The standard interpretation of the Russia-Ukraine war is that it is a “clash of cultures” pitting Western liberalism against traditional Russian authoritarianism.
But this is deeply misleading. Far from being a traditionalist, Vladimir Putin is merely the latest in a series of murderous modernizers stretching from Ivan the Terrible and Peter the Great to Catherine the Great and Stalin.
When Stalin was asked to define Bolshevism in the late 1920s, he described it as a combination of Russian dedication to a Cause and American pragmatism. Once in power, he sought to imitate the American industrialist Henry Ford’s achievements throughout the Soviet Union, brutally erasing all traces of Russian tradition through, most prominently, the violent collectivization of agriculture.
With your current subscription plan you can comment on stories. However, before writing your first comment, please create a display name in the Profile section of your subscriber account page.