Some Conservatives claims Putin is a Communist. I disagree totally with this line of thinking. I have always viewed Putin as a Rightwing Nationalist. A new article vindicates my observation.
Two recent stories offer a revealing — and, to some, unsettling — view of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s emerging state ideology. The new Putinism, you might call it, seems to be a fusion of two older Russian ideas: nationalism, sometimes with an anti-Western tinge, and conservative interpretations of Orthodox Christianity. Both stories portray the coalescing, Kremlin-pushed ideology as a response to rising dissent and, more broadly, an effort to fill an ideological vacuum that has to some extent remained since the collapse of the Soviet Union two decades ago.
The Financial Times’ Charles Clover chronicles the new ideology’s emergence in the typically vibrant city of St. Petersburg, “long regarded as Russia’s liberal window to the west” but now “the testing ground for a new wave of conservative, Orthodox church-going, pro-Kremlin patriotism that has gripped much of Russian officialdom.” Clover cites recent censorship of classic Russian works by Vladimir Nabokov and Sergei Rachmaninoff, as well as new law that forbids “yelping” and “stomping” at night, possibly aimed at curbing protests.
Putinism is nothing more than Czarist Russian nationalism. The Russian Orthodox Church has been restored to its role as one of the pillars of Russian society. I would call this ideology Russian Falangism. American Conservatives need to stop viewing Russia through the elsn of the Cold War. Russia need to be viewed as it was under the Czars. Vladimir Putin is more like Peter the Great than he is Brezhnev. There will be times Russia works with us and other times they don’t. One area we should cooperate is against the Muslim Brotherhood.
