To understand Putin you must understand Ivan Ilyin. This well-recognised fascist intellectual was around more or less a century ago. See the link below to get a better idea of his frightening totalitarian vision..
nybooks.com/daily/2018/03/…
What I find even more compelling is the response to Ilyin and his 1925 work "On The Use of Violence to Resist Evil" (fun title!) and the outright concern about where this sort of path can lead *even then* - pre-Hitler, pre nuclear weapons, pre Cold War, pre terrorism etc etc
