Two of Russia’s heavy-hitting analytical institutions have recently admitted in a 46-page report titled “Russia’s Living Idea-Dream” that Russia has no ideology and thus no identity. More alarmingly, it states that nations without ideologies and identities are doomed.
Readers expecting a plethora of great ideas in the report will be sorely disappointed. But they may be interested in observing the idea-dream project’s self-destruction.
“Why Has Russia’s Idea-Dream Been Absent Until Now?” the report’s authors ask. “It has not been absent entirely,” they answer, seemingly unaware of the contradiction. “Its elements have surfaced not only in a deluge of philosophical and journalistic articles, but increasingly in the speeches of the president and other national leaders.”
Which is to say, the Russian idea-dream has been confined to what remains of the country’s political elites and thinking class, and of course the two think tanks responsible for the project.
“We need a guiding star that we can harmoniously follow,” the report says. “We need a forward-looking ideology, supported by the state and inculcated not by decree, but through education, upbringing, textbooks, discussions, imagery, literature, and art.”
So far, so good, but now comes the punchline: “Without it, the people and the country will inevitably weaken and degrade.”
Since the idea-dream is largely absent, it follows that today’s Russia lacks an ideology and identity and is already weakened and degraded. Indeed, it will continue along this downward trajectory unless it takes the report’s advice and accepts the idea-dream.
Alas, that’s easier said than done.
Despite such lofty aspirations, the authors betray a deep-seated, and very Russian, pessimism already evident in the very term, idea-dream: It’s something that exists only in one’s imagination. Worse, there are nine formidable institutional, ideological, and political obstacles, paraphrased below in condensed form, to the idea-dream’s taking root:
With so many obstacles — the seventh being Vladimir Putin — it is highly likely that the idea-dream project will be a bust.
Perhaps that’s why the core of the proposed ideology is none other than God and the prospect of Russia’s salvation: “Our people’s faith in divine protection … is why much in our history defies pure logic yet resonates deeply with the Russian soul. Thus the observation”—attributed to an 18th-century Russian of German origin— “rings equally true today: ‘Russia is governed directly by the Lord God. Otherwise, it is impossible to imagine how this state could still exist’.”
Russians are perfectly entitled to believe that they and their state are the good Lord’s handmaidens, but there is a slight catch. Very few Russians are genuine believers, and even fewer lead their lives in accordance with the Ten Commandments. Indeed, even the Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill has openly supported Russia’s destructive war against Ukraine and thereby flouted the commandment “Thou shalt not kill.”
The idea-dream authors have many other things to say. Not surprisingly, they detest liberalism, globalism, and American hegemony, while touting sovereignty, independence and, of all things, love. Ukrainians are really just misguided neo-Nazi “Little Russians”; the nations of the Russian Federation want nothing but amicable relations with one another (shades of Soviet nationality policy’s “friendship of peoples”); and Russia’s salvation lies in an autocratic government and strong state.
None of this is new, having been part of Russia’s ideological quests for centuries. Nor is the underlying pessimism new.
What is striking is that, after having devoted several years to developing an idea-dream, the authors have effectively admitted defeat. Inevitably, then, Russia will continue to degrade and weaken.
The stronger word they use is “rot.”
Alexander J. Motyl is a professor of political science at Rutgers University-Newark. A specialist on Ukraine, Russia and the USSR, and on nationalism, revolutions, empires and theory, he is the author of 10 books of nonfiction, as well as “Imperial Ends: The Decay, Collapse, and Revival of Empires” and “Why Empires Reemerge: Imperial Collapse and Imperial Revival in Comparative Perspective.”