Of course Russians ain't commies anymore; they're fascists which is why Putin makes the American conservative's tongue hard.
The problem with all this has a generational dimension. Six years ago, I met a young 22 year old in the smog-test TV-lounge and engaged in conversation in which I raised the topic of the Cold War. The name McNamara was unknown to her. She replied "Cold War? When was that? Oh, I remember! We were fighting the Columnists!"
I also remember the little newsletter from Cardinal Spellman (a citizen CIA asset with the Catholic TIME LIFE founders Henry and Clare Luce). I got one on my desk every week in the 6th grade. "Ngo Dinh Diem is such a Great Man! A Great Man!"
You have to trace it back further. The history of Russia has been defined by Authoritarianism for 1,000 years or more. They turned back horrific invasions: Napoleon and then the Wehrmacht. You have to understand the roots of Russian nationalism.
So you're going to find elements of fascism, and the rest of it spans Peter the Great, the Romanovs and the Bolsheviks, and the ascendancy and re-ascendancy of Putin. The problem with the Russian public is only worsened by the problem of the Russian State suppressing Russian media. They haven't had time in any pluralistic setting to evolve beyond the naïve.