Whereas Soviet ideology was monolithic, the current ideology of the Russian authorities appears diffuse, combining seemingly incompatible elements — for example, the glorification of the Soviet past alongside the idealisation of tsarist Russia. At the same time, Russian propaganda has achieved notable success, managing to draw in a wide range of political forces — including some that are openly hostile to one another. This indicates that contemporary Russian ideology operates differently from its Soviet predecessor. To understand this difference, we need to turn to the very concept of “ideology” itself, a topic to which Nikolai Karpitsky devoted another entry in the the Dictionary of War on the PostPravda.Info.
Ideology
Ideology is a system of ideas that motivates people to act in the interests of those in power, or of a group aspiring to power. This applies not only to state power, but also to power within various segments of society – religious movements, patriarchal communities, professional associations, mafia organizations, and so on.
Values and ideology
Values are the deeper meanings that confer significance on life — on actions, goals, events, and phenomena. They form an inner motivation, independent of external circumstances, that prompts a person to think and act freely. Through value-based self-determination, a person becomes aware of their freedom and expresses it through cultural creativity.
Ideology is grounded in ideological frameworks – shared meanings that establish how socio-political phenomena should be evaluated, and what is expected of a person’s stance and participation within society. Ideology assumes that its principles must be accepted unconditionally, without critical reflection. Therefore, when confronted with ideological propaganda, a person is faced with a choice: either accept it, or be counted among its enemies.
If an ideological directive is an external factor that does not require free self-determination, then values, by contrast, emerge from within that very process of self-determination. Thus, a person can critically re-evaluate their values, arriving at a deeper understanding of them. Ideology can appeal to values only by transforming them. To achieve this, a particular interpretation of values is presented to society as a norm that demands unconditional agreement. An example of such ideological transformation is the modern Russian discourse on “traditional values”, which functions not as a system of values at all, but as a set of ideological directives.
Ideology and Social Morality
Public morality relies on moral norms and may be grounded either in ethics or in ideology. Ethics is grounded in ethical values, which require a person to exercise free self-determination in relation to them. Therefore, an ethical stance is a personal stance, one in which an individual is conscious of their own responsibility. A moral norm expresses the shared understanding of ethical values. Public morality may differ between communities, depending on how their moral norms articulate and preserve a shared understanding of ethical values.
If moral norms are imposed not as an expression of shared ethical values but as formal requirements, they must then be justified ideologically. This becomes particularly evident when moral requirements that operate within a specific community are imposed on society as a whole, presented as unconditional norms that allow no room for discussion. In such cases, public morality loses its connection to ethical values and turns into a tool of ideology.
Religion and Ideology
If religion is embraced without freedom, it loses its genuine meaning. The preaching of doctrine and moral principles is directed toward free individuals; its purpose is to persuade, not to impose. However, when the followers of a particular religion present their moral position as a mandatory norm for the entire society, including those who do not share their faith, they thereby turn religion into ideology.
The internal dimension of religion is the shared religious experience of individuals, while its external dimension is its institutionalization in the social sphere, where it reinforces traditional social relations and public morality. The institutional form of religion may rest either on religious experience or on religious ideology. Religion becomes ideology when it turns into a system of demands that people are expected to accept regardless of their own lived experience.
Worldview and the World Picture
A worldview is an outlook on the world grounded in a system of ideas that reflect a person’s own beliefs. Ideology is also a system of ideas that shapes a certain view of the world, but its purpose is to persuade others. A person may adopt an ideology as a tool for promoting their worldview in society, but they may also treat it pragmatically or even cynically, distinguishing between the ideology and their own convictions. A world picture is what a person perceives as reality, regardless of how they evaluate it.
A worldview is grounded in ideas that enable a person to determine what is right or wrong in the world, and how they should act. A world picture is grounded in principles and laws according to which the world can exist only in one way and not otherwise. On this basis, a person distinguishes what is possible in the world and what is, in principle, impossible. A person can change their worldview simply by reinterpreting certain ideas; however, such a shift is not enough to alter their world picture. For the world picture to change as well, one must reconstruct their understanding of the world on an entirely different set of principles.
The world picture explains how the world is structured; the worldview explains how the existing order of things is evaluated; and ideology is a tool for mobilizing and manipulating society.
The World Picture of the current Russian ruling regime:
Human history is driven by dark forces, and Russia is their opponent. The development of civilization merely demonstrates the triumph of these dark forces, which dominate advanced Western societies. However, their influence is weaker in less developed authoritarian regimes, which may therefore become potential allies of Russia.
The Worldview of the Russian ruling regime:
Russia’s supreme mission is the “reunification of its lands,” and anyone who resists this is an enemy. The lives of people and nations beyond Russia have no intrinsic value, and therefore they are expected to be grateful for the “opportunity” to be absorbed into Russia. Any territory that was once governed by Russia is regarded as inherently Russian. Ukraine’s aspiration for independence is a betrayal that must be punished; therefore, the war against Ukraine is justified.
The ideology of the contemporary Russian ruling regime
In the Soviet Union, only one ideology was permitted. It not only completely shaped the system of propaganda, education, and social control, but also imposed constraints on the country’s highest leadership. In particular, the party’s ideological directives enabled it to maintain control over the KGB.
Russian authorities view ideology as a tool of control and manipulation, one that should not place any limits on themselves. If necessary, it can easily shift its ideological stance and, depending on the situation, draw on various, even mutually contradictory, ideologies and ideological frameworks, such as rashism, the concept of the “Russian World”, the idea of Russia’s special historical path, Eurasianism, the cult of Stalin, the idealization of imperial Russia, and so-called “traditional values,” among others.
The Soviet system was founded on an ideology that resembled a monolith: on the one hand, it was very strong, yet on the other, it was fragile, since even a single challenge to any part of Soviet ideology could undermine the stability of the entire structure. Supporting the Soviet Union necessarily meant offering unconditional support for its ideology. The Russian authorities are not bound to any single ideology, which allows them to gain support from opposing political forces, since no specific ideological commitment is required from them. For them, what matters is not a shared ideology, but a shared worldview.
For example, during the Soviet period, church leaders understood that although they were completely dependent on the state, their religion was incompatible with Soviet ideology. This prevented religious organizations from openly supporting the Soviet Union’s aggressive wars. The only political campaign in which they participated was the so-called struggle for peace, which the Soviet authorities proclaimed at the level of official rhetoric.
Now, many Russian religious leaders are themselves advancing ideological narratives that justify Russia’s aggressive policies and its war against Ukraine. Moreover, they are beginning to weave their own religion into the worldview promoted by the Russian authorities, in which modern civilization is portrayed as something inherently evil. Such a practice did not exist during the Soviet period.
