Misleading Parallels
Authoritarian Russia Is Not Fascist
Deutsche Fassung
Abstract
In Osteuropa, Alexander J. Motyl presented his thesis that Russia is a fascist state – or at least on the way to becoming one. This is untenable. Key features of German and Italian fascism such as a comprehensive ideology or the glorification of violence are alien to the bureaucratic-authoritarian regime that has been established under Putin. Anybody who subsumes the Putin regime under the term fascism runs the risk of failing to recognise the threat posed by real Russian fascism.
(Osteuropa 4/2009, pp. 119–128)