"You don't have a Stalin!" - millions of people in Russia whisper these words to the thieving and semi-traitorous part of the Russian elite not because they like Stalin, but because millions demand from the authorities: be tougher, tougher! And Putin hears this whisper of millions..." Sergey Markov
Modern Putinism is an incomplete political-economic construct rapidly moving toward its ultimate form - Stalinism.
The regime recognizes its own "incompleteness" and attempts to complete itself through war, repression, total control, and internal mobilization. To understand the logic of this process, it is important to see the historical evolution of Russian statehood.
The feudal model identified the state with the person of the monarch. The liberal model made it an arbiter and "night watchman." The Leninist model viewed it as an apparatus of class violence.
The Stalinist system went further: violence became total, fear replaced institutions, and the state transformed into a self-sufficient Machine, where even elites are not protected.
It is precisely this matrix that today becomes the ultimate goal for the Putin system and the historically proven form of self-preservation for security corporations.
The war against Ukraine became not the cause, but the condition for bringing the regime to totalitarian absolute.
THE TECHNOLOGY OF STALINIZATION
1. State Control of the Economy
The full-scale invasion of Ukraine and the continuing war became the perfect smokescreen for "asset relocation" and creation of a mobilization economic model.
The socialization of assets, or simply "nationalization" in the broad sense, occurs in three key directions:
- Reversal of privatization results: prosecutor's office appeals to court demanding recognition of 1990s privatization results as illegal.
- Nationalization proper: mainly for non-compliance with legislative requirements (antimonopoly, anticorruption, and others), or failure to fulfill defense orders;
- Seizure of assets of foreign companies that left Russia: temporary management of foreign companies or confiscation in favor of the state.
A characteristic example is the re-privatization of JSC "Chelyabinsk Electrometallurgical Plant" (ChEMK) and two ferroalloy plants controlling up to 80% of the market. The formal pretext was export to "unfriendly countries," the real reason - strategic importance for the military-industrial complex.
Since 2022, a whole range of foreign assets has passed into state ownership. Various mechanisms are used: temporary management by Rosimushchestvo, presidential decrees, blocking of deals and capital withdrawal, freezing of shares and dividends, administrative pressure and de facto confiscation through courts. In parallel, a bill on "protecting business from foreign influence" was adopted, allowing economically significant companies to be withdrawn from the control of foreign owners.
According to NSP estimates, over three years the volume of "nationalization" amounted to 3.9 trillion rubles; Reuters names a comparable figure - about $50 billion. Against the backdrop of these scales, a natural question arises: why?
The answer was brilliantly formulated in June 2025 by Russian businessman Oleg Tinkov: "If you look at what happened after perestroika - for me it's NEP. That NEP was seven years, and this one was 30 years - a bit longer. Foreigners came, brought technologies, equipment. Then Stalin kicked everyone out. The same thing here. For 30 years they collected everything - these factories, 'Danones' and so on. Now they've taken it away. Well, they'll sit on this for another 30 years..."
If after the collapse of the USSR, party functionaries and security forces became owners of what they managed, now the security services have decided to become managers of what others previously owned.
An additional result is the systemic weakening of the oligarchy, primarily the "oligarchs of the 90s" and the group associated with Yeltsin's "Family." Despite the formal restoration of billionaires' aggregate wealth, a threat far more serious than Western sanctions looms over them: the inviolability of assets is no longer guaranteed, even with personal loyalty to Putin - the nominal guardian of the "Big Deal."
2. Total Control Over Money Circulation
In October 2025, Elvira Nabiullina stated that the Central Bank is actively preparing for the widespread introduction of the digital ruble, emphasizing that it will allow "tracking exactly what budget funds are spent on." Financial analysts note that the digital ruble is an ordinary ruble serviced by a software algorithm, the key feature of which is the ability to mark each transaction and track it precisely regardless of payment form.
But besides financial discipline, the introduction of the digital ruble is another marker of the end of the "new NEP."
Federation Council Chairwoman Valentina Matvienko ordered to "closely engage" with the self-employed. In addition, raising VAT in Russia to 22% also deals a disproportionately strong blow to small business.
Also, the State Duma approved a bill according to which Rosfinmonitoring will receive all data on Russians' transfers made through the Fast Payment System, using Mir cards and universal payment code.
Putin himself demanded "...to strengthen control over cash circulation."
3. Break with International Arbitration
State Duma Vice-Speaker Pyotr Tolstoy stated that the 2020 constitutional changes that "reset" Putin's presidential terms are not final. According to him, after the start of the war "much has changed" and ahead is a much more substantial revision of the Constitution, since a significant part of world legal practices "did not take root" in Russian legislation.
Apparently, this refers, among other things, to Article 15 of the RF Constitution, which establishes the primacy of international law over national law.
Previously, Russian business - from the largest oligarchs to medium-sized company owners - structured assets through foreign jurisdictions, relying on the protection of European courts.
The aggressive war against Ukraine led to Russia's expulsion from the Council of Europe and denunciation of dozens of international agreements, which effectively removed the country from international arbitration.
As a result, former owners of nationalized assets are deprived of legal protection opportunities.
The case of seizure of "Rolf" company shares is illustrative, which its founder Sergey Petrov called "legal lawlessness."
This is not a side effect, but a deliberate strategy: war is used as a tool for unpunished seizure of property, making even the "Family" and the largest oligarchs of the 1990s helpless before the repressive machine.
4. Strengthening the Repressive Component in State Management and the "Great Purge"
In his programmatic article "Who Are We?" Alexander Kharichev, Head of the Presidential Administration Department for Monitoring and Analysis of Social Processes, wrote: "For Russia, the SMO turned out to be a purification."
Dead Generals
In their previous publications, the authors wrote about Purification as one of the ways to concentrate power in the hands of one power group, assuming that it would be implemented radically - through repression and physical elimination of key figures of the "old system."
The main competitor of the security services remained the army with its resources and mythical status of "the world's second army."
The war became the ideal tool for its political, reputational, and physical defeat: during the invasion, the death of 16 Russian generals has been confirmed.
Generals in a Cage
However, military failures and mass death of generals did not lead to the army's complete political defeat, and the security services deployed a proven mechanism of show trials.
Immediately after the 2024 elections, Deputy Defense Minister Timur Ivanov was arrested - Shoigu's "wallet," responsible for procurement and military construction.
Despite being escorted by military counterintelligence of the FSB, he was demonstratively brought to Basmanny Court in uniform with awards, turning the process into public humiliation of the army.
After this, Shoigu lost his chances to keep his post and was sent to a formally honorable but empty position.
Under the slogan of fighting corruption, the security services destroyed the team of a political competitor and reinforced the image of generals as thieves and traitors.
In fact, this meant not a shift in balance, but the transfer of control over the army to the security services and undermining of the entire structure that had formed during the power transition and protected the "Family."
Mysterious Deaths
From the very beginning of the so-called SMO in Russia and beyond, strange things began to happen: high-ranking managers of state and private companies began to die under suspicious circumstances.
Since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, more than 30 such functionaries have died. All of them were connected either with large corporations ("Gazprom," "Lukoil," "Novatek," "Transneft"), or with security structures (SVR, MVD, FSIN).
It is also characteristic that a "narrow set of scenarios" is repeated: falls from windows, hangings, gunshot wounds, falls overboard, sudden heart attacks. Such a series could look random if not for the high density of such deaths in time.
The case of Mikhail Kenin is illustrative - the nominal owner of the largest developer "Samolet." After Sergey Shoigu fell into disgrace and his entourage was arrested, the company began to have serious problems. Shortly before Kenin's death, information appeared about a sharp increase in debts and his attempts to urgently exit the business.
Fighting Corruption
Parallel to purges in the army, the Kremlin began another stage of "fighting corruption" in other government bodies, naturally harshly redistributing resources and powers under a plausible pretext.
As in the case of the defeat of Shoigu's generalship, the security forces brought to light the most striking cases.
Such vivid detentions should delight the Russian public - Z-bloggers have already hastened to assure that Putin is really trying to stop theft - that very "staple of power" on which the entire late-Putin system rested.
In addition, the fight against bribery should cover inter- and intra-species struggle, although in fairness it must be recognized that the reliability of "cover" for initiators of "purges of corrupt officials" does not greatly concern them.
The Telegraph directly links the mysterious deaths, arrests, and wave of punishments with strengthening control and internal conflicts in the highest circles of power, and The Washington Post noted that even top officials, including governors and ministers, who previously could be considered protected, are now at risk.
Digital and Regular GULAG
Today, the FSB seeks to control everything related to politics, economics, and business. Not a single body in Russia is capable of limiting its activities - neither the government, nor the courts, nor parliament.
From January 1, 2026, a law comes into force that returns to the FSB a full-scale prison circuit; in particular, the security service returns all pre-trial detention centers that were previously under their jurisdiction and gets the opportunity to exclusively hold prisoners there, as well as escort prisoners, "ensure security," "treat" detainees in case of their "illness" - without transferring them to civilian doctors or even FSIN doctors.
Departmental prisons of state security bodies in Russia appeared during the period of mass repression in the 1930s and were massively closed after Stalin's death. Now this pendulum is returning - the FSB is again getting its own penitentiary system, unaccountable to anyone.
According to lawyer Yevgeny Smirnov, the FSB has built total control over Russian information and political-economic space:
- through the SORM system, the security service intercepts all internet traffic, phone conversations, messages, chats, cloud data and service archives, has access to email, SMS (including archives for past years), banking applications, and can also hack citizens' devices right at the border;
- grounds for persecution are not only publications and reposts, but also search queries, and interest in "extremist materials" can lead to a criminal case;
- in parallel, the FSB received full political control, overseeing the appointment of officials and checking judges, and its agents and seconded employees are embedded in companies to influence management decisions, financial flows, and conduct corruption operations.
Today in Russia, 2-3 sentences for "high treason" are handed down daily, and the number of such cases is growing every month. Moreover, most cases are classified, their consideration is conducted in closed session, and the judges reviewing the cases are naturally completely dependent on the security services.
It was the so-called SMO that became the catalyst for strengthening total control. The FSB now completely controls the civilian sphere, the security bloc, business, after the defeat of the Shoigu clan - the military vertical, domestic policy and elites.
5. Cult of the Leader's Personality
The cult of personality in modern Russia is not worship of a person, but a political technology that keeps society in a state of constant mobilization and legitimizes re-Stalinization.
Putin here is not a subject, but a screen onto which the fears, desires, and archaic expectations of Russian mass consciousness are projected.
In the early 2000s, he appeared in the role of a conditional "tsar-reformer," a liberal analogue of Alexander II. Later - a reactionary and conservative Alexander III. Then - a figure of Nicholas II, a weak tsar (especially against the backdrop of crises - Ukraine's counteroffensive in Kharkiv region and near Kherson at the end of 2022, during Prigozhin's putsch). And finally, in recent years - some semblance of Stalin, symbolizing harshness, militarization, and expansion of the repressive apparatus.
But this evolution of Putin's image reflects not the development of his personality, but a change in political functions.
Putin's cult is skillfully built into two stable public demands: punishment of "corrupt elites" and imperial expansion as a form of compensation for internal poverty.
Oleg Tinkov in the same interview will say: "...the problem is not Putin. Putin is a reflection of the people. He's just a good marketer. He just does what people want."
The myth of Putin replaces absent institutions, national goals, ideology. Unlike the Stalinist cult, Putin's does not express the real greatness of the leader. Putin is the result of careful collective and institutional calculations. He easily adapts to circumstances and does not depend on the quality of the bearer's personality, therefore he is even more effective.
The symbolic continuation of this mechanism is the growth of monuments to Stalin and Ivan the Terrible - this is not a monument to the past, but carte blanche for Putin for a new portion of terror.
6. Militarization of All Spheres of Public Life
The militarization of modern Russia is not a side effect of war. It is conscious construction of a new political system in which all public life is subordinated to war. Key mechanisms - school, the cult of the so-called SMO, and the project of a "new man" - form a mobilization autocracy where society is viewed as a resource for long-term confrontation with the external world.
This logic is directly recorded in programmatic texts of Kremlin ideologues, primarily in Alexander Kharichev's article "Who Are We?": "The challenge before the country is the loss of sovereignty. Any kind - military, territorial, political, cultural sovereignty. ...loss of sovereignty is the main challenge facing the country, there is no other."
Sovereignty here is understood not as development, but as absolute power, for which isolation, severance of ties, and nationalization of the economy are acceptable.
That is why war for the Kremlin is not a result, but a process. Its task is to justify endless mobilization and give war sacred status.
Education is being restructured for the "person of the mobilization era," "Conversations about Important Things" become a mandatory norm, and the cult of "SMO heroes" erases the boundaries between school and war, good and violence. These figures are promoted to power, forming a new type of official and new anthropology of sacrifice.
The economy is also subordinated to military needs, which explains the massive nationalization.
Russia is consciously transforming into a mobilization autocracy where war becomes the basis of identity.
As Vladimir Pastukhov accurately noted: "Everything repeats: repressions, patriotic education, the concept of a besieged fortress, Stalingrad. True, the copy will not work like the original. Everything they do is secondary."
7. A System with Illusory Beneficiaries
"Comrade Stalin, a monstrous mistake has occurred!" - this phrase was repeated by thousands of loyal supporters of the Stalinist system who had already found themselves under repression.
Today it is mentally addressed to the System by convinced supporters of Putinism. In 2025, the Ministry of Justice added pro-Kremlin political scientist Sergey Markov to the register of "foreign agents," then Z-blogger Roman Alekhin, and later Tatyana Montyan.
The formal reasons looked different, but the logic was the same: they were sacrificed to the moment.
At the height of the crisis in Moscow-Baku relations, Markov, who untimely "lit a cigarette from someone else's fire," was simply sacrificed because the moment required it. That's all!
As for Z-volunteers, they came under attack not because they were disloyal or ineffective. Loyalty was never an indulgence, and efficiency was never put by the system at the forefront.
The System removes those who acquire horizontal connections and create network-centric structures that replace state institutions and destroy the vertical. This is an instinctive reaction.
Thus, the Kremlin broadcasts simple messages: there are no longer untouchables, punishments are real, and this course is irreversible.
The Stalinization of the Russian economy and socio-political life is the managed revolution in Russia that the authors have been writing about since 2022.
As in the Stalinist period, it is carried out "from above" and requires consideration through the prism of the Time of Troubles - a state that sets in motion the entire architecture of power, economy, and public life.
Russian Times of Troubles have a recurring set of signs: unsuccessful reforms, crisis of power, senseless wars, and subsequent tightening of control.
Unlike Western Europe, where revolutions expanded rights and freedoms, in Russia they ended in new enserfment. The Time of Troubles of the 17th century ended with the Council Code of 1649; the Time of Troubles of the early 20th century - with the Stalinist revolution, in which any privileges became reversible, and the risk of repression - universal.
Stalin transformed the Leninist idea into a system where class violence evolves into total control, and the state becomes a self-sufficient System. The ruling class "disappears" in the sense that even the elite is not insured against repression.
At the foundation of the modern Russian construct is a model of mobilization autocracy, where the state regulates everything: economy, social values, emotions, and private life (including, for example, birth rate).
On this foundation, the Stalinist model is revived: total violence, not addressed to a specific class, but distributed to all.
Hannah Arendt in "The Origins of Totalitarianism" compared the Stalinist regime with the Nazi one: both create an "atomized society" where the individual is alone before the System.
The key illusion of Stalinism is preserved - the illusion of beneficiary: the conviction of security forces, officials, or clergy in their own invulnerability. But, as in the 1930s, it is false. Even within the FSB, privileges are situational and reversible.
As a result, the only real beneficiary becomes the System itself. It absorbs its creators and servants.
The key catalyst of this process is war: but if for Stalin the concentration of power was a tool for implementing an external idea - world domination through World Revolution, and essentially World War, then in the Putin model everything is opposite: war is a tool, concentration of power is the goal.
It was precisely the war against Ukraine that made it possible to launch mobilization autocracy and form a new totalitarian order.
Authors: Vladimir Shevchenko, political scientist, Doctor of Philosophy
Andrey Savarets, analyst, lawyer, author of the telegram channel "Special Opinion"
