obedience (p.
161) and the experience of lawlessness during the Times of Trouble (1598-1613), created a
Russian mind which "reconciled the people to slavery under a single all-powerful
master ..." (p. 165). One may then try to use this characteristic of the Russian mind
to explain why people put up with the totalitarian state created by the Bolsheviks for
more than seventy years.
Another explanation of the totalitarian state, also advanced by Hingley, is that the
Russians are unable to co-operate, thus no class or organization was able to unite against
the state in order to demand the limitation of state power (p. 105). A third explanation
of the totalitarian state in terms of the Russian mind is in terms of the lack of
discipline among the Russians. As he writes: "Why has it so often been necessary to
discipline them into docility so extreme. Surely because many of them are the reverse of
regimentation-prone in their souls? Their charmingly evasive tactics, their delightful
unpunctuality ..." (p. 168). In short, only a strongly centralised state suits the
Russian soul - as Hingley also tries to argue with an anecdote about how he had to behave
towards his Russian employees when he led a teaching institution in London.
My objection to these three suggestions is the same: I do not believe the Russians
desire authoritarian rule more than other nations; I do not believe the Russians desire
freedom less than other people or that they are less able to co-operate than other groups.
Maybe their attitude towards authority is different from the western attitude, but I am
yet to be convinced that this is the case or that it explains the nature of their Russian
government over the past two hundred years. Instead, in order to explain the totalitarian
nature of the Russian government during the Communist era, I tend to believe that we
should use the ideology of the Bolsheviks, not to the culture of the Russians. (This does
not mean that I believe ideology is the only important factor. It would be foolish
to deny that culture, accidents and circumstances play a role in the history of nations.)
Is the West today like Russia before 1917?
Towards the end Hingley asks the rhetorical question "Can it be that 'we' are all
Russians, albeit nineteenth-century Russians, now?" (p. 219). The background for
Hingley's question is a comparison of the intellectual environment of Russia pre-1917 and
the West in the 1970s. Both environments, he writes, are well described by Solzhenitsyn as
"adults deferring to the opinion of their children; ... professors scared of being
unfashionable; journalists refusing to take responsibility for the words they squander so
profusely; universal sympathy for revolutionary extremists; people with serious objections
unable or unwilling to voice them" and "spiritual confusion leading to political
upheaval" (p. 218-9).
There is no doubt some truth to Hingley's suggestion, especially when it was written in
the 1970s. For example, in the relatively peaceful Norway old professors were strongly
criticised for being bourgeoisie and there was even a repetition of the Russian
"going to the people" when intellectuals tried to become members of the
working-class by quitting their jobs to work in factories. However, there are also
important differences between pre-1917 Russia and the West today. For example, the
economic situation is radically different since most people in the West are economically
well off. Moreover, today's young generations have not been radicalised by the experience
of fighting a major war. Hence, I do not believe that the West are in any accute danger of
repeating the experiences of Russia 1917-91.
Nevertheless, I believe there are valuable lessons to be drawn from pre-1917 Russia,
such as the importance of avoiding intellectually inspired grand social experiments, the
danger of abstract reasoning without concrete and practical examples, and the danger of
academic censorship - external or, as often occurs in academic communities, self-inflicted
(one example is the current emphasis on political correctness). Hingley is right against
warning against these phenomena, but I am unsure exactly how large the problem is in the
West today. (See my review of Richard Pipes' Communism: The Vanished Spectre for
more on this.)
Conclusion
I am unsure about the overall assessment of this book. It is well-written, full of
examples from the literature and even highly entertainingly in parts. Yet, I feel that the
subject matter - the Russian mind - is too elusive to serve as an explanatory variable.
Too often I felt that Hingley simply recorded the contradictory opinions of a large number
of people about the nature of the Russian mind, only to conclude that it was impossible to
tell who was right. If this is so the very attempt to write a book in which the Russian
mind is supposed to explain behaviour is futile from the beginning. It is futile because
it presupposes reliable knowledge which we do not have and which is difficult - if not
impossible - to get (see my essay on experiments to reveal cultural traits for an attempt
to increase the reliability of cultural explanations). Still, I believe Hingley has done a
valuable job in revealing the contradictory opinions about the Russian mind, as well as
providing some occasional insights into how to explain some puzzling phenomena. Overall
this amounts to a conditional recommendation: If you are seeking an overview of opinions
on the Russian national psychology - this is good book. If you seek reliable explanations
of Russian history and behaviour - you will at least be somewhat disappointed by Hingley's
The Russian Mind.
[Note for bibliographic reference: Melberg, Hans O. (1997) How (not) to explain puzzling
Russian behaviour, http://www.oocities.org/hmelberg/papers/970106.htm]