Outgoing President Dmitry Medvedev accepted a formal offer on Friday to take up the leadership of the ruling United Russia party, two days after Prime Minister Vladimir Putin resigned from the post.
Medvedev also said he would "join the party's ranks," someting Putin, who has led it since its inception in the early 2000s, had never done.
In a meeting with top party officials in his Gorky residence outside Moscow, Medvedev said he had "never been a liberal."
"I have often been told 'you are a liberal,' but I can tell you frankly... I am a man with conservative values," he said.
But he also urged party members to make more use of the Internet, saying it should be "no less a weapon than direct interaction with the people."
At the same time, he said, officials should spend time "among the people."
In this, he seems to be aiming to set the example himself, saying he would join an official May 1 march through central Moscow.
Medvedev stands down on May 7 after four years in office and is expected to be given the post of prime minister as part of a power swap agreed with Putin last year.
United Russia has suffered a significant drop in its popularity according to opinion polls after disputed parliamentary polls in December, which critics claim were rigged in its favor.
The Kremlin has denied the allegations, but both Medvedev and Putin, whose landslide March 4 presidential election victory was likewise marred by claims of fraud, have pledged to "renovate" the party of power.
Medvedev criticized the party's sprawling membership list of some two million and said it should "cleanse itself" of those who joined because of "career ambitions."
"We need combat-ready bayonets," he said, employing the martial rhetoric characteristic of Putin.
Medvedev also said a president should be a "party member."
"Otherwise we will not be able to explain to the people which political force is in power," he said.