Vozvratnyi totalitarizm [Recurrent Totalitarianism]

Why did democracy fail in Russia and society failed to establish control over the ruling elites? L. Gudkov's articles included in the book 'Returning Totalitarianism' are united by the search for an answer to this fundamental question. In order to identify the reasons that do not allow the country to free itself from the totalitarian past, the author considers many factors that form the mass consciousness. Traditions of state violence, mass immorality (or the morality of opportunism), the reproduction of imperial and militaristic 'historical consciousness', counter-modernization impulses - this is an incomplete list of problems that fall into L. Gudkov's field of vision. Based on numerous research materials conducted by the Levada Center since the late 1980s, the author proposes theoretical schemes and analytical constructions that correspond to the real socio-political situation. The articles that make up the book were written between 2009 and 2019 and reflect the dynamics of changes