Putin is rightwing dictator

@Heartlander And do the terms even apply? Or are them simply meaningless propaganda that covers the fact that a totalitarian government is a totalitarian government that has no real political philosophy other than keeping the powerful in power and crushing any dissent?

@ChipmunkErnie This exactly. Autocratic absolute power, authoritarian, totalitarian. Wings don't really apply here. If that were the case, every king/queen/emperor/empress in history would have a wing associated. Better just to call the absolute monarchs or dictatorships.

@Kwek00 It does not apply in Russia or China . Historically both countries were ruled by absolute dictators for last 1000 years. There is no right or left there.

@Khenpal1 But Russia experimented with constitutional democracy from 1991-1993. And because that first and early experiment failed, conservative forces took over? When people use the term "Far-Right", it's used for figures that want to conserve ideas from before the enlightenment and oppose liberal democracies from the conservative side. I don't see how Putin doesn't fit in that category? Stalin and Lenin were both openly advocating against liberalism from a economic progressive sense, and Lenin even from a social progressive movement... It's pretty clear that they wanted to skip the liberal fase in Russia and go to what Marx predicted would be the next step. Altough Stalin is a weird figure in socialism, he still inherrited a left-wing movement that wants to go beyond liberalism.

@Kwek00 I still believe what Finns think about Russians is valid in 2022.