Psychology Today exclusive: Eminent American psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton RobertJayLifton unpacks the ideology that drives Putin's beliefs about the world—and the Russian leader's beliefs on how the world should look.
The focus on his dictatorial isolation is undoubtedly important, but I am convinced that there is another psychological dimension that has not been given sufficient—an ideology, both religious and political, based on the work of the 20th century Russian philosopher Ivan Ilyin. Ilyin’s vision is one of Christian Fascism and centers on a unified, godly Russian empire that is pure in its virtue and absolute in its justified demands.
Or consider the ideology of Mao Zedong, which included a strong emphasis on “mind over technology.” To bring about the industrialization of China during the Great Leap Forward of the late 1950s and early 1960s, he insisted on substituting small “backyard furnaces” for steel factories.
Ilyin was a longstanding exile from the Soviet Communist state and considered White Russians as “my…brothers, the fascists” who would eventually rule a greater Russian Empire. He lived in Germany from 1922 through 1938, and then in Switzerland until his death in 1954. Putin oversaw the repatriation in 2005 of Ilyin’s remains from Switzerland to reburial in Moscow. He also arranged for a parallel repatriation of Ilyin’s papers, which had originally been deposited at Michigan State University.
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