The "Chekist takeover" of the Russian state and economic assets has been allegedly accomplished by a clique of Putin's close associates and friends[6] who gradually became a leading group of Russian oligarchs and who "seized control over the financial, media and administrative resources of the Russian state",[7] and restricted democratic freedoms and human rights. According to Julie Anderson, Russia has been transformed to an "FSB state".[8][9] Mass de-politicization has been described as an important element of Putinism's social course. Mass social involvement being discouraged, politics are reduced to "pure management" left to those who are in power, free from interference by the masses. In exchange for non-involvement in politics, Putinism's social contract offers economic development and an important amount of freedom in private life.[10]
Putinism was first used in the article by Andrey Piontkovsky published on 11 January 2000 in Sovetskaya Rossiya,[11] and placed on the Yabloko website on the same day. He characterized Putinism as "the highest and final stage of bandit capitalism in Russia, the stage where, as one half-forgotten classic said, the bourgeoisie throws the flag of the democratic freedoms and the human rights overboard; and also as a war, 'consolidation' of the nation on the ground of hatred against some ethnic group, attack on freedom of speech and information brainwashing, isolation from the outside world and further economic degradation".[12][13]
Authoritarianism
of Putin as a "national hero", through glorification in the media,[14][15]
Personality cult
strong presidential power, strengthened even in comparison with the era of Boris Yeltsin,[17]
[16]
strong state control over property,
[16]
"sovereign democracy", i.e. a system where Putin works with the "oligarchs created by chaotic, free-market, crony capitalism", who in turn show "absolute fealty",
reliance on (people from several dozen security agencies, many of whom worked with Putin before he came to power),
siloviki
selective application of justice,[20] arbitrary application of the law ("Everything is for the friends, the law is for the enemies"),[21]
[19]
relatively liberal but non-transparent financial and tax policies,
[2]
"manual control" mode,[23][24] a weak technical government that does not have any political weight, with real control of the country from the presidential administration,[22]
[22]
utmost secrecy of power and backstage making of key decisions,
[22]
"conservative resistance" to the Western "decadence" of irreligion, "same-sex marriage, radical feminism, homosexuality, mass immigration", that is being globalized "under the cover of democracy and human rights";
[18]
embrace of the values of orthodox Christianity against liberal cosmopolitanism but also support for other anti-liberal, hard right authoritarians outside of Russia,
[18]
using the claim of protecting "our common Fatherland, Great Rus", as a "spiritual cover for ... kleptocracy",
[18]
the authorities' dislike of freedom to express their opinion, ,[25]
Russian President Putin with religious leaders of Russia, 2001. Putin has promoted religious traditionalism and the rejection of some Western liberal principles, like toleration of homosexuality.
censorship
strategic relations with , protecting the property interests of the church,[26] and a policy of promoting clericalization of society,[27][28]
Sergey Karaganov, who is considered close to Putin, formulated many of the core ideas that led to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.[29]
The Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church
that posits that Russian civilization does not belong in the "European" or "Asian" categories but instead to the geopolitical concept of Eurasia, therefore making Russia a standalone civilization.[30][31][32]
Oxford historian Roger Griffin compared Putin's Russia to World War II-era Japan, saying that like Putin's Russia, it "emulated fascism in many ways, but was not fascist." American historian Stanley G. Payne argued that Putin's political system is "more a revival of the creed of Tsar Nicholas I in the 19th century that emphasized 'Orthodoxy, autocracy, and nationality' than one resembling the revolutionary, modernizing regimes of Hitler and Mussolini."[10] He argued that fascism, imbued with revolutionary ideas and seeking to implement changes which would push society into a new order, relied on mobilization of masses of the population and their active participation in politics in order to implement these changes. Putinism, on the other hand, is counter-revolutionary, strictly opposed to any social reforms and social mobilization and aims at the de-politicization of society, which it sees as a threat to its existence. The mass social involvement being discouraged, the politics are reduced to "pure management" left to those who are in power, free from the interference of the masses. In exchange to non-involvement in the politics, Putinism's social contract offers economic development and an important amount of freedom in private life, "bread and entertainment". Therefore, the experts generally agree that Putin's regime is not fascist.[10]
In December 2018, Putin said that "restoration of socialism in Russia is impossible", but stressed that "certain elements of socialization of economy and social sphere are possible". He stated that the restoration of socialism "is always related to expenditures and, eventually, an economic dead end".[84]
In October 2021, while criticizing the modern "Western agenda", he likened it the one of the Bolsheviks for being based on the advocacy of the "so-called social progress". He criticized the Bolshevik efforts, based on "dogmas of Marx and Engels", to change not just political and economic customs, but also "the very notion of human morality and the foundations of a healthy society". He criticized the Bolsheviks for masquerading as "progress" the "destruction of age-old values, religion and relations between people, up to and including the total rejection of family, encouragement to inform on loved ones", and said that these patterns were repeated in the modern West. He also said: "In a number of Western countries, the debate over men's and women's rights has turned into a perfect phantasmagoria. Look, beware of going where the Bolsheviks once planned to go – not only communalising chickens, but also communalising women. One more step and you will be there" (see Glass of water theory).[85]
However, in his interview to the TV Rain, Russian political scientist Vladimir Pastukhov argued that Putin's regime is based on what he called Russian understanding of communism, what he considered as clinging to Soviet tradition and eclectically uniting Russian nationalist and left-wing ideas, saying that its "missionary ideology of world domination" draws on the Marxist concept of world revolution, even likening Putinism to Trotskyism in this regard.[87]
Putinism's characterization as Neo-Stalinism
In May 2000, The Guardian wrote: "When a band of former Soviet dissidents declared in February that Putinism was nothing short of modernised Stalinism, they were widely dismissed as hysterical prophets of doom. 'Authoritarianism is growing harsher, society is being militarised, the military budget is increasing,' they warned, before calling on the West to 're-examine its attitude towards the Kremlin leadership, to cease indulging it in its barbaric actions, its dismantlement of democracy and suppression of human rights.' In the light of Putin's actions during his first days in power, their warnings have gained an uneasy new resonance".[88]
In February 2007, Arnold Beichman, a conservative research fellow at the Hoover Institution, wrote in The Washington Times that "Putinism in the 21st century has become as significant a watchword as Stalinism was in the 20th".[89]
Also in 2007, Lionel Beehner, formerly a senior writer for the Council on Foreign Relations, maintained that on Putin's watch nostalgia for Stalin had grown even among young Russians and Russians' neo-Stalinism manifesting itself in several ways.[90]
In February 2007, responding to a listener's assertion that "Putin had steered the country to Stalinism" and "all entrepreneurs" were being jailed in Russia, the Russian opposition radio host Yevgeniya Albats said: "Come on, this is not true; there is no Stalinism, no concentration camps—thankfully". She went on to say that if citizens of the country would not be critical of what was occurring around them, referring to the "orchestrated, or genuine" calls for the "tsar to stay on", that "could blaze the trail for very ugly things and a very tough regime in our country".[91]
According to Pamela Druckerman of The New York Times, an element of neo-Sovietism is that "the government manages civil society, political life and the media".[95]
The first politically controversial step made by Putin, then the FSB Director, was restoring in June 1999 a memorial plaque to former Soviet leader and KGB director Yuri Andropov on the facade of the building, where the KGB had been headquartered.[96]
In late 2000, Putin submitted a bill to the State Duma to use the Soviet national anthem as the new Russian national anthem. The Duma voted in favor. The music remained identical, but new lyrics were written by the same author who wrote the Soviet lyrics.[97]
In September 2003, Putin was quoted as saying: "The Soviet Union is a very complicated page in the history of our peoples. It was heroic and constructive, and it was also tragic. But it is a page that has been turned. It's over, the boat has sailed. Now we need to think about the present and the future of our peoples".[98]
In February 2004, Putin said: "It is my deep conviction that the dissolution of the Soviet Union was a national tragedy on a massive scale. I think the ordinary citizens of the former Soviet Union and the citizens in the post-Soviet space, the CIS countries, have gained nothing from it. On the contrary, people have been faced with a host of problems." He went on to say, "Incidentally, at that period, too, opinions varied, including among the leaders of the Union republics. For example, Nursultan Nazarbayev was categorically opposed to the dissolution of the Soviet Union and he said so openly proposing various formulas for preserving the state within the common borders. But, I repeat, all that is in the past. Today we should look at the situation in which we live. One cannot keep looking back and fretting about it: we should look forward".[99]
In April 2005, during his formal address to Russia's Parliament, President Putin said: "Above all, we should acknowledge that the collapse of the Soviet Union was a major geopolitical disaster of the century. As for the Russian nation, it became a genuine drama. Tens of millions of our co-citizens and compatriots found themselves outside Russian territory. Moreover, the epidemic of disintegration infected Russia itself".[100]
In December 2007, Putin said in the interview to the Time magazine: "Russia is an ancient country with historical, profound traditions and a very powerful moral foundation. And this foundation is a love for the Motherland and patriotism. Patriotism in the best sense of that word. Incidentally, I think that to a certain extent, to a significant extent, this is also attributable to the American people".[101]
In August 2008, The Economist claimed: "Russia today is ruled by the KGB elite, has a Soviet anthem, servile media, corrupt courts and a rubber-stamping parliament. A new history textbook proclaims that the Soviet Union, although not a democracy, was 'an example for millions of people around the world of the best and fairest society'".[102]
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