ABSTRACT
Putin’s rhetoric is an amazing, really strange mishmash of ideas. They
come from modern, liberal political jargon (‘‘The Market,’’ ‘‘Reforms,’’
‘‘New Technology’), the lingo of some Stalinist empire (‘‘Traitors,’’ ‘‘The
Dictatorship of Law’’), the political terminology of Pobedonostsev’s era
(‘‘Russia’s Enemies’’) and a hotchpotch of army or prison slang like his
famous ‘‘We’ll kill ‘em in the shithouse’’ – all of which has opened the
path to millions of simple Russian souls.1
