Victim-Perpetrator Cycle
Groups that have suffered persecution can, once they gain power, go on to persecute others - often using their past suffering as justification.
Also known as: Cycle of collective aggression, Transgenerational trauma to aggression, Oppressed-becomes-oppressor dynamic
What it means
When a group endures sustained persecution - genocide, enslavement, ethnic cleansing, systemic discrimination - that experience becomes woven into the group’s collective identity. The trauma is passed down through generations, shaping how the group sees itself and the world. This is entirely understandable and, in many respects, necessary for survival.
The problem emerges when that group later gains power. The memory of victimhood does not automatically produce empathy for others in vulnerable positions. In fact, it can do the opposite. Unhealed collective trauma can create a permanent sense of existential threat, a conviction that the group is always one step away from annihilation. That hyper-vigilance, combined with newfound power, creates the conditions for disproportionate aggression - often directed at weaker groups who are perceived, rightly or wrongly, as threats.
The psychologist Ervin Staub, himself a Holocaust survivor, spent decades studying this pattern. He argued that groups which have suffered deeply are not inherently more compassionate - they are more afraid. And fear, combined with power and an ideology of entitlement, is the recipe for perpetration. The historian’s version is simpler: power corrupts, and historical suffering does not grant immunity.
In the real world
This pattern recurs across history. Post-revolutionary France saw the oppressed Third Estate overthrow a tyrannical monarchy - and then unleash the Terror, executing thousands in the name of liberty. In Rwanda, the Hutu majority had been systematically subordinated under colonial rule, and the resentment this produced was later mobilised to justify genocide against the Tutsi. Across the post-colonial world, liberation movements that fought genuine oppression went on to establish authoritarian regimes, persecuting dissidents and minorities once in power.
The pattern also appears in religious history. Communities that fled persecution for their beliefs - seeking freedom to worship as they chose - have repeatedly established new settlements where they then imposed rigid orthodoxy on others, punishing heresy and difference with the same tools once used against them.
What makes this cycle so difficult to break is that the group’s victim identity remains central to its self-understanding even as it wields power. The narrative of past suffering becomes a shield against accountability: how can we be the oppressors when we are the ones who suffered? This is not hypocrisy in the simple sense. It is a profound cognitive failure - the inability to hold two truths at once: that a group can be both a historical victim and a present-day perpetrator.
How to spot it
Watch for groups that invoke historical suffering to justify present-day aggression or to deflect criticism of their actions. When the phrase never again shifts from a universal vow to an exclusive licence - when it means never again to us rather than never again to anyone - the cycle may be turning. Competitive victimhood, where a group insists its past pain outweighs the current pain of those it is harming, is a key signal.
The thought to hold onto
Suffering does not immunise a group against causing suffering. Power tempts everyone equally, and unhealed wounds can become weapons.
Why it matters now
In an era of identity-based politics, historical grievance is a powerful currency. Groups across the political spectrum invoke ancestral trauma to claim moral authority - and sometimes to silence legitimate criticism of their present conduct. Recognising this pattern is not about diminishing anyone's past pain. It is about insisting that pain must never become a permission slip.