A key question for the contemporary world: What is Putin’s ideology? This book analyses this ideology, which it terms “Putinism”. It examines a range of factors that feed into the ideology – conservative thought in Russia from the nineteenth century onwards, Russian and Soviet history and their memorialisation, Russian Orthodox religion and its political connections, a focus on traditional values, and Russia’s sense of itself as a unique civilisation, different from the West and due a special, respected place in the world. The book highlights that although the resulting ideology lacks coherence and universalism comparable to that of Soviet-era Marxism-Leninism, it is nevertheless effective in aligning the population to the regime and is flexible and applicable in different circumstances. And that therefore it is not attached to Putin as a person, is likely to outlive him, and is potentially appealing elsewhere in the world outside Russia, especially to countries that feel belittled by the West and let down by the West’s failure to resolve problems of global injustice and inequality.
Table of Contents:
1 Introduction: Understanding Putinism
Studying Putinism as an Ideology
What Is Putinism’s Ideological Identity?
What Is the Meaning of Putinism?
Is There Popular Demand for Putinism?
2 Political Thinkers of the Past in the Service of Putinism
Slavophiles
Anti-mimetism in the Teaching of Slavophiles
Populism in the Ideology of Slavophiles
Ivan Il’in in Contemporary Russian Regime Ideology
Il’in in Ideological Debates Today
Il’in’s Worldview and the Regime Ideology
Aleksandr Zinov’ev
Zinov’ev’s Social Theory
Anti-Westernism and the “Philosophy of War”
3 Conservatism: Brief Engagement and Transformation of the Doctrine
Debates on Ideology in Post-Soviet Russia
Conservative Ideology in the 1990s
Merging Academic Studies of Conservatism and Politics
URP and the Regime Ideology in the 2000s
Turn Away from Conservatism: After 2011/12
4 Ideological Forms of National Iterations
Russian Nationalism or Nationalistic Discourses?
Civilisationism
Ideology of the Russian World
Diaspora as a Political Problem: Dealing with “Compatriots”
Conceptualisation of Diaspora Before 2014: The Russian World Project
Pan-Slavism
5 Geo-political Ideologies
Greater Eurasia: Large and Central
“Large space” Thinking and Eurasian Projects
Greater Eurasia: Re-centring Russia
Isolationism in Geo-political Thinking
Geo-political Justice
6 Religious Aspects of Putinism
Ideology of the Russian Orthodox Church
The Theory of “Basic Values”
Justice and Orthodoxy
Geo-political Dimension of the “Basic Values”
Historical Unity and the ROC
Russia – My History Exhibition
Messianism
Low-cost Messianism in Putin’s Russia
Discussions on Messianism: 1990s–mid-2000s
Messianism: Expansionist to Isolationist
Mainstream Messianic Politics: Mid-2000s to the Present
7 Conclusion
About the Author :
Mikhail Suslov is Associate Professor in the Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark.
Review :
“With this book, Mikhail Suslov joins the swollen ranks of Russia-watchers who for nearly two decades have endeavoured to identify and describe that most slippery of subjects, namely Putinism as an ideology. Suslov however takes a novel approach. Avoiding an overly exclusive focus on the persona of Putin himself, the author rather directs his attention to a number of more general contemporary perspectives in Russia—conservatism, nationalism, geo-politics, and religion—and shows how a Putinist ideology takes shape through its complex intersections with each of these. A historian of ideas rather than a political scientist, Suslov brings an unusual skill-set to his analysis, and he offers a series of compelling insights into the contemporary relevance of debates about Russian politics and identity that date back to the nineteenth century. Putinism – Post-Soviet Russian Regime Ideology is not only a work of impressive erudition and originality: it is precisely what is needed today to help us more fully comprehend the destructive ideological energies that drive Putin’s politics, both within Russia and beyond.”
--Mark Bassin, Research Professor, Södertörn University and Research Director, Institute for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Uppsala University, Sweden
“Putinism – Post-Soviet Russian Regime Ideology offers the first comprehensive assessment of Putinism as an ideology. In this long-awaited analysis, Mikhail Suslov proposes a nuanced and in-depth exploration of the different conceptual, historical, and institutional layers of constitutive Putinist ideology that brings precious insights to both scholars and policy experts.”
--Marlene Laruelle, Director, Illiberalism Studies Program and Director, Russia Program, The George Washington University, Washington, USA
“Suslov’s monograph will become the standard work on the emerging ideology of Putinism. The book is a brilliant exposition of the different strands of political thought that have contributed to contemporary Putinism. Suslov's deep scholarship makes a convincing case that Putinism is a genuine ideology, which might even outlive Putin himself.”
--David Lewis, Professor of Politics, University of Exeter, UK
“Contrary to common assertions that President Vladimir Putin’s Russia is a Stalinist, fascist, or nonideological state, Suslov argues that the regime boasts a distinct ideology of its own. He traces the development of “Putinism” over the president’s more than 20 years in office by studying the work of Russian scholars, intellectuals, political figures, and think tanks. One of the key elements of Putinism is a peculiar kind of “identitarian” conservatism that emphasizes the unchanging identity and values of the Russian people through the centuries while dismissing as unimportant the political upheavals and transformations of Russia’s 1,000-year history. Other elements include populism and chronic anti-Westernism, as well as insistence on Russia’s “genuine sovereignty”: its political independence, the uniqueness of its historical experience, and its right to determine its destiny. Although he calls this set of ideas “Putinism,” Suslov emphasizes that it is not “Putin’s ideology” and suggests that these beliefs will likely outlive him and may even appeal to nations outside Russia who feel belittled by and disappointed in the West.”
-- Maria Lipman, Foreign Affairs, March/April 2024.
“Mikhail Suslov, author of the first comprehensive academic study of [Putinism] describes the new official creed as identitarian and communitarian—a flexible yet increasingly streamlined set of concepts focused on Russia’s territory, history, and spirituality. It is messianic in that it strives to transform the global order, but unlike Marxism, it advances no universal, future-oriented utopia. […] Suslov has an advantage over the political scientists and pundits who have begun to discuss Putinism as an ideology: he was trained as a historian, with a strong command of Russian intellectual history and the history of modern ideologies from the 19th century on. His book is based on 1,500 texts, most of them books, written from 2000 to 2023 by Russian political operatives, intellectuals, think-tank figures, politically prominent businessmen, and a generation of scholars of Russia’s conservative canon, many of whom have become political activists. […] Suslov himself, who now teaches in Copenhagen, is part of a large academic and intellectual diaspora created by the Putin regime. In his analytical book’s most personal passage, he writes that “Putinism not only stole my motherland from me, it also defiled everything that is dear to all Russians; it spoils everything it touches, from Pushkin to the victory in the Great Patriotic War.” Foreign policy specialists and realist experts on international relations who view Russia through the prism of a great power game of chess may not quite realize what the advent of a new official ideology has done to Russia. Russia now is not just another corrupt, authoritarian regime but, in Suslov’s words, the world’s “major challenger to the basic principles of the liberal-democratic canon.””
-- Michael David-Fox, Los Angeles Review of Books, October 7, 2024.
“Putinism's ideological nature has drawn increased attention over the last few years. In part this is because Russia's war of choice in Ukraine has focused attention on Russian nationalism, imperialism, and the political mobilization of the Russian people. Discussion of these questions has not always involved much consideration of what ideology is, however, or concerted analysis of what ideas make up Putinism. Mikhail Suslov's brilliantly researched book—Suslov seems to have read everything—plugs these gaps and is an indispensable guide to the different intellectual strands and traditions that have twisted together to become Putinism, which Suslov labels Russia's "third official ideology" after Uvarov's Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Nationality and Soviet Marxism-Leninism (p. 274). Suslov's book is the best work on Putinist regime ideology produced so far and it will be a long time before a better one is produced. This is an indispensable text given the increasing ideologization of Russian politics.”
-- Neil Robinson, The Russian Review, 08 August 2024.
"Mikhail Suslov has written a book with the potential of becoming a standard work on the ideological rationale in Putin's Russia. Based on a significant text corpus, he presents a thorough analysis of the ideological building blocks of Putinism and argues that the regime's ideological foundations should in no way be dismissed or underestimated. Unless we acknowledge the reality and danger of this this ideology, Suslov writes, we cannot hope to fight it."
-- Håvard Bækken, Nordisk Østforum. 38, 2024: 92–94.
