Putin's Russia as a fascist political system 

Alexander J. Motyl 

Department of Political Science, Rutgers University, United States

Keywords: Fascism Nationalism Authoritarianism Personality cult Political system 

Abstract

 There is a broad consensus among students of contemporary Russia that the political system constructed by Vladimir Putin is authoritarian and that he plays a dominant role in it. By building and expanding on these two features and by engaging in a deconstruction and reconstruction of the concept of fascism, this article suggests that the Putin system may plausibly be termed fascist. Not being a type of group, disposition, politics, or ideology, fascism may be salvaged from the conceptual confusion that surrounds it by being conceived of as a type of authoritarian political system. Fascism may be defined as a popular fully authoritarian political system with a personalistic dictator and a cult of the leaderda definition that makes sense conceptually as well as empirically, with respect to Putin's Russia and related fascist systems. 

© 2016 Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of The Regents of the University of California.


SEE  https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=fascism 

Ur-Fascism can come back under the most innocent of disguises. Our duty is to uncover it and to point our finger at any of its new instances—every day, in every part of the world. Umberto Eco, “Ur-Fascism”