One of the reasons that the footage of US President Donald Trump’s clash with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was so compelling to Western audiences was the sheer unfamiliarity of such a scene.

Leaders routinely have arguments behind closed doors, but this one was very deliberately broadcast. The host not only inflamed US Vice President J.D. Vance’s provocations of the Ukrainian leader, but he made sure to keep the media in the room for the full 50-minute drama. As Trump said in the closing line: “This is going to be great television.”

Illustration by Joe Benke

But to Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, and anyone else familiar with Marxist-Leninist political management, it was instantly recognisable. This was a “struggle session”. That is, an orchestrated ritual humiliation of a political enemy, conducted in public, often with crowd participation. A common feature is that the target is denounced by people they thought were close to them.

The struggle session had its origins in the writings of Soviet leader Josef Stalin on the subject of criticism and self-criticism. It was later embraced by China’s Mao Zedong against suspected “class enemies”.

Mao’s youthful zealot Red Guards notoriously employed violence, torture and even murder in struggle sessions during the Cultural Revolution. The reformer Deng Xiaoping banned the struggle session.

But now Trump has introduced it to US foreign policy. Putin would have recognised and relished the performance in the Oval Office: the ritual, public humiliation of the man who has inspired millions in defying Putin and embarrassing his army. Conducted by Zelensky’s most important ally to date, the United States. But why would Trump do it? The world has long puzzled over his affinity for Putin, the former KGB colonel who seeks to........

© The Sydney Morning Herald