Yes they are very necessary but he has a point in that they can make people rally. However i think he misses the greatest rallying factor, which is war itself and not the sanctions i think.
I’d say there is as much in common with Stalin’s Soviet Union as anything else. It’s very difficult to determine what people really believe compared to what they will say out of fear. It’s also debatable as to how much people know what is really going on.
As far as the current crisis goes, no-one knows exactly what is happening and everyone is being fed a certain narrative. It’s pretty certain that the average Russian’s access to information is limited. When I have spoken to people who have lived under repressive regimes you will find that they often rely on World Service broadcasters (BBC, DW, France24 etc) for information.
I’d also question as to how much in awe Germans were of Hitler. They were certainly terrified of the Nazis but I had a look for proxies for general support. One thing I checked out was the popularity of the name “Adolf” amongst German boys. There was a jump in popularity between 1934 and 1936 but this dropped off after that and declined rapidly after 1939. The last record I had in the database was 1942.
Never confuse fear with respect.
Hilarious, pro Hezbollah/IRGC analyst i sometimes read debunk Russian fairy tale:¨
What comes next , the Final Solution ?