Although Ilyin had initially hoped that the Second World War would destroy Stalin’s Soviet Union, in its aftermath he presented Russia much as Stalin did. Stalin called the USSR the homeland of socialism. If the Soviet Union were destroyed, went his argument, communism would have no future, and humanity’s only hope would be lost. Thus any action to defend the Soviet Union was justified. Ilyin saw Russia as a homeland of God to be preserved at all costs, since it was the only territory from which divine totality could be restored. After the war, Stalin gave priority to the Russian nation (as opposed to Ukraine, Belarus, Central Asia, the Caucasus, the dozens of peoples of the Soviet Union). Russia, Stalin claimed, had saved the world from fascism. Ilyin’s view was that Russia would save the world not from but with fascism. In both cases the only receptacle of absolute good was Russia, and the permanent enemy the decadent West.
— The Road to Unfreedom (Timothy Snyder), Loc. 497–504