‘Putinism’ Coming to Russia from the West but It is “Our” Life Hack and Merits Study, Surkov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, October 14 – Asked to introduce a new rubric about Putinism on the Actual Commentary portal of the Moscow Center for Political Conjunction, Vladislav Surkov, a longtime advisor of the Kremlin leader, says that it is “very useful” to study Putinism as “a global life hack and method of rule that works well.”

            “To investigate Putinism as an existing ideology of everyday life with all its social innovations and productive contradictions is a very useful enterprise.” And it is “always interesting” to consider and find out “’how people do this’” (actualcomment.ru/putinizm-kak-politicheskiy-layfkhak-1910141011.html).

            According to Surkov, “it is a little unfortunate that for the beginning [of the work of the portal’s rubric] were chosen texts of foreign origin. But what can you do: there is no prophet in his own country.  Putinism, however paradoxical it may seem, has come to us from the West in a reflected and this means partially distorted form. But it is ours.”

            He invited people to read and react to what others have written, and because of who Surkov is and even more who Putin is, the Russian blogosphere immediately exploded with comments ranging from suggestions that there is no such thing as Putinism to celebrations of it as the new state ideology of Russia or even a new handbook for rulers of all countries.

            For a selection of these, see rosbalt.ru/posts/2019/10/16/1808159.html,  rosbalt.ru/posts/2019/10/15/1807923.html, belsat.eu/ru/news/putinizm-konservatizm-sotsializm-i-liberalizm-plyus-putin/, newizv.ru/article/general/14-10-2019/georgiy-satarov-nikakoy-ideologii-putinizma-v-prirode-ne-suschestvuet, carnegie.ru/2019/10/14/ru-pub-80083, kasparov.ru/material.php?id=5DA5FF7FDB15D and kasparov.ru/material.php?id=5DA5FBF252425.