The Russian regime has sought the support of the deep ranks of the people through conservatism. Now the administration has to find a new balance, the expert says.
The President of Russia Vladimir Putinia was considered at the beginning of his reign an unscrupulous but practical ruler.
The latest large-scale war in Ukraine has broken this picture. Putin has seemed to be in the throes of his own ideological narrative.
– Any nation, and especially the Russian nation, will always be able to identify patriots from the bottom line and traitors and spit them out like a fly accidentally flying into its mouth, Putin threatened on March 16th.
Doctor Marlene Laruelle leads the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies at George Washington University. He has studied the ideological climate in Russia.
He believes that all the ideological elements were present before, now they just merged and radicalized.
First, there was Russia’s complaint that the West is not recognizing Russia’s strategic interests and NATO is expanding. On the other hand, there was a story about Ukraine that was not really seen as a separate state and nation.
In this story, we present five excerpts from the development of contemporary ideology in Russia based on an interview with Marlene Laruelle.
1. How did Putin become radicalized?
Putin did not suddenly become a technocratic burning ideologue. The development was gradual. In 20 years, a person will change.
When he took over the Russian leadership, Putin was more optimistic about Russia’s role in the West. Through disappointment, Putin became bitter.
It was reflected in a loud speech in Munich in 2007, in the war in Georgia in 2008 and in the conquest of Crimea in 2014.
Similarly, conservatism gradually became apparent. After a wave of protests in 2011-12, the Putin regime largely felt that it had lost the support of the liberal middle class in the big cities and began to rely more and more on the conservative “silent majority,” that is, the deep ranks of the people who are not politically active.
Putin has also been reported to be increasingly interested in history and his own place in the long arc of Russian history.
On the other hand, Putin’s interpretations of history speak of an inability to see Ukrainians as actors in history. Putin has not realized that during 30 years of independence, Russian and Ukrainian societies have developed separately.
2. Where does Putin get his influence?
A nationalist conservative is happy to write in the Western media Ivan Iljinin (1883–1954) and Alexander Duginin such philosophers.
Mixing geopolitics, esotericism and fascism, Dugin is often portrayed in the Western media as “Putin’s brain”. Dugin has rejoiced since the outbreak of a full-scale war In an interview with MK magazine (you move to another service)that the brave “solar Putin” has defeated the cautious and pragmatic “moon Putin”.
Marlene Lararu believes that the importance of Dugin and her partners is often exaggerated. There are a lot of ideological entrepreneurs revolving around the Kremlin trading their services to those in power.
Rather, Putin’s worldview stems from popular culture, movies, historical references, and the Soviet tradition in which Ukraine was considered Russia’s little brother.
3. Is Russia fascist?
Marlene Lararu sees that there have been rhetorical elements in Putin’s war-related speeches that suggest no fascism before.
– The idea of self-purification of society, rebirth through war is very fascist.
Elements of Stalinism can also be seen in Putin’s speeches. Laruelle believes that Russia is still a long way from totalitarianism, even though ideologically we are moving in that direction.
Laruelle still sees fascism as a problematic assimilation in terms of politics and strategy.
– The danger to policy-making is that it makes people imagine the end of the war as happened to Nazi Germany in 1945: a complete collapse, the Nuremberg Trials, Laruelle reflects.
He considers it highly unlikely that Russia will collapse completely or that Putin will end up in international law in The Hague. At this point, it is still difficult to know what will result from the war, and historical parallels may be more confusing than clarifying estimates.
4. Does Putin want to restore the Soviet Union?
In 2005, Putin said the collapse of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century. This has been interpreted in the West as Putin longing for a return to the Soviet Union.
On the other hand, Putin has sharply criticized the Communists, and in particular the leader of the October Revolution. Vladimir Lenin. Putin accuses Lenin of giving birth to a modern-day Ukraine and has said that Ukraine’s real disengagement from communism also means the return of territories to Russia – so the conquest of Crimea in 2014 was just the beginning.
Putin therefore welcomes the Soviet Union when it comes to great power, international status and the patriotism of its citizens.
He has a negative attitude towards communism. The conservative ideology of the white migrants who fled the revolution has found a place among the Putin elite, which explains, for example, the restoration of the reputation of the philosopher Ivan Ilyin.
5. Does the ideology pursued by the government sink into the people?
Marlene Lararu warns against relying too much on polls because people are afraid to say they are against the war. Russia has virtually war censorship. On the other hand, the war seems to have the passive acceptance of the majority of citizens: the Russians do not get a realistic picture of the extent and atrocities of the war on television, and during the war the citizens tend to group behind the state leadership.
Laruelle estimates that conservatism driven by the Russian leadership is partly supported by the majority of the people. The mythology of World War II sinks into the people and the majority of Russians are skeptical about the rights of gender minorities. The idea that Europe is too liberal and forgets its own ethnic identity in the name of multiculturalism is also widely shared.
On the other hand, the hard-line recession does not enjoy much popularity. Russians are not enthusiastic about banning abortion or demanding to abstain from sex before marriage.
The Russian leadership has in the past sought to present itself as moderate conservatives, but now it has radicalized itself.
Many members of the liberal upper middle class are fleeing the country, and on the other hand, the voices of the steep line are amplified in the absence of opposition.
The war is likely to make the Russian regime more conservative, authoritarian and closed-minded, and repression will intensify.
On the other hand, those in power need to find a new balance so that they do not alienate the majority of the population.
– Everything is still moving, Laruelle says.