Politics
The Rise of Russian Civilizationism
April 28, 2025
- Paul RobinsonProfessor in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of the Ottawa
Historian Paul Robinson argues that the tensions between Russia and the West have taken on an ideological dimension, with Russia promoting a civilizationist approach as a means of legitimizing its position in the eyes of the non-Western world.
Vladimir Putin took part in the plenary session of the 20th anniversary meeting of the Valdai International Discussion Club. October, 2023. Source: Kremlin.ru
Speaking to the Valdai Club in October 2022, Vladimir Putin used the words “civilizations” and “civilizational” no fewer than 15 times and cited 19th century philosophers Nikolai Danilevsky and Konstantin Leontyev to argue that there is no universal path of development and that different civilizations should follow their own distinct paths and not be forced to copy that of the West.
A year later Putin did it again, using the words “civilizations,” and “civilizational” 23 times in his speech to the Valdai Club in October 2023. This coincided with the publication of the latest official Foreign Policy Concept of the Russian Federation which described Russia as a “unique country-civilization” and stated that the international order should be founded on a “diversity of cultures, civilizations, and models of social organization.”
Civilizationism vs “the end of history”
The use of civilizational rhetoric may be seen as a strategy to combat the West’s ideological hegemony and to win hearts and minds in the non-Western world by defending the rights of different societies to develop in their own way and thus to resist pressure to conform with Western norms. As such, it requires detailed examination, the starting point of which needs to be a study of what it is reacting against.
For the past 250 years, the predominant understanding of history in the Western world has been what one might call the unilinear theory of history.
A year later Putin did it again, using the words “civilizations,” and “civilizational” 23 times in his speech to the Valdai Club in October 2023. This coincided with the publication of the latest official Foreign Policy Concept of the Russian Federation which described Russia as a “unique country-civilization” and stated that the international order should be founded on a “diversity of cultures, civilizations, and models of social organization.”
Civilizationism vs “the end of history”
The use of civilizational rhetoric may be seen as a strategy to combat the West’s ideological hegemony and to win hearts and minds in the non-Western world by defending the rights of different societies to develop in their own way and thus to resist pressure to conform with Western norms. As such, it requires detailed examination, the starting point of which needs to be a study of what it is reacting against.
For the past 250 years, the predominant understanding of history in the Western world has been what one might call the unilinear theory of history.
“This views history as marching in one direction, from savagery towards civilization. Civilization is singular, and represents the end of history.”
In the nineteenth century, the influence of scientific positivism and social Darwinism combined to popularize this view of history. Many believed that history followed precise laws and that societies that failed to develop in accordance with those laws were doomed to disappear. In general, Western European societies were seen as the model of progress. The fate of humanity was in due course to become like Western Europe.
By the early twentieth century, this form of historical determinism had split into two main strands in Russia – the liberal and the communist. An archetypal thinker of the first type was liberal historian and politican Pavel Miliukov, who remarked in his book Outlines of Russian Culture that “in all spheres of life, our historical development proceeds in the same direction as it has proceeded everywhere in Europe.” Russia would, he imagined, eventually become a liberal democracy along the lines of France or Britain.
Soviet and post-Soviet vision of “universal laws” guiding social life
In the end, though, it was the communist version of historical determinism that triumphed and became official state doctrine for some 70 years. The communist view was laid out by Stalin in his booklet Dialectical and Historical Materialism, in which he wrote that “Marxist philosophical materialism holds that the world and its laws are fully knowable … Hence social life … ceases to be an agglomeration of ‘accidents’ and becomes the history of the development of society according to regular laws.”
The most important of these laws, according to communism, was that historical change was a product of the mode of production. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, this somewhat paradoxically remained the viewpoint of the radical market reformers who held power in the 1990s. They replaced communism with capitalism as the final mode of production, but they remain committed to the idea that social life followed knowable laws. As Yegor Gaidar said, “We proceeded from the fundamental laws of economic behavior of homo sapiens, and it turned out that these laws work in Russia, with our specific character, as well as they work in Argentina, Korea, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, or Australia.”
By the early twentieth century, this form of historical determinism had split into two main strands in Russia – the liberal and the communist. An archetypal thinker of the first type was liberal historian and politican Pavel Miliukov, who remarked in his book Outlines of Russian Culture that “in all spheres of life, our historical development proceeds in the same direction as it has proceeded everywhere in Europe.” Russia would, he imagined, eventually become a liberal democracy along the lines of France or Britain.
Soviet and post-Soviet vision of “universal laws” guiding social life
In the end, though, it was the communist version of historical determinism that triumphed and became official state doctrine for some 70 years. The communist view was laid out by Stalin in his booklet Dialectical and Historical Materialism, in which he wrote that “Marxist philosophical materialism holds that the world and its laws are fully knowable … Hence social life … ceases to be an agglomeration of ‘accidents’ and becomes the history of the development of society according to regular laws.”
The most important of these laws, according to communism, was that historical change was a product of the mode of production. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, this somewhat paradoxically remained the viewpoint of the radical market reformers who held power in the 1990s. They replaced communism with capitalism as the final mode of production, but they remain committed to the idea that social life followed knowable laws. As Yegor Gaidar said, “We proceeded from the fundamental laws of economic behavior of homo sapiens, and it turned out that these laws work in Russia, with our specific character, as well as they work in Argentina, Korea, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, or Australia.”
Police clash with Euromaidan protesters. January 2014. Source: Wiki Commons
Historical determinism discredited. The rise of civilizationism
The chaos of the 1990s served to discredit this point of view. Disenchantment with shock therapy and Western foreign policy, combined with the spread in the West of a new form of postmodern liberalism that many Russians found alien, all added to the belief that the West did not represent civilization in the singular. As journalist Dmitry Sokolov-Mitrich comments, following Kosovo, Iraq, Libya, and Euromaidan, “the myth of the ‘civilized world’ collapsed entirely.” Russian intellectuals began to look for an alternative perspective. They found this in civilizationism.
The chaos of the 1990s served to discredit this point of view. Disenchantment with shock therapy and Western foreign policy, combined with the spread in the West of a new form of postmodern liberalism that many Russians found alien, all added to the belief that the West did not represent civilization in the singular. As journalist Dmitry Sokolov-Mitrich comments, following Kosovo, Iraq, Libya, and Euromaidan, “the myth of the ‘civilized world’ collapsed entirely.” Russian intellectuals began to look for an alternative perspective. They found this in civilizationism.
“Civilizationism denies that there is a single end to history. Instead of civilization, singular, there are civilizations, plural, and history consists of each of them progressing in its own distinct way towards its own distinct future.”
And this is a good thing, as diversity is to be preferred to civilizational homogeneity.
Civilizationism’s origins can be found in German Romanticism and the writings of philosophers such as Johann Gottfried Herder, who mocked fellow Europeans for believing that they represented civilization at the same time as they ravaged and enslaved the rest of the world. “Should the general, philanthropic tone of our century so generously and readily bestow our own idea of virtue and happiness on every remote nation, every ancient age of the world? Is it the only judge, to be assessing, condemning, or prettifying their mores all by itself? Is not the good dispersed throughout the earth?” asked Herder.
In the aftermath of the First World War, thinkers such as Oswald Spengler, Arnold Toynbee, and Pitirim Sorokin took up these questions, answering that Western civilization was not indeed universal. It too would eventually die and thus could not be said to be the end of history. As Spengler put it, “In a few centuries from now there will no more be Western Culture.”
Domestic roots of Russian civilizationism
Spengler, Toynbee, and Sorokin are all often quoted nowadays in the works of Russian civilizationists. But Russian civilizationism also has its own deep domestic roots. These go back to Danilevsky and Leontyev, who were among the first to argue that history is not unilinear in nature. As Danilevsky put it, “Progress does not consist of everything going in the same direction but of covering the entire field that constitutes humanity’s historical activity, in all directions.”
Subsequently, various twentieth century thinkers, including the Eurasianists, developed this theme further. For example, in his 1920 book Europe and Humanity [ML1] linguist Nikolai Trubetskoi argued that “European culture is not humanity’s culture. It is the product of the history of a distinct ethnic group.” According to Trubetskoi, European anthropology and ethnology, by propagating the idea of “higher” and “lower” civilizations, justified “the imperialist colonial policies and vandalistic civilizing missions of the ‘great powers’ of Europe and America.”
One can find a similar logic in the works of post-Soviet Russian thinkers such as Alexander Panarin, who argued that “No less important than the principle of political pluralism and tolerance of those who think differently within the European system is the principle of pluralism of world cultures … Therefore it is clear that the main danger facing humanity today is the theory of a single variant of the future, viewing all non-Western cultures as survivals of the past and hindrances to modernization and Westernization.”
Civilizationism’s origins can be found in German Romanticism and the writings of philosophers such as Johann Gottfried Herder, who mocked fellow Europeans for believing that they represented civilization at the same time as they ravaged and enslaved the rest of the world. “Should the general, philanthropic tone of our century so generously and readily bestow our own idea of virtue and happiness on every remote nation, every ancient age of the world? Is it the only judge, to be assessing, condemning, or prettifying their mores all by itself? Is not the good dispersed throughout the earth?” asked Herder.
In the aftermath of the First World War, thinkers such as Oswald Spengler, Arnold Toynbee, and Pitirim Sorokin took up these questions, answering that Western civilization was not indeed universal. It too would eventually die and thus could not be said to be the end of history. As Spengler put it, “In a few centuries from now there will no more be Western Culture.”
Domestic roots of Russian civilizationism
Spengler, Toynbee, and Sorokin are all often quoted nowadays in the works of Russian civilizationists. But Russian civilizationism also has its own deep domestic roots. These go back to Danilevsky and Leontyev, who were among the first to argue that history is not unilinear in nature. As Danilevsky put it, “Progress does not consist of everything going in the same direction but of covering the entire field that constitutes humanity’s historical activity, in all directions.”
Subsequently, various twentieth century thinkers, including the Eurasianists, developed this theme further. For example, in his 1920 book Europe and Humanity [ML1] linguist Nikolai Trubetskoi argued that “European culture is not humanity’s culture. It is the product of the history of a distinct ethnic group.” According to Trubetskoi, European anthropology and ethnology, by propagating the idea of “higher” and “lower” civilizations, justified “the imperialist colonial policies and vandalistic civilizing missions of the ‘great powers’ of Europe and America.”
One can find a similar logic in the works of post-Soviet Russian thinkers such as Alexander Panarin, who argued that “No less important than the principle of political pluralism and tolerance of those who think differently within the European system is the principle of pluralism of world cultures … Therefore it is clear that the main danger facing humanity today is the theory of a single variant of the future, viewing all non-Western cultures as survivals of the past and hindrances to modernization and Westernization.”
“All this is of more than academic interest, as these ideas have gradually seeped their way into Russian political discourse.”
. In the 1990s and early 2000s, opposition figures such as Vladimir Zhirinovsky and Gennady Zyuganov became open advocates of civilizationism. Zhirinovsky, for instance, founded an Institute of Global Civilizations, now renamed the V. V. Zhirinovsky University of Global Civilizations. Meanwhile, Zyuganov’s writings contain references to Toynbee, Spengler, Trubetskoi, and other civilizationist thinkers.
Gennady Zyuganov, the leader of the Communist party of the Russian Federation since 1993. Source: Wiki Commons
In the mid-1990s, Zyuganov addressed Americans, writing that “the peoples of Russia have created their special world – the world of Russian civilization. … You have gone your own way … Let Russia be Russia and let America be America. Ours is a big and diverse world. We should not try to destroy and level this diversity; rather, we should ensure, through tolerance and compromise, that diverse and unique civilizations coexist peacefully with each other.”
Civilizationism and Russia’s “special military operation”
Until fairly recently, the Russian state avoided civilizational discourse of this sort. Indeed, during his first two presidencies, Putin referred to Russia as part of Europe not as a distinct civilization. After his return to the presidency in 2012, however, the situation began to change. References to civilizations became increasingly common, and since the start of the so-called Special Military Operation in Ukraine, civilizationism has become the consistent ideological position of the Russian state, with Putin and others arguing for a multicivilizational world order.
As Putin told the Valdai Club, this order should rest on “the ability of any nation – I emphasize – any society or civilization to follow its own path and organize its own socio-political system.” In this respect, the Russian president of today has come to sound very like Zyuganov in the 1990s.
This civilizational discourse appears to serve two political purposes. The first is domestic – it helps to consolidate national identity; the second is foreign – civilizationism serves as a means by which Russia can exercise soft power and win the support of the Global South, and so prevent the West from diplomatically isolating Russia.
In the latter sense, it is well chosen, as it has a double appeal in some parts of the world. The first is a negative appeal: the denunciations of Western colonialism, hypocrisy, and double standards make sense to many in the Global South who have long memories of Western rule.
Civilizationism and Russia’s “special military operation”
Until fairly recently, the Russian state avoided civilizational discourse of this sort. Indeed, during his first two presidencies, Putin referred to Russia as part of Europe not as a distinct civilization. After his return to the presidency in 2012, however, the situation began to change. References to civilizations became increasingly common, and since the start of the so-called Special Military Operation in Ukraine, civilizationism has become the consistent ideological position of the Russian state, with Putin and others arguing for a multicivilizational world order.
As Putin told the Valdai Club, this order should rest on “the ability of any nation – I emphasize – any society or civilization to follow its own path and organize its own socio-political system.” In this respect, the Russian president of today has come to sound very like Zyuganov in the 1990s.
This civilizational discourse appears to serve two political purposes. The first is domestic – it helps to consolidate national identity; the second is foreign – civilizationism serves as a means by which Russia can exercise soft power and win the support of the Global South, and so prevent the West from diplomatically isolating Russia.
In the latter sense, it is well chosen, as it has a double appeal in some parts of the world. The first is a negative appeal: the denunciations of Western colonialism, hypocrisy, and double standards make sense to many in the Global South who have long memories of Western rule.
“The second appeal is positive: in some countries, many people have a favorable view of Russia based on the memory of the Soviet Union as an ally in the national liberation movements of the past.”
Russia is exploiting this sentiment by allying civilizational rhetoric with references to the Soviet Union’s role in supporting anti-colonialism, thereby suggesting that Russia and the Global South are allies in a joint struggle against Western attempts to eliminate civilizational differences and impose a form of neocolonialism.
This use of civilizationist rhetoric also fits with similar efforts by other non-Western states. An example is the initiative of former Iranian President Seyyed Mohammad Khatami to create a “dialogue among civilizations,” which resulted in the rather unsuccessful UN Alliance of Civilizations in 2005. Meanwhile, for the past decade, the Indian government has been pushing the idea of India as a “civilizational state”. And in 2023 Chinese president Xi Jingping launched the “Global Civilization Initiative.” Russia’s civilizational rhetoric is thus well in line with what other powerful non-Western states are saying.
Western states demand diversity within societies. Civilizationism challenges them to accept diversity between societies as well. This is something that Western liberal internationalism is ill-equipped to accept, as it is inherently committed to globalization along Western liberal models.
The collapse in Russian-Western relations is not ideological in origin. Nonetheless, the tensions between the two have taken on an ideological dimension, with Russia promoting civilizationism as a means of legitimizing its position in the eyes of the non-Western world. Arguably, this is proving quite successful. The West won the ideological battle of the first Cold War. It’s not obvious as yet that it will have the same success this time around.
This use of civilizationist rhetoric also fits with similar efforts by other non-Western states. An example is the initiative of former Iranian President Seyyed Mohammad Khatami to create a “dialogue among civilizations,” which resulted in the rather unsuccessful UN Alliance of Civilizations in 2005. Meanwhile, for the past decade, the Indian government has been pushing the idea of India as a “civilizational state”. And in 2023 Chinese president Xi Jingping launched the “Global Civilization Initiative.” Russia’s civilizational rhetoric is thus well in line with what other powerful non-Western states are saying.
Western states demand diversity within societies. Civilizationism challenges them to accept diversity between societies as well. This is something that Western liberal internationalism is ill-equipped to accept, as it is inherently committed to globalization along Western liberal models.
The collapse in Russian-Western relations is not ideological in origin. Nonetheless, the tensions between the two have taken on an ideological dimension, with Russia promoting civilizationism as a means of legitimizing its position in the eyes of the non-Western world. Arguably, this is proving quite successful. The West won the ideological battle of the first Cold War. It’s not obvious as yet that it will have the same success this time around.
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