Gordon M. Hahn — Putin Myths And Putin Ideology

Putin may be no angel (which world leader is?). But he is not the devil he is made out to be in propaganda, either.

As the Ukrainian crisis and civil war continue to fester on, alarmist assessments of ‘Putin’s Russia’ continue to monopolize Western media space. Such assessments begin with distortions about the nature of Russia’s history and culture and end with dire predictions about Russia’s future domestic and international behavior. These assessments are often embedded into the now fully demonized figure of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is portrayed alternatively as a new Stalin, Hitler, Ivan the Terrible, or mafia don. 

For example, much has been made recently about the supposedly sinister ideological influences permeating Putin’s mind and Russian discourse. These influences are held up as indicators of Russia’s ultra-nationalist, dictatorial, and imperialistic future against which the West must mobilize in a new cold war. However, the representation of these influences are replete with mischaracterizations and falsehoods. Putin’s ideological influences and orientation are more moderate, eclectic, and ambivalent than the many overwrought accounts suggest. Hence, the resulting predictions regarding Russia’s future development typify the process ‘garbage in, garbage out.’….

Russia: Other Points of View

Putin Myths And Putin Ideology

Gordon M. Hahn | American Russian scholar and analyst

Analyst, Rus Strategic Ltd., Prague, Czech Rep.

Analyst and Advisory Board Member, Geostrategic Forecasting Corporation, Chicago, Ill.,www.geostrategicforecasting.com.

Analyst and Consultant, www.russiaotherpointsofview.com
Dr. Hahn is author of the well-received books Russia’s Islamic Threat (Yale University Press, 2007) and Russia’s Revolution From Above, 1985-2000 (Transaction Publishers, 2002), the just published book The Caucasus Emirate Mujahedin: Global Jihadism in Russia's North Caucasus and Beyond (McFarland Publishers, 2014), various think tank reports, and numerous articles in academic journals and other English and Russian language media. He has taught at Boston, American, Stanford, San Jose State, and San Francisco State Universities and as a Fulbright Scholar at Saint Petersburg State University, Russia and has been a senior associate and visiting fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Kennan Institute in Washington DC, and the Hoover Institution.