Teaching Comparative Government and Politics

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

The old is new; the new is old

Russia is a huge, multi-ethnic country. What unites its people and diverse regions? Putinism?

The new Putinism: Nationalism fused with conservative Christianity

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…

The Financial Times’ Charles 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…

In Moscow, Claire Bigg of Radio Free Europe finds indications of a Kremlin effort to institutionalize the new emphasis on nationalism: an entirely new government agency for “promoting patriotism” and safeguarding “the spiritual and moral foundations of Russian society.” It’s hard not to be reminded of Iran’s infamous censorship body, the “Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance,” although Russia’s Directorate for Social Projects appears more about cultivating friendly public sentiments than blocking outlawed ones.

Bigg and analysts she spoke with portrayed the agency as an outgrowth of Putin’s “deepening hostility” toward foreign organizations, even comparing it to the Soviet-era propaganda department…

Russia’s search for an ideology is a big deal for the populous, ethnically diverse country. This campaign’s propagandistic and anti-liberal overtones aside, it does at least seem to address this issue… Russian nationalism has at times carried ethnic overtones. About 80 percent of the country’s citizens are ethnic Russian, and, with birth rates below replacement and the population aging, the Russian economy relies heavily on immigrating minority groups. Widespread harassment of migrant workers is already a problem in Russia.

“Putin feels the coming of a catastrophe, of the domination of liberal forces which threaten him with the fate of Muammer Gaddafi,” a far-right Russian newspaper editor told the Financial Times. “He is fighting back by restoring the balance between the various ideological groups. In this way, he supports us.”