On this edition of Parallax Views, Western nations often speak about Putin and Russia in a way that would make two appear interchangeable. What if we were to view Russia beyond the lens of just seeing Putin though? That's what Tony Wood attempts to do in Russia Without Putin: Money, Power, and the Myths of the New Cold War (Verso; 2018).

Among the topics covered in this conversation:

- Red-baiting and anti-Semitic tropes in Western thinking about Russia.

- The title "Russia Without Putin", its meaning, and thinking about Russia beyond Putin as an analytic challenge; Western reporting on Russia and the decline of expertise and understanding about Russia and the Russian experience after the Cold War.

- Thinking of Putin in terms of his being a result of the Soviet system and the KGB; trying to think about Putin more in terms of Russia's neoliberal turn, continuation of Boris Yeltsin's Russia, etc.

- The lingering holdovers of the Soviet experience on Russia; thinking about Russia after the fall of the Soviet union and the transition to capitalism in Russia; Understanding Boris Yeltsin's place in history and seeing Putin as, in some ways, a continuation of Yeltsin.

- The effect of the capitalist transformation of Russia on the lives and statuses of everyday Russians, "shock therapy"; wealth and class inequality in Russia.

- A sketch of Putin's rise to power.

- Russian foreign policy; U.S. foreign policy and NATO dominance over the world after the Cold War; perceptions of Russian aggression

- Criticisms Tony would make of Putin and his regime

- Will Putin be gone in 2024?; Putin's constitutional maneuvers going into 2024

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