I've worked blue collar jobs where bosses are way more direct, like your Russian managers - and it's better. I remember one who would tell me most mornings, "Try not to fuck up today!" When a boss is angry and direct in giving feedback, we don't become resentful; we get scared for a while, then settle down. It's the natural way of hierarchy. We all need course correction from time to time, and the modern white-collar way sucks.

This guy's bad feelings were increased by his isolation. Compare this to an old school environment where you got yelled at by the boss, then emerged from the office to the jokes of your co-workers who heard the yelling through the door. That's a more natural environment.

(The old school boss sometimes fucked up by abusing an employee in front of co-workers. It should always be done behind closed doors.)

However in many years of corporate work I can rarely figure out what my bosses actually want or what they're thinking. They talk about corporate initiatives and get that uncomfortable "lying" body language, probably because they don't really believe this stuff but have to parrot it.

Getting back to your Russian managers - I think we are wired for hierarchy but we need certain signals to be comfortable with it. We like to work for bosses who are comfortable wielding power. When the boss projects too much weakness, the power relationship becomes very uncomfortable. I'm guessing that the remote bosses in the story didn't give strong course correction early on because they felt uncomfortable. They let the situation escalate, then took this drastic action.