Atlas / Comparisons / Putinism vs Stalinism
Putinism and Stalinism
Measured distance across six axes
Different families with real common ground. They agree within three points on AU, SC. They diverge by eight points or more on EC, CH.
Axis by axis
| Axis | United Russia, sovereign democracy | Socialism in one country | Gap | Reading | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| EC · Economic organisation | +03 | −10 | 13 | Diverges | Carries the disagreement. Any claim that these two are alike has to explain this. |
| CU · Social and cultural order | +09 | +03 | 6 | Differs | Real difference, but not the dividing line. |
| AU · Organisation of power | +10 | +10 | 0 | Agrees | Effectively the same position. Not what an argument between them is about. |
| SC · Scale of decision | +09 | +10 | 1 | Agrees | Effectively the same position. Not what an argument between them is about. |
| ID · Rule of membership | +08 | +03 | 5 | Differs | Real difference, but not the dividing line. |
| CH · Method and tempo | −03 | +08 | 11 | Diverges | Carries the disagreement. Any claim that these two are alike has to explain this. |
Each axis runs from −10 to +10; the distance is the straight-line separation across all six at once, out of a maximum of 49.0. How the scoring works →
The evidence behind the widest gaps
A distance figure is worth nothing unless the scores behind it can be checked. These are the artefacts supporting the axes that separate these two most.
United Russia, sovereign democracy · EC +03
Coded right of centre: flat taxation and private ownership, contingent on political loyalty.
- Documented act or statuteA thirteen percent flat personal income tax was introduced in 2001.
- Documented act or statuteThe Yukos case in 2003–04 established that private ownership is revocable for political reasons.
Socialism in one country · EC −10
Private ownership of productive assets was eliminated outright and allocation was set by physical plan targets rather than prices.
- Documented act or statuteThe first Five-Year Plan from 1928 placed all industry under state ownership and central targets.
- Documented act or statuteCollectivisation from 1929 abolished private farming; roughly a quarter of a million households were deported as kulaks.
United Russia, sovereign democracy · CH −03
Coded negative domestically: the regime is the established order and its change is conservative.
- Documented act or statuteConstitutional amendment by managed plebiscite rather than by rupture.
Socialism in one country · CH +08
Coded high but below the Bolshevik score: this was transformation by state administrative violence rather than by insurrection.
- Documented act or statuteCollectivisation and the industrialisation drive were imposed by decree and armed requisition between 1929 and 1933.
- ScholarshipThe 1932–33 famine in Ukraine and Kazakhstan followed grain procurement quotas maintained during crop failure.
What this comparison does not establish
Proximity means similarity of stated position. It carries no claim about competence, circumstance, scale of operation, or what either organisation actually did to the people under it. Two organisations can sit close together and produce entirely different histories, because those things are not on any axis and could not be.
Putinism
2000– · Russia
A strong personalised state restoring great-power status, with traditional values against a decadent West.
Stalinism
1928–1953 · USSR
Forced industrialisation and collectivisation under a single leader identified with the party, the state and history itself.
Distance is not the whole answer. Two organisations can sit the same distance apart for entirely different reasons, and the reason is the content of any claim about them. Open the comparison in the atlas to weight the axes yourself.
Open in the atlas