Source: PostPravda.info 31.10.2025
If Soviet ideology was monolithic, the current ideology of the Russian authorities appears loose, combining seemingly incompatible elements – for example, the cultivation of the Soviet past alongside the idealization of Tsarist Russia. Nevertheless, Russian propaganda has shown significant success, attracting a wide range of political forces, sometimes even those hostiles to each other. This demonstrates that modern Russian ideology functions differently from the Soviet one. To understand this difference, it is necessary to look at the very concept of “ideology,” which Nikolai Karpitsky dedicated another article of the Dictionary of War on the PostPravda.Info portal.
Ideology
Ideology is a system of ideas that motivates people to act in the interests of a ruling authority or a group seeking power. This applies both to state power and to power within various segments of society – religious movements, patriarchal communities, professional associations, mafia organizations, and so on.
Values and ideology
Values are particular meanings that give new significance to the content of life: actions, goals, events, phenomena, etc. They form an internal motivation, independent of external circumstances, that encourages a person to think and act freely. Through value-based self-determination, an individual becomes aware of their freedom and fulfills themselves in cultural creativity.
At the core of ideology are ideological attitudes – senses that establish criteria for evaluating socio-political phenomena, defining a person’s position in society, and one’s participation in social life. Ideology assumes that its principles require unconditional agreement without critical reflection. Thus, when confronted with ideological propaganda, a person faces a choice: either accept it, or be counted among those considered hostile to it.
If an ideological attitude functions as an external factor that does not require free self-determination, a values, by contrast, unfolds within that self-determination. Therefore, a person can critically reassess their values, leading to a deeper understanding of them. Ideology can only operate with values if it transforms them. For this, a particular interpretation of values is presented to society as a norm that demands unconditional agreement. An example of such ideological transformation is the ideology of “traditional values” promoted by the modern Russian authorities, which function not as values at all, but as ideological instructions.
Ideology and Social Morality
Public morality operates through moral norms and can be based either on ethics or on ideology. At the core of ethics are ethical values, which presuppose a person’s free self-determination in relation to them. Therefore, an ethical position is the stance of an individual who is aware of their responsibility. A moral norm represents a measure of shared understanding of ethical values. Social morality can vary across different communities depending on how precisely their moral norms encode a common understanding of ethical values.
If moral norms are established not in accordance with shared understanding of ethical values, but as formal requirements, there arises a need for their ideological justification. This is especially evident when moral demands within a particular community begin to be imposed on the entire society as an unconditional norm, excluding discussion. In such cases, public morality loses its connection with ethical values and becomes an instrument of ideology.
Religion and Ideology
If religion is accepted without freedom, it loses its true meaning. The preaching of religious teachings and moral principles is addressed to free individuals; its purpose is to persuade, not to impose. However, if followers of a religion present their moral stance as a binding norm for all of society, including those who do not share their faith, they thereby turn religion into ideology.
The internal dimension of religion is the shared religious experience of people, while the external dimension is its institutionalization in social reality, where it supports the traditional social relations and social morality of a society. An institutionalized form of religion relies either on religious experience or on religious ideology. Religion becomes ideology when it transforms into a system of demands that people are required to accept regardless of their personal life experience.
Worldview and the World Picture
A worldview is a perspective on the world based on a certain system of ideas that should reflect a person’s own beliefs. Ideology is also a system of ideas that establishes a particular perspective on the world; however, its purpose is to persuade others. A person may choose ideology as a tool for spreading their worldview in society, but they can relate to it pragmatically or even cynically, distinguishing between ideology and their own beliefs. The world picture is what a person perceives as reality, regardless of how they evaluate it.
At the core of a worldview are ideas that allow a person to determine what is right and wrong in this world and how they should act. At the core of the world picture are principles and laws according to which the world can only be organized, not otherwise. Based on these, a person distinguishes what is possible in the world and what is completely impossible. To change a worldview, it is enough for a person to rethink certain ideas, but this is not sufficient to change the picture of the world. To change it as well, one must rebuild their understanding of the world based on different principles.
The world picture explains how the world is structured; a worldview explains how the existing order of things is evaluated; and ideology is a tool for mobilizing society and manipulating it.
The Picture of the World of the Russian Authorities:
Human history is governed by dark forces, opposed by Russia. The development of civilization only demonstrates the success of these dark forces, which dominate advanced Western societies. However, their influence is weaker in backward dictatorships, which can be allies of Russia.
The Worldview of the Russian Authorities:
Russia’s supreme mission is to gather lands, and all who resist this are enemies. The lives of people and nations outside Russia have no value; therefore, they should be grateful for the opportunity to become part of Russia. Any territory that has ever been governed by Russian authorities is considered Russia. Ukraine’s pursuit of independence is seen as a betrayal that must be punished, and therefore the war against Ukraine is justified.
The Ideology of the Russian Authorities
In the Soviet Union, there could only be one ideology, which not only completely determined the system of propaganda, education, and control over the population, but also imposed constraints on the highest leadership of the state. In particular, thanks to ideological principles, the party could control the KGB.
The Russian authorities perceive ideology as a tool of control and manipulation, which, however, should not limit themselves. If necessary, they can easily change ideology, and depending on the situation, they employ different, even contradictory ideologies and ideological frameworks, such as Rashism, the “Russian world,” Russia’s special path, Eurasianism, the cult of Stalin, the idealization of Tsarist Russia, “traditional values,” and so on.
The Soviet system was built on an ideology resembling a monolith, which was, on the one hand, very solid, but on the other hand fragile, since any attack on even a single link of Soviet ideology threatened the stability of the entire structure. Support for the Soviet Union implied unconditional support for its ideology. The Russian authorities are not bound to any single ideology, and because of this, they can gain support from opposing political forces, since these forces are not required to support a specific ideology. For them, a common worldview is more important than a common ideology.
For example, during the Soviet period, religious authorities understood that although they were entirely dependent on the state, their religion was incompatible with communist ideology. This prevented religious organizations from openly supporting the Soviet Union’s aggressive wars. The only political activity they participated in was the so-called “struggle for peace,” declaratively promoted by the Soviet authorities. Today, many Russian religious authorities themselves propose their own variants of ideology that justify Russia’s aggressive policies and the war against Ukraine. Moreover, they begin to integrate their own religion into the worldview of the Russian authorities, in which the world of modern civilization is perceived as evil. Such practices did not exist during the Soviet period.
