Tatyana Kekic is studying for a master’s degree in Russian and East European studies at the University of Oxford.
In 1944, as fascism was being defeated on the battlefield, George Orwell wrote that the term had been reduced to the level of a swearword, hurled at anyone and everything—“farmers, shopkeepers, Social Credit, corporal punishment, foxhunting, bullfighting, the 1922 Committee, the 1944 Committee, Kipling, Gandhi, Chiang Kai-Shek, homosexuality, Priestley’s broadcasts, Youth Hostels, astrology, women, dogs.”
Today, we can add Winston Churchill, MAGA fans, Brexit, trans-exclusionary radical feminists, environmentalists and, now, Russia to that ever-expanding list.
Abuses of history lie at the center of Russia’s war in Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly invoked Nazism to justify his invasion. But there’s also a trend — albeit far less consequential — of making inaccurate historical comparisons in the Anglophone world, as professional pundits and respected historians alike have come to attach the “F-word” to Putin.
Timothy Snyder wrote an op-ed for the New York Times titled “We Should Say It. Russia is Fascist.” The Economist agreed — “Russia is in the grip of fascism.” However, such analogies rely on loose definitions of the term. Snyder contends that fascism is defined, above all, by the “triumph of will over reason.” Just as elusive, the Economist wrote that it “feeds on exceptionalism and ressentiment.”
Yet, such vague explanations could be applied to a range of unpleasant regimes. While fascism inevitably shares certain features with authoritarian regimes such as Putin’s, it also has unique characteristics that make it distinct.
Perhaps part of the problem is that fascism is notoriously difficult to define. It isn’t an ideology with founding texts; it doesn’t have a Locke or a Marx, a treatise or a manifesto. Rather, fascism was a reaction to a particular set of historical circumstances that emerged out of the catastrophe of World War I — national humiliation, disaffection with liberal capitalism and the rise of Communism. Despite its reactionary nature, however, fascism did have some identifiable characteristics in its original Italian form, as well as its German manifestation.
First and foremost, fascism was future-oriented — as displayed by its obsession with youth. But while Adolf Hitler was the idol of the younger generations, Putin is popular among pensioners.
Fascism wasn’t motivated by a conservative, nostalgic yearning for the past either, but by a modernist vision of the future. When Mussolini said he wanted to “render unrecognizable both spiritually and physically the face of the nation,” this wasn’t about reclaiming a lost golden age — it was about shaping a wholly new society.
Fascism aimed to transform all aspects of political and social life, including the life of the individual. As Hannah Arendt wrote, totalitarian regimes believed in the omnipotence of men. Anything was possible, even the transformation of human nature itself. Fascists sought to create a “New Man,” one who would reflect the vitality of a New Age. Thus, fascism wasn’t just an authoritarian attempt to eliminate dissent — it was a totalitarian project to radically reshape society.
Contrary to the autocratic regimes of today, this required the constant engagement and mobilization of the masses. Totalitarian regimes rest upon active mass support, and they exist only where the masses, for one reason or another, have acquired an appetite for political organization.
Such characteristics can’t be easily applied to contemporary Russia, where people have been conditioned to keep out of politics for decades. Putin’s regime rests on the depoliticization and disengagement of its citizens. This was the de facto social contract until the recent policy of partial mobilization made it impossible for people to ignore politics any longer.
Today’s Russia is about the past, not the future.
Putin’s regime rose out of the turmoil of the 1990s transition period. It capitalized on the grievances, humiliations and sense of loss associated with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the economic crisis that followed during former Russian President Boris Yeltsin’s tenure. Putin rose to power and popularity by vowing to restore Russia’s greatness and lost status. Instead, however, he’s ended up presiding over a disastrous war that’s accelerating Russia’s decline and encouraging a second-fiddle relationship with China.
Calling today’s Russia fascist is intellectually lazy, and it fails to say anything specific about Putin’s regime. Failing to find an appropriate label, commentators reach for the most negative political buzzword they can find. But one doesn’t have to call Russia fascist to condemn the current regime — it’s bad enough without misnaming it.
As Russian political scientist Ekaterina Shulman remarked, “no political model has a monopoly on crime, violence, and historic misfortune. You don’t have to be Hitler to destroy your country.”
