Much of the current interest in Ilyin’s thought by both scholars and political commentators is related to historian Timothy Snyder’s discussion of the Russian philosopher in The Road to Unfreedom (2018) and in his related article in the New York Review of Books titled, “Ivan Ilyin, Putin’s Philosopher of Russian Fascism” (2018).¹ Yet Snyder is not solely responsible for popularizing this estimation of Ilyin. It was Anton Barbashin and Hannah Thoburn who had dubbed Ilyin “Putin’s philosopher” in 2015.² In 2016, Mikhail Zygar, too, had connected Ilyin to Putin, writing, “The main source of Putin’s contemplations [about building capitalism] was the philosopher Ivan Ilyin. Based on Ilyin’s works, Putin placed the basic values of Russian society in this order: God, family, property.”³ Shortly after the publication of Snyder’s book in 2018, however, Marlène Laruelle cautioned that “Ilyin is not Putin’s ‘guru,’ and that... Ilyin’s ideological legacy in contemporary Russia is more complex than that of ‘fascism.’ ”⁴ She stressed, “Ilyin has not become Putin’s official ideological reference or ‘Putin’s philosopher.’ Putin has quoted Ilyin on only five occasions (in 2005, 2006, 2012, 2013 and 2014); three of these were addresses to the federal assemblies and two to military audiences.”⁵ Barbashin soon responded to Laruelle in another article, writing, “It is about more than just quotes here and there. Ilyin’s books were recommended as a must read by two of the Kremlin’s ‘grey cardinals’— Vladislav Surkov and Vyacheslav Volodin.”⁶

In the midst of this debate, ultra-conservative Russian publicist Egor Kholmogorov⁷ issued a breathless retort, claiming Barbashin and Thoburn had “teamed up to dig into the history of Russian philosophy or—to be precise—in order to lynch Ivan Ilyin, one of the greatest Russian philosophers of the 20th century.”⁸ Kholmogorov’s defense of Ilyin is largely unremarkable, falling back on far-right Russian apologist tropes that Ilyin was not antisemitic, that he ultimately rejected the Nazi Party, and that he therefore could not have been fascist (as if Nazism were the only possible form of fascism). However, one thing he wrote stands out. Kholmogorov points to On Resistance to Evil by Force (rather than Ilyin’s posthumously-published Our Tasks, which receives a disproportionate amount of attention in the scholarship and punditry) specifically as evidence of Ilyin’s genius:

In fact, Ilyin’s output is not well known to connoisseurs of philosophy. Until the recent rehabilitation efforts spearheaded by far-right Russian think tanks and Orthodox monarchist initiatives, he was all but forgotten. Yet Kholmogorov wants him to be perceived as credible—as respectable, Russian, and Orthodox. Kholmogorov sees Moscow’s then-current intervention in Syria as a realpolitik application of On Resistance to Evil by Force.¹⁰ He praises Ilyin’s justification for “taking up the sword against evil” as brilliant philosophy because it justifies war.

Kholmogorov points to what it is about “Ilyin's philosophy” that attracts the Russian far right. First, it is more about On Resistance to Evil by Force than it is about than Ilyin’s posthumous Our Tasks. Second, it is about an ideology of holy war justified by divine will. It is about an immanentized eschaton without the possibility of conscientious objection or noncombatant immunity. Third, it is not specifically about Ilyin, except insofar as he provides a passable veneer of Russianness to ideas that are supposed to be anathema to Eastern Orthodoxy. It is about a crypto- Orthodox doctrine of just war that continues to be elaborated by other far- right Russian thinkers with or without reference to Ilyin (much less Augustine). Thus, I suggest that Kholmogorov’s particular enthusiasm for Ilyin as a philosopher of “anti-pacifism” frames the allure and utility of his writing to far-right Russian politics better than references to “Putin’s philosopher.”

As scholars and analysts engaged with Ilyin’s role in right-radicalization in Russia, I suggest that we should not be thinking so much in terms of philosophy as of theology, nor should we be thinking about the problem as somehow originating with Ilyin or being specific to him. I suggest that we should focus on the hallmarks of Augustinian just war/holy war and the instrumentality of discourses of spiritual warfare in contemporary Russian politics. We should, however, also look for the rhetorical camouflage that Ilyin uses to obscure his debt to Augustine: compulsion vs. violence (or war), and what is necessary vs. what is just in war. Finally, we should bear in mind that what Ilyin was attempting to accomplish with On Resistance to Evil by Force is indeed more nuanced and complicated than “fascism.” It was—and remains—a search for divine authorization for coercive violence, and, to the extent that Ilyin’s end goal was something that scholars would recognize as fascism, it was to be Russian Orthodox Christofascism.