The logic of values could not help but be perceived in Moscow as something hostile – as the logic of Western intervention in the affairs of other states and attempts to spread values throughout the world.

The ability to serve as a reference point for others, to propagate an ideology, to support brothers in a common system of values is not the first thing that comes to mind when mentioning Russia. The Soviet Union was once a reference point and source of support for brothers in the communist faith. The Russian elites are mostly made up of people who are deeply alien to serving an idea – no matter what. And this is understandable: who else but the Russian state should be post-ideological?

But recently, Russia has found political followers and imitators in the world. Whether this was a matter of strategy or just happened is hard to say. It is not even clear that the cause and effect are in this order: Russia created an idea, began to spread it, and eventually succeeded. The cause-and-effect relationship here is most likely arranged differently.

Both Russian society and Russian elites were painfully searching for themselves in a world where the liberal democratic order seemed to be a natural environment. The international backdrop to which post-Soviet Russia had to orient itself throughout the 1990s and the first half of the 2000s was the rapid democratization of states and societies. This process should include not only the rejection of authoritarian political systems by many countries, but also the extension of state protection to groups that had previously been persecuted.

Of course, traditional values have been a subject of constant concern for the Russian state for several years now. But long before this flag was found, political reforms were carried out – without any flag – that made the transmission of values (any) from top to bottom possible in principle. The process of consolidation of the media, public organizations and political parties around a narrow ruling group took place in the logic of a completely traditional and not particularly value-based struggle for the security of the regime.

Moreover, the logic of values could not but be perceived in Moscow as something hostile – as the logic of Western interference in the affairs of other states and attempts to spread values (democratic) throughout the world. Moscow’s response was not a counter-ideology, but realism and a strict definition of its interests. It was precisely this position – forced and post-ideological – that ultimately proved attractive to many political forces in the world, including the extreme right, which saw the spread of liberal values as a threat to their existence.

How exactly Moscow politicians – people brought up in the USSR and not very familiar with traditional values – and the bearers of such values behind Donald Trump and the European far right found each other would be interesting to study. There has been an intensive exchange of ideas between parts of the Orthodox elite and conservative pastors and commentators in the US for years. I would not be surprised if connections were found between the leaders of the conservative wave in Russia and Steve Bannon, Trump’s chief strategist. But meetings of this kind cannot, by definition, be the cause of the tectonic changes we are witnessing. They are convergences of a different kind.

Flag of traditional values