07.01.2026, Moscow.
Russia must hold out at the front line and maintain its domestic political stability in the rear; these were the issues on which Russian President Vladimir Putin’s press conference was focused, the leader of the Essence of Time movement, political scientist and philosopher Sergey Kurginyan said on December 26 on the Conversation with a Sage program on Radio Zvezda.
Kurginyan reminded that the late-Soviet and post-Soviet elite over decades longed for Russia to be accepted into Europe. And this means that Russia was not supposed, unlike the USSR, to produce all critical goods and maintain a huge army capable of mobilizing large masses of the population. We were supposed to produce oil and gas and then use the earned money to purchase everything the country needs as well as to transform our army into a contingent intended for limited operations in crisis areas. Our society was to become consumerist and unable to live in a mobilization-oriented economy.
According to Kurginyan, one of the great achievements of the USSR leader J.V. Stalin was that he successfully put our economy, industry, and society on a war footing before the Great Patriotic War began. The “purges” among the military and governmental top officials were made before the war.
“Molotov’s wife, an ultra-communist who suffered from Stalin, nevertheless told Stalin’s daughter, ‘Your father is a genius because he timely did it.’ Before the war. Can officials be shuffled during a war that turned out to be more intense than expected? That would be a way to a disaster!” Kurginyan said.
“No repressions could take place in 1941, they could take place in 1937. Whether they were efficient or not is another question. First repressions, then war. First we put it from the integrationist footing on a different one, then we have a war,” Kurginyan explained.
In Russia today, we failed to do that before the beginning of the Special Operation in Ukraine, which transformed into a long positional war of survival.
An attempt to build a sort of “life-guards” in the form of the Wagner PMC also failed. As a result, “instead of life-guards or Peter the Great’s ‘toy regiments’ capable of making a revolution from above, rebels appeared,” the political scientist explained. A “revolution from above” is a solution when the authorities themselves initiate the reforms in the government and the society that have become urgent instead of waiting for a “revolution from beneath.”
Thus, we have to hold out in our conflict in Ukraine with the existing society, industry, and elite groups.
“Inside all this, Putin had to control the existing situation. And the primary issue inside this existing situation that he faced was to hold out both at the front line and in the rear! To prevent the domestic political stability from exploding and to hold out at the front line. These were the issues Putin’s press conference was focused on. It exhibited the policy of using the existing situation, in its multiple aspects, to hold out domestically and to combat the outer enemies,” the analyst stressed.
At the same time he noted that holding out domestically in the conditions when a society intended for integration into Europe was formed inherently requires a multi-faceted approach, because, “on the one hand, you have to tell heroes that their mission is really great, and on the other hand, you have to give something to the groups with a different position in order to keep them from a revolt because you cannot suppress them through million-strong repressions.”
According to Kurginyan, Russia today is fighting due to an optimal use of the capabilities available to the post-Soviet Russia and the post-Soviet society. “If we take a closer look at Putin’s press conference, it is a literal depiction of this, and this is why some people grumble that it is not extraordinary enough (what extraordinary is during a war is another question). Others are unhappy as they feel the interests of their groups are undermined. And he [Putin] successfully maintains this balance,” the political scientist said.
Sergey Kurginyan noted that Putin prevented a defeat of the army, which has to wage a positional war against an enemy actively supported by entire Europe. Of course, the Russian armed forces are not fighting the way they could have fought if our army had not suffered devastation in the post-Soviet period when the Russian elite had an illusion that the West would be friends with Russia and allow it to integrate into Europe. However, the Russian army has not only escaped a defeat refusing to flee, but it also holds the initiative, the analyst stressed.
Source: Rossa Primavera News Agency
