We have often heard Western right-wing politicians describe Putin’s regime as “conservative.” They justify this by pointing to Putin’s declared commitment to defending traditional family values and his fight against leftist LGBT propaganda in Russia.

But does Putin’s so-called conservatism have any real philosophical foundation, rooted in the works of genuine political thinkers? For example, Sir Roger Scruton — the English political philosopher and one of the leading ideologists of modern conservatism.

To examine the authenticity of Putin’s conservatism, I will turn to one of Scruton’s most well-known works, How to Be a Conservative.

In this article, I will consider not only Russia’s domestic policy but also its foreign policy, from both a philosophical and socio-historical perspective.
 

Fragmentation of integrity

“Society is a common inheritance, for the preservation of which we learn to restrain our demands, to see our place in the world as a link in an unbroken chain of giving and receiving, and to realize that the good we have inherited must not be spoiled…” — Sir Roger Scruton, How to Be a Conservative

Putin destroyed the common inheritance that once bound together the Ukrainian and Russian peoples. This inheritance consisted of factors such as:

• a shared language, culture, and history;
• social and familial ties;
• financial and cooperative projects.

By invading Ukraine, Putin triggered a wave of national awakening that accelerated the historical process of Ukrainian nation-building. Ukraine increasingly separated itself from the now-hostile post-Soviet cultural space. The Ukrainian language pushed out Russian, while social and project-based ties were consumed by the furnace of war.

I call this process of separation historical, for it embodies the very concept of a nation — much like growth for a child. And despite the positive developments of a strengthened Ukrainian nation and a renewed sense of loyalty based on territorial belonging rather than the vague cosmopolitanism that lingered after the collapse of the Soviet Union, it was born from the trauma of war.

Through this trauma, Ukraine has distanced itself ever further from the Russian-speaking cultural sphere. In his attempt to “protect” Russian speakers in Ukraine and the so-called Russkiy Mir (Russian World) in the region, Putin pushed away the second-largest Russian-speaking country after Russia itself. He stripped the very concept of the “Russian World” of meaning — no longer a project of Russian-speaking states coexisting within and preserving a shared cultural space, but reduced it to an ideology of military expansion. He drained it of its spirituality, transforming it from a project of culture and creativity into one of violence and domination.

Its ontological core was altered: expansion replaced preservation.

Was it worth tearing apart the established order of the region, only to hide behind the façade of “defending traditional values,” pandering to the tune of Europe’s right wing? For the world seeks integrity. And when Putin destroyed the integrity among Slavic peoples, that very integrity reemerged instead at the national level in the states that suffered from Russia. They suffered not only directly through war, but also at the metaphysical level — from the rupture of unity and equality among Slavic nations, the fragile inheritance that had survived the collapse of the USSR.

“There is a line of obligations connecting us with those who passed down to us what we now possess. And our concern for the future is the continuation of this line.
We care for the future of our society not through fictitious calculations of cost and benefit, but by inheriting the goods created by past generations and passing them on…” — Sir Roger Scruton, How to Be a Conservative

Philosophy in a cage

Putin seeks to expand the cultural concept of the Russkiy Mir (Russian World) by filling it with the philosophical depth of a “civilizational project.” The idea is presented as follows: the search for and realization of Russian self-knowledge as a supra-national concept. According to this view, to be Russian means to embody a soul and a consciousness that transcend nationality. I have often heard this framed as a “civilizational project” or as the “third/special path.” But I would like to look deeper and ask: what, exactly, has Putin prepared for the ordinary person in his philosophical project? And how, in the end, has this concept been reduced to a mere instrument ensuring his popular support against external threats—while at the same time distancing Russians from true reflection.

National self-knowledge can pose questions that give a full spectrum of self-identification. Yet two are of particular interest:

• Who are we in the face of our complete opposite?
• And who are we in relation to those who resemble us in certain ways?

But Putin has created a situation in which the second link in this chain is broken. For Russia is part of Western civilization—and Russians, of course, will feel this. Yet Putin resists the very posing of this question, replacing national inquiry with an abstract notion of a “special path.” The formula “civilizational project” sounds more elevated, but its essence is not genuine creation. Its role is only to serve as an antithesis to the national quest that lies at the core of the West. In Putin’s Russia, war has been declared on the foundation of Western civilization: the idea of national loyalty—an idea conservatives regard as the primary strength of European states.

Putin’s “special path” removes the second question of self-identification, which in turn prevents reflection on the final question: the self before itself. Thus the chain—(I before the opposite, I before the friend, I before myself)—is broken.

And yet Putin’s ideology is not absolute. If some Russians manage to carry this chain to its final question—I before myself—then for them the regime does not simply break the chain, but their lives. Putin’s contempt for free speech, and the hundreds of political prisoners, make the development of a genuine national idea impossible. Without self-determination and self-realization, individuals vanish, and the nation loses its face, becoming an atomized mass.

List of political prisoners (excluding those persecuted for their religion)

Theory of Elites: an introduction

In a society free from ressentiment, power must rest upon intellectual elites while remaining attentive to the broad masses. Such a democratic concept allows the sound voice of the elites to circulate, resonating like bells across every Russian village and every Russian city—addressing the problems of the people. Here, elites are those who embody within themselves the spiritual wholeness and philosophy of vast Russia. Their mission is to point the way toward a future in which as many citizens as possible may love and take pride in their country. The true vocation of elites is to strengthen love for the motherland within themselves and within others.

In contrast, pseudo-elites—who pursue personal enrichment, status, and its preservation in society—corrupt and weaken the philosophy of Russian society.

True elites are the creative minds of culture and science, who, having achieved excellence, grow into a philosophical understanding of their role. For example, consider the lecture recordings of the Leningrad literary scholar, Pushkinist, and semiotician Yuri Lotman. He was a man of science, albeit in the humanities, yet in his lectures—such as Conversations on Russian Culture (1988), which at first glance appear to be merely historical narratives—an attentive listener will undoubtedly find philosophical depth. This depth was forged under Soviet isolation and the pressure created by pseudo-elites. And yet, it is there: a call to creativity and reflection on creation itself.

In the end, weak-spirited people—opportunists and conformists—learned how to exploit the old system, one built on denying the country the chance for true development. They are not conservatives; they are conservatives-in-name-only, preservers not of life but of stagnation, suffocating rather than sustaining.

Pseudo-elites exist in every state; they cannot be eliminated. Their role is at once harmful and strangely beneficial: by creating obstacles, they forge an environment in which true geniuses of the authentic elites are revealed. For a worthy person must grow stronger, tempering his sword in order to shatter the malignant chains of the pseudo-elites—and in doing so, deepen his love for Russia.

Putin and Decaying Love

At the outset of the war, under the threat of repression against anti-war sentiment, Putin forced hundreds of true elites to leave Russia. Putin stands as the antithesis of my concept of spiritual harmony—the harmony that democracy can offer, in which pseudo-elites create hardships that, once overcome, give rise to genuine elites. Putin reinterpreted this dynamic in his own way. For him, elites are not an intellectual foundation but rather a group with business interests: he satisfies those interests, and in return they provide him with popular loyalty.

Putin places the role of spiritual foundation instead upon the broad masses. Through propaganda and the influence of pseudo-elites, the people become atomized and cease to seek a conscious love for the motherland. The defining factor of the masses becomes an ungrounded pride, often stoked by military myths. In place of preserving Russia’s true and vast history—a history that undoubtedly exists—comes a desire bordering on ressentiment: the desire to prove, to avenge, to repeat.

Such masses can be called to war. But to find a new path to the future—one rooted in love for Russia—is impossible.
 

A philosophical counterattack

And when we ask: Is Putin a conservative? … we must recognize that we are speaking of a man without creativity and without a constructive consciousness. Putin is one of the few modern political figures in the West who emerged from a system of service. He served in the security services, he served as an official under Yeltsin, and he later reinterpreted the model of service as the foundation of his rule. He serves—he does not create.

Putin cannot be excused! For when we attempt to do so, he robs our values of their meaning. He recasts our very words—conservative, right-wing, fascist. Even the word Russia now signifies the reign of this dictator, stripped of ideology yet bound to his personality.

One of the most distinguished Russian-speaking philosophers of the 21st century, Andriy Baumeister, has called Putin a “sophist,” noting that his tactics are to draw others in, and his tools are: “to persuade, to seduce, and only in the second place, to threaten.”  — direct speech

Putin is uncreative in the personal sense. Yet his attempt to construct the illusion of “persuasion and seduction” is itself a path of threats—threats masked by force and by the theatrical respect for “cooperation,” which in reality leads to the absorption and annihilation of the opponent’s individual choice.


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