The article is devoted to the problem of development of the ideology legitimizing the legal and administrative practice in Russian Federation that the author qualifies as ‘counter-reform’. Last years the government increased its grip on the media, changed the electoral and party legislation and ensured the monopoly power of the ruling group. Its main idea is so-cold new conservatism. The article explains the essence of the new Russian conservatism and compares it with the classical European and American conservatism, doctrines of Burke and Tocqueville. The author argues that this ideology is rather a sort of nationalism, that is adopted for the tasks of maintenance the personalist regime. The subject of the investigation is also the stages of the formation of this ideological base - the way from the idea of a so called sovereign democracy to the real autocratic rule. The author investigates the connection between this new conservatism and the soviet ideological tradition. The new conservatism contains some elements of this tradition.