Dmitry Oreshkin claims Russia’s ruling class endorses Putinism, which could “outlast its namesake.” For years Putin has been seen as a reckless, authoritarian leader, in quest of Russia’s lost glory. But the ideological underpinnings of Putinism are quite sophisticated. The ideology is “integral to the Russian state’s survival,” nourished by certain conservative Russian thinkers, like Vladislav Surkov and Aleksandr Dugin, who embrace anti-liberal, anti-Western concepts.

According to the author, the “sanctified minority” that propels Russia “toward some goal that is fully known only to them. Whatever that goal turns out to be, neither the rule of law nor the hopes of the Russian people is likely to be any match for it.” As authority is still vested in personalities, not in institutions, Putin’s vision of Russia, his understanding of its history, his KGB past and his memories of the Soviet Union have an incalculable impact on the political life.

Vladislav Surkov, known as the Putin’s Rasputin, rose from a background in the theatre and PR to become the architect of Putinism. The undisputed master of machinations was considered one of Russia’s most deft politicians. He was said to be crafting Russia's system of “managed democracy”, credited with building Putin’s particular brand of governance – masking repression with pseudo-democratic institutions.

But Surkov’s real skill was myth-making. With legends multiplying around him like bacteria in a petri dish, he was good at steering the Kremlin’s powerful propaganda machine, mainly via control of state-run television. His job has always been to get people talking about everything else except for what is real. He rose to international prominence in 2006 as the Kremlin’s Svengali when he penned the term "sovereign democracy."

He argues that Russia is not a democracy, never has been, never will be. He claims there are no real democracy at all – it is just an illusion. Western societies work, because they let people revel in that illusion. But the fiction has never really worked in Russia. Russia does not need the fiction, because it has Putin, and he has built a system capable of ruling Russia for 100 years. That system understands its people – their needs, desires, and purposes – better than they understand themselves. Putin is simply Russia’s Sigmund Freund. It is unclear whether he is truly convinced of what he said or he is obsequious to Putin.

Another Putin’s adviser is the neofascist thinker, Alexander Dugin - a xenophobic, hard-right, nationalist ideologue. Dugin whispers policy into Putin’s ears and “agrees that Putinism functions because of its ideological foundations,” saying it is fundamental that “the regime has an ideological core. As an advocate of revanchism, he urged Putin to go further into Ukraine after Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014. “Dugin’s view is the sea-based imperialism of Atlanticism with land-based Neo-Eurasianism.”

Putin wants to create a vast trade and political bloc. His Eurasian Union, stretching from China to the edge of the EU, began taking shape in 2010 with the ECU, a free-trade customs union binding Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus. Since Putin sees the end of the Soviet Union as "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century", the West is wary of his ambition to turn the ECU into a powerful, supra-national union of sovereign states like the EU, uniting economies, legal systems, customs services and military capabilities to rival the EU, the US and China.

Dugin has often “argued that ideology is integral to the Russian state’s survival, not least because the state’s vertical power structure lacks the flexibility needed to spur economic dynamism on par with the West. Given this, Dugin argues that the key to the Russian state’s survival is its advancement of some higher purpose. The purpose itself is largely irrelevant: it could be to establish a Russian Orthodox monarchy, to restore communism, or, on the level of grand strategy,” as long as it is anti-Western and preserves its national identity.

Both Dugin and Surkov maintain that Russia, like the Soviet Union, should be an “ideocracy,” ruled by a tiny elite. “This concept has been embraced by the siloviki, powerful former and current state-security officers who view themselves as something of a fraternity.” The question is what the future will hold for a post-Putin Russia? Will this “sanctified minority” be able to subjugate young Russians to their form of governance?