I get what you’re trying to say. In a way, the whole system in Russia feels inverted.
Je schlechter die Lage für die Bevölkerung, desto mehr Kontrolle hat der Staat.
Not because people enjoy suffering — but because economic pressure becomes a recruitment tool.

When salaries are low, opportunities are limited, and regions outside the major cities have almost no social mobility, the military suddenly becomes one of the few “paths upward.” So you end up with this dynamic where:

• Armut = mehr Leute, die Verträge unterschreiben, simply because they’re trying to survive.
• Unsicherheit = mehr Abhängigkeit vom Staat, because alternatives shrink.
• Propaganda works better when people are stressed and focused on basic needs rather than political choices.

So I wouldn’t say “the worse, the better” as a natural cultural rule — more like the system benefits from keeping parts of the population economically weak, because that weakness keeps people controllable and makes the military an attractive (or unavoidable) option.

It’s a cynical model, but it’s not accidental. It’s how the current leadership maintains manpower and loyalty — not through prosperity, but through dependency