Communitarianism in Modern Russia: Background, Current Status and Perspectives

This paper aims to study and understand the position of the ideology of communitarianism in Russia. Most of the work is devoted to the identification of key postulates, ideas and ideas of this ideology, based on the works of its founders. A review of the emergence and spread of this ideology in Russia until 2020 is made. After the emergence of the communitarian political party "New People" in 2020, the question arises whether its programme of action for the transformation of Russia really corresponds to the ideology of communitarianism and how this ideology is expressed in its propaganda. For this purpose, we use content analysis to study the party's programme on its official website and the programme of V.A. Davankov, a candidate for the office of President of the Russian Federation, in order to identify their correspondence to the communitarian ideology and those of its founders, and to understand to what extent the New People are really followers of communitarianism. As a result of the extended work, we have concluded that the New People political party does offer a project of building a communitarian society in Russia, and the provisions of its programmes derive from the fundamental postulates of the ideology of communitarianism as formulated by its North American founders. The observation is made that the party is less orientated towards the Russian communitarian heritage and the following explanation is found: in Russia, prior to the emergence of the party, communitarian ideology had very little familiarity, diffusion and application to Russian realities. A cautious prediction is made that the spread of communitarianism in Russia is less likely if New People emphasises its commitment to this ideology more in its public activities, and more likely, due to the peculiarities of the Russian party system, if communitarian ideology becomes of interest to the party in power - the political party "United Russia".