The Extreme Nationalist Threat in Russia: The Growing influence of Western Rightist ideas (Routledgecurzon Contemporary Russia and Eastern Europe Series)

The Extreme Nationalist Threat in Russia This book examines the nature of the extreme right in contemporary Russia, arguing in particular that, alongside a continuing tradition which emphasises Russia’s orthodox and traditional past, an increasingly important intellectual current is drawing on western European neo-fascist ideas and adapting them to the Russian situation. This book examines this intellectual current within the context of increasing conservatism across Russia as a whole, showing how the new ideas have an impact right across the political spectrum, and assessing the threat posed by the new ideas and the proponents of them. Thomas Parland (1939–2004) received his doctorate in 1993 from the University of Helsinki, where he was a senior lecturer in political science at the University of Helsinki. He served at the Foreign Ministry of Finland as senior analyst on Russian affairs from 1995 to 2002. He specialised in Russian nationalism and worked as a teacher of Russian, an interpreter and translator. He died in June 2004 before this book was published.

RoutledgeCurzon Contemporary Russia and Eastern Europe Series 1 Liberal Nationalism in Central Europe Stefan Auer 2 Civil-Military Relations in Russia and Eastern Europe David J.Betz 3 The Extreme Nationalist Threat in Russia The growing influence of Western Rightist ideas Thomas Parland

The Extreme Nationalist Threat in Russia The growing influence of Western Rightist ideas

Thomas Parland

LONDON AND NEW YORK

First published 2005 by RoutledgeCurzon 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by RoutledgeCurzon 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 RoutledgeCurzon is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk. © 2005 Thomas Parland All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN 0-203-48022-8 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-203-68568-7 (OEB Format) ISBN 0-415-34111-6 (Print Edition)

Contents

Acknowledgements List of abbreviations List of figures

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

vi vii ix

Introduction Modernisation and conservative backlash Yeltsin’s Russia as a divided country—a seedbed of growing conservatism Actors of the conservative resistance: movements and parties The ‘third way’ worldview in the Westernisation of Russia Geopolitics as a conservative Weltanschauung—the clash of civilisations Russian racism as a conservative Weltanschauung Putin’s Russia: towards a synthesis? Conclusion

1 15 36 62 87 95 128 155 168

Notes References Author Index Subject Index

177 191 199 207

Acknowledgments I wish to thank warmly the following people for helping me on this book in various ways: Dr Alexandr Vinnikov, Director of the Research and Educational Program Centre of SPASS (St Petersburg), for having provided me with valuable first-hand information on various Russian nationalist movements and organisations. Adjunct Professor William Copeland, University of Helsinki, for having read various versions of the manuscript, as well as for having given valuable assistance in elaborating on some highly important aspects of the structure of my work. Dr Ilmari Susiluoto (Ministry for Foreign Affairs) for having read one of my last manuscripts and added certain valuable aspects and comments to the study. Dr George Calley (née Ostapenko) for an extremely important contribution to my work in having read, commented upon and revised the English text. MA Mauri Elovainio for his professional overall checking of the text, including a number of French, German, and Latin words and expressions. MA Laila Pelkonen, MA Irma Talonen, MA R.Arhela, and BA Bertel Stenius for textual commentary. Dr Henrik Ekberg for helping with good advice in structuring the text. Having served as senior analyst at the Finnish Foreign Ministry until November 2002, I have had access to a great amount of confidential reports and material on Russian nationalism in general and on Vladimir Putin in particular. I am grateful to the Ministry for all this information even if, for obvious reasons, publicity has not been given to these sources in the study. This study has been financed by the following institutions and foundations: The Academy of Finland, the Åbo Academy, the Finnish Cultural Foundation, the Oscar Öflund Fund and the Ella and Georg Ehrnrooth Fund. I want to express my profound gratitude for this support, which has enabled me to carry out this book project. I must also thank Professor Sten Berglund (University of Örebro, Sweden) for having kindly served as a reliable and efficient mediator between the publisher and the author in the beginning. Finally, I want to thank and praise my wife Camilla Kivilahti-Parland, a painter, whose support, encouragement and endless patience have enabled me to accomplish this project. Furthermore, I am grateful to my son Mark Parland, a writer, for having incessantly encouraged me to speed-up the pace of writing and finish this book. Thomas Parland Helsinki, 15 December 2003

Abbreviations ANC

African National Congress

Cheka

Chrezvychainaia Komissiia po bor’be s kontrrevoliutsiei i sabotazhem (Extraordinary Commission for struggle against counterrevolution and sabotage)

CIA

Central Intelligence Agency

CPRU

Kommunisticheskaia Partiia Rossiiskoi Federatsii (Communist Party of the Russian Federation)

CPSU

Kommunisticheskaia Partiia Sovietskogo Soiuza (Communist Party of the Soviet Union)

DPA

Dvizhenie v podderzhku Armii (Movement in Support of the Army)

FNS

Front Natsional’nogo Spaseniia (National Salvation Front)

FSB

Federal’noe Biuro Bezopasnosti (Federal Security Service)

GULAG

Glavnoe Upravlenie Lagerei (Chief Administration of Labour Camps)

IMF

International Monetary Fund

KGB

Komitet Gosudarstvennoi Bezopasnosti (Committee for State Security)

Komintern

Kommunisticheskii Internatsional (Communist International)

Komsomol

Kommunisticheskii Soiuz Molodëzhi (Communist Youth League)

KRO

Kongress Russkikh Obshchin (Congress of Russian Communities)

KPD

Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands (Communist Party of Germany)

LDPR

Liberal’no-Demokraticheskaia Partiia Rossii (Liberal Democratic Party of Russia)

NDR

Nash dom—Rossiia (Our home is Russia)

NEP

Novaia Ekonomicheskaia Politika (New Economic Policy)

NKVD

Narodnyi Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del (People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs)

NRPR—Beliaev

Natsional’no-respublikanskaia partiia Rossii (National Republican Party of Russia) led by Iurii Beliaev

NRPR—Lysenko

Natsional’no-respublikanskaia partiia Rossii (National Republican Party of Russia) led by Nikolai Lysenko

NSDAP

Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (National Socialist German Workers’ Party)

NTS

Natsional’no-Trudovoi Soiuz (National Labour Union)

RFP

Russkaia Fashistskaia Partiia (Russian Fascist Party)

RNE

Russkoe Natsional’noe Edinstvo (Russian National Unity)

RNRP

Rossiiskaia narodno-respublikanskaia partiia (Russian People’s Republican Party)

RNS

Russkii Natsional’nyi Soiuz (Russian National Union), a national socialist organisation

RNS

Russkii Natsional’nyi Sobor (Russian National Assembly), a ‘red-brown’ umbrella organisation

ROA

Russkaia Osvoboditel’naia Armiia (Russian Liberation Army)

ROD

Russkoe Osvoboditel’noe Dvizhenie (Russian Liberation Movement)

ROS

Russkii Obshchenarodnyi Soiuz (Russian All-People’s Union)

SA

Sturmabteilung (Storm Detachment)

SS

Schutzstaffel (Elite Guard)

SVR

Sluzhba Vneshnei Razvedki (Foreign Intelligence Service)

Figures

Figure 1 Three right-wing traditions Figure 2 The contradictory left-right axis in Russian context Figure 3 The ‘conservative revolution’ as a source of different conservative ideologies Figure 4 Two basic types of Russian nationalism Figure 5 Different nationalist movements and parties Figure 6 Pro- and anti-communist nationalists Figure 7 Examples of traditionalism Figure 8 Different types of contemporary Russian national patriotism Figure 9 The four strongest nationalist movements or parties Figure 10 The gradual secularisation of Russian rule Figure 11 Traditionalist and modern ‘Third Way’ Weltanschauungs Figure 12 Different forms of autocratic rule Figure 13 Atlanticism versus Eurasianism Figure 14 Six geopolitical projects concerning Russia’s future Figure 15 The new Eurasian bloc Figure 16 The partition of Ukraine Figure 17 The repartition of the world Figure 18 German Volkish thought versus Russian post-Stalin ethnocentrism

8 10 33 64 67 69 71 74 75 89 93 94 105 1 07 1 09 1 13 1 25 1 30

Figure 19 Pseudo-scientific anti-Semitism versus anti-Semitism coloured by occultism

1 37

Figure 20 Populist and sophisticated versions of the conspiracy theory

1 40

Figure 21 The struggle and interaction between Westernisation and Russian conservative resistance

172

Figure 22 Differentiated Russian anti-Semitism

189

Introduction The conservative alternative In post-totalitarian Russia, the ideological climate has been gravitating more and more towards right-wing conservative values coloured by Russian nationalism. Taken as a whole, the more or less rightist attitudes in society include both moderate and pragmatic views as well as ideas of extreme nationalism. The latter include fascism and national socialism. In late 1996, Grigorii Yavlinsky1 concluded that ‘a major opportunity was emerging for the spread of national socialism in Russia’ (Parland 1997, 12). The danger of a fascist or national socialist takeover in Russia was a topic of frequent discussions in Russian media in the 1990s and it is an undisputable fact that there were numerous rightist movements that could be classified as fascist or national socialist. Many of them had their own storm troopers, i.e. paramilitary formations of armed young men dressed in uniform or camouflage. The requisites of these men often included swastikas of different shapes. Many of these rightist movements and organisations established contacts with their ideological allies in the West. This could be seen from numerous rightist and anti-Semitic publications that were sold or distributed in Moscow, St Petersburg and other Russian cities. Furthermore, through these media, information about Western rightist ideologies and movements was, and still is, channelled to Russian readers—in most cases the national patriots or their supporters. In a word, they began to ‘Westernise’. The extremist national patriots are too divided to constitute a real threat to the existing order. Side by side with the aforementioned ‘Westernised’ national patriots there are their ‘traditionalist’2 colleagues yearning for the prerevolutionary past of Russia. The strength of all extremists lies in their ability to influence others’ political argumentation, in particular that of the moderate and pragmatic nationalists who form the overwhelming majority among Russians opposing Western-style liberal reforms. Furthermore, even in the ongoing general political and ideological discussions and debates in Russian media the influence of rightist nationalism is palpable. With some reservations, under Boris Yeltsin’s rule even the democrats in power as well as Gennadii Zyuganov’s communists in opposition became affected by the ideas of Russian conservative nationalism. This being the case, all the main political forces were more or less gravitating towards rightist attitudes and ideas. The Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF) is ideologically heterogeneous but so far dominated by its nationalist wing spearheaded by the party leader Gennadii Zyuganov. On the whole, a gradual shift towards attitudes coloured by Russian conservative nationalism characterised Yeltsin’s Russia. The Western-style liberal reforms had resulted in great disappointments for ‘the man in the street’. There was a growing need for finding alternatives to Russia’s neoliberal Westernisation. After the bankruptcy of Marxism-Leninism and the fall of totalitarian socialism, leftist

The extreme nationalist threat in Russia

2

ideologies—Zyuganov’s ‘leftism’ is verbal, not real—have not been very popular in Russia. For the time being, instead of a strong and influential social democratic party like those in Western and Central European countries, there are several small, insignificant social democratic organisations in Russia. One of them has Mikhail Gorbachev as its leader. A real labour movement in the European sense has not yet materialised in Russia. This being the case, the idea of a conservative alternative to Yeltsin’s liberal reforms and pro-Western policy was gradually gaining momentum generally in the broad layers of society. In the ongoing general political debate, in particular in the mass media, there were more and more people suggesting that strong state power, strict order and discipline be re-established in Russia. Along with these attitudes, there was the time-honoured yearning for a strong and efficient Russian leader. The new mood in society was gaining momentum especially from August 1998 on, when the rouble collapsed. Yeltsin’s successor Vladimir Putin has partly lived up to the aforementioned expectations as will be seen in Chapter 7.

Topic and purpose New Russia’s painful political, ideological and economic development towards Western modernity, resisted by anti-communist nationalists and national-minded communists, serves as a general frame of reference for this study. With certain reservations, this is a continuation of my book The Rejection in Russia of Totalitarian Socialism and Liberal Democracy, a study of the Russian New Right (Helsinki 1993). Topic The aforementioned work focused on Russian nationalism as it manifested itself, first under Leonid Brezhnev’s rule and then, in particular, in the years of Mikhail Gorbachev, as an ideological reaction against Marxist and liberal forms of Western-style modernisation of society. Theoretically, the present study also dwells on the same phenomenon in post-Soviet Russia. However, the approach of this study is different: First, this study deals with the ideological situation in Russia after the fall of totalitarian socialism and the dissolution of the Soviet empire. After the bankruptcy of Marxism, Russian conservative nationalism appears now as a counter-force mainly against Western liberalism, or more precisely, against Yeltsin’s neoliberal reforms. Second, contrary to my previous monograph, the topic of this study is, in fact, confined to only a part of Russian nationalism. Instead of dwelling upon its traditionalist version that is coloured by Orthodoxy and monarchism, we will now focus on the manifestations of a more secularised nationalism, a modern ‘Westernised’ nationalism of sorts. This strain of thought began to take over among national-minded Russians and overshadowed gradually traditionalist attitudes in Yeltsin’s Russia. Most attention will be paid to the extreme forms of this new Russian nationalism: fascism, national socialism and rightist

Introduction

3

authoritarianism. Third, modern extreme Russian nationalism will be characterised as influenced by German national socialism, Italian fascism or other European rightist ideologies. This approach is similar to that of Walter Laqueur in his book Black Hundred—The Rise of the Extreme Right in Russia (1993). Purpose The nationalist conservative backlash against Yeltsin’s new Russia is analysed in this study. The backlash was, however, influenced by the ongoing modernisation and Westernisation, and at the same time, it influenced the modernising state and society. In a word, the object of our study—modern Russian nationalism—can be seen as a product of both Western thought and Russian traditional nationalism; they both oppose and influence each other. This being the case, modern nationalism reflects a ‘Westernised’ interpretation of the so-called ‘Russian idea’, the traditional conservative ideology of counter-reform movements in Russian history. Since fascism and national socialism have so far fewer supporters than traditional nationalism, manifestations of the latter phenomenon will also be dealt with as representing the historically older current of conservative thought. Both strains of conservatism influence each other but right-wing radicalism deserves more attention as a new by-product of the ongoing Westernisation and globalisation in Russia.

Structuring the material There are several issues in the present study that are subordinated to the task of presenting and analysing the main versions of Russian nationalism or national patriotism. In this Introduction the growing Russian nationalism of the late 1990s is presented as suggesting a radical conservative alternative to the official liberal policy. The aforementioned issues divide the study into seven chapters (see the Contents). The chapters are as follows: Chapter 1 (Modernisation and conservative backlash) The intellectual interrelationship between Russia and the West serves as a general frame of reference. Consequently, the study begins with a presentation of a general historical and cultural context of conservative nationalism in the West. The struggle between Westernisers and conservative nationalists in contemporary Russia is traced back to the problems of Western modernisation: Marxism and liberalism being products of the Enlightenment are confronted with conservative traditionalism. In this context, Russian thought is viewed as having been influenced also by Western conservative thought, in particular by German philosophy including its extreme manifestation, national socialism. On the other hand, among the Russian political émigrés after 1917 there were several radical conservative thinkers who, on their part, could give their German allies new impulses. In Soviet Russia, Russian radical conservatism appeared in the shape of

The extreme nationalist threat in Russia

4

national bolshevism. Chapter 2 (Yeltsin’s Modernising Russia as a divided country—a context and seedbed of growing conservatism) Post-Soviet Russia of the 1990s is presented as a political and socio-economic context of a growing Russian nationalism that gets influences from the West. Society is divided and polarised as a consequence of unbridled capitalism that many Russians call ‘robber capitalism’. The mood of the society is becoming more and more conservative, the attitudes become coloured by pessimism, social Darwinism, anticommunism, rejection of egalitarianism, etc. There are suggestions to find a strong authoritarian leader à la Augusto Pinochet as well as appeals to bring about a national reconciliation. Chapter 3 (Actors of the conservative resistance: movements, parties, publications, thinkers) In the middle of the 1990s, organisational forms of conservative nationalism still had weak articulation. There were four different politically relevant parties or movements: Zyuganov’s communist (de facto national bolshevik) party representing theoretically radical but actually moderate statism (imperialism), Vladimir Zhirinovsky’s liberal democratic party representing a more extreme statism, Alexander Lebed’s moderate and pragmatic party advocating a police state of sorts, and national socialist Alexander Barkashov’s paramilitary movement, Russian National Unity (Russkoe National’noe Edinstvo, RNE), advocating the creation of a monoethnic Russian state. Chapter 4 (Conservative ‘third way’—worldviews in modernising Russia) Serving as an alternative to both Marxism and liberalism, conservatism has undergone a metamorphosis under the influence of modernisation: the Christian world outlook has gradually been replaced by more secular conceptions. This evolution culminated in fascism and national socialism in parts of Europe. A similar process has taken place in Russia: before 1917 Russia was a Caesaro-Papist autocracy, the Soviet era could be labeled a de facto ideocratic autocracy, whereas Yeltsin’s Russia represented a secularised and, at the same time, Westernised authoritarian rule. In Yeltsin’s era, both traditionalist and ‘modern’ versions of Russian nationalism coexisted, but the latter was more and more getting the upper hand. The traditionalist slogans in favour of a religious monarchy were replaced by visions of a secularised authoritarian police state of sorts. As regards the statists or great power nationalists, religious messianism was replaced by the view of Russia’s geopolitical mission in a social Darwinist world. Ethnic nationalism (racism), on the other hand, was more and more shifting from confessional anti-Semitism to pseudo-scientific or occult theories of the Jews as an inferior or evil race. Furthermore, even white power-mentality and eugenics have become part of modern ethnic nationalism in contemporary Russia.

Introduction

5

Chapter 5 (Geopolitics as a conservative Weltanschauung) Serving as an ideological antidote to universalism and globalisation, geopolitics has made a political comeback in the 1990s in Russia as well as in the West. In Russia, this conservative worldview has mostly been interpreted in terms of geographically antagonistic political cultures or civilisations. Russian geopolitical thinking with deep roots in history has always influenced the country’s foreign policy—under the Soviet regime it was disguised. Only after August 1991 was geopolitics officially accepted as a political doctrine. Neo-Eurasianism became the most important and influential version of it. This anti-Western theory had its roots in Eurasianism, a theory introduced by Russian émigrés in the 1920s. It was based on two conceptions: the view of a declining West and the conspiracy theory. The first-mentioned view has its precursors even in the West—in Friedrich Nietzsche’s and Oswald Spengler’s writings as well as in the national socialists’ worldview. The view of the decrepit West, however, has always been combined with the so-called conspiracy theory according to which the West is a hotbed of evil forces conspiring against Russia. In plain language, all misfortunes and shortcomings in Russia’s history can be explained as having been caused by the West dominated by Jews and Masons. This chapter contains a presentation of three different geopolitical strategies to save Russia. Geopolitician Alexander Dugin views the task in restoring the empire and expanding it through alliances with Germany, Japan and Iran. Party leader Zyuganov is more pragmatic: in his view, the privileged West ruled by a cosmopolitan elite and trying to dominate the world is opposed by the rest of the world. Russia should not integrate with the West but strive to attain autarchy. In foreign policy, Russia could serve as a geopolitical equaliser in a multipolar world of clashing civilisations. Party leader Zhirinovsky, on the other hand, wants to reintegrate the dissolved empire through economic and other sanctions against unwilling former Soviet republics, and to make Russia a strong military great power. He suggests a final repartitioning of the world into spheres of influence: North America dominating Latin America, Europe dominating Africa, Russia dominating Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, etc. and China/Japan dominating Southeast Asia, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Australia. Russia needs only to accomplish ‘the last push to the south’ through a Blitzkrieg and extend its borders to the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean. This thinking has manifested itself in much smaller military operations such as the wars in Chechnya. Chapter 6 (Russian ethnic nationalism as a conservative Weltanschauung) This chapter is related to the glorified Russian people as well as to its supposed enemies. The Russian ethnic nationalists reject the great power statists’ dream of a restored multinational empire and suggest instead the creation of a monoethnic Russian state. This thinking is coloured by racism in general and anti-Semitism in particular. European confessional anti-Semitism, in particular in Germany, was secularised about a hundred years ago and replaced by racial biology. The same development can be seen in contemporary Russia, even if religious Judophobia still plays an important role in society. Being less articulated than German national socialism the Russian extreme right is more

The extreme nationalist threat in Russia

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obsessed by the aforementioned conspiracy theory than by eugenics. Chapter 6 ends with a discussion of three theories on the Jews’ role in Russia’s history. Igor Shafarevich resorts to a codeword for the Jews—‘the small people’. They are viewed as having played a decisive role in the revolutions 1917 as well as in the terror that followed in the 1920s and 1930s. Yurii Begunov views the dissolution of the Soviet Union as well as the painful reforms in Yeltsin’s Russia as having been engineered by a Western international elite—Masons and Jews—who want to transform Russia into a colony of the West. The Russian national socialist party leader A. Barkashov, on the other hand, is depicted as representing Hitlerite racial biology. He proclaims the need for creating an armed resistance movement against the supposed Jewish dictatorship in Russia. Chapter 7 (Towards a synthesis?) Chapter 7 sums up what happened in Yeltsin’s divided Russia and why Putin’s rise to power was a logical consequence of two contradictory tendencies in the country. On the one hand, there was the irreversible process of political and economic modernisation and Westernisation of Russia including its integration with the West. At the same time, this development had painful social consequences: disorder, a deteriorating economy, polarisation of society, and ‘criminal capitalism’ in a corrupt state and society. On the other hand, there was a growing conservative pessimistic mood in society as a consequence of the humiliating break-up of the Soviet empire as well as of the fact of general disappointment with the reforms. These sentiments were articulated in the emergence of nationalist and ‘red-brown’ parties opposing Yeltsin and his government. The establishment was more and more influenced by nationalist attitudes as were Zyuganov’s communists, and later on, in 1998–99, the liberals. On the other hand, modernisation influenced many nationalists who adapted themselves to secular argumentation and pragmatic thinking. Putin’s rise to power is shown as mirroring the new drive towards national unity in politically torn Russia. There is, at the moment, no organised politically important opposition against the new President who has somehow combined economic liberalism with statist nationalism, including a police state authoritarianism of sorts. The fact that Putin and the West have now found each other is due not only to the common struggle against terrorism, but also due to the changing ideological climate in the world: Russian conservative nationalism is Westernising, whereas numerous Western countries spearheaded by the USA are gravitating to the right.

Key concepts Being frequent in the ongoing political and ideological discussions in Russian mass media, some key concepts in this study require to be defined: The West

Introduction

7

Before World War II this term referred mainly to Great Britain, France and Germany. After 1945, it also includes the United States, Canada, Japan, Israel, etc. Ideologically, the term ‘West’ represents liberal democracy along with market economy and the rule of law. In this study, however, a broader interpretation of this term will sometimes be necessary, in accordance with that of the concept ‘Westernisation’ (see below). Westernisation ‘Westernisation’ generally implies modernisation of society in accordance with the principles of liberal democracy, market economy and the rule of law. However, this interpretation is conditional because Marxism as well as fascism and national socialism are Western ideologies, too. For practical reasons in this study, ‘Westernisation’ or ‘Westernised’ refers to fascism/National Socialism or other forms of the antiliberal right only when put within quotation marks. In this respect, Marxism will not be taken into consideration as being too unpopular in contemporary Russia. Modernisation ‘Modernisation’ of society implies secularisation, urbanisation, industrialisation, general education, scientific and technical progress, etc., but not necessarily Western democracy. Taiwan is a good case in point. Another example is contemporary China. Even the Soviet Union signified a modernisation of sorts, although there was a considerable gap between words and deeds. Globalisation ‘Globalisation’ formally implies the ongoing industrial, scientific, technological, cybernetic and information revolution in the world. Yet, some recent reports published in the West—like Martin-Schumann, The Global Trap (1997)—focus on globalisation of market economy as by far the most important dimension of this phenomenon. Hans-Peter Martin and Harald Schumann present the negative aspects of this development. In their view, unrestricted expansion of a worldwide financial market is destructive for democracy and welfare, and will result in social Darwinism. There will be a total polarisation of society between one fifth of the population being employed and living a good life, and the rest (80 per cent) being unemployed and living in misery. On the other hand, extreme Russian nationalists interpret globalisation as proof of the Jews’ and the Masons’ ambitions to establish world hegemony. This view coincides with the conspiracy theory that will be dealt with in Chapters 4, 5 and 6. The ‘Russian Idea’ (Russkaia ideia) The ‘Russian idea’ is known as the historical ideology of counter-reform in Russia. Originally, being traditionalist (see below the concept ‘traditional conservatism’) as closely connected with the Orthodox view of the world, it advocated a separate Russian path of development differing from the Western pattern.

The extreme nationalist threat in Russia

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The Slavophiles of 1830–50 were the founders of this peaceful and moralistic doctrine that in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was interpreted in the spirit of imperial chauvinism and anti-Semitism. The latter line of thought has been characteristic of the Russian extreme nationalists in contemporary Russian political debate. Furthermore, in particular in the 1990s, the ‘Russian Idea’ has partly become influenced, i.e. ‘Westernised’, by the views of national socialist and fascist movements in Europe of the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, as well as by the contemporary extreme right in the West. Yet, this ‘Westernisation’ of Russian nationalism has often resulted in enthusiasm for ‘ordinary contemporary Western rightism’ like that of Augusto Pinochet, in Chile. Conservatism Conservatism implies at least three different right-wing traditions: the traditional, the modern, and the radical or revolutionary. The second tradition is universalist, the rest are nationalist, at least in the Russian context. Traditional conservatism or traditionalism These concepts represent a religious interpretation of history and society. Traditionalism is a more frequent term in the ongoing political debate in Traditionalism

Modernism

(Conservatism)

(Neoliberalism) Radical conservatism (Fascism, national socialism)

Figure 1 Three right-wing traditions

Russian media. Both concepts are opposed to the Enlightenment philosophy including its ‘offsprings’ liberalism and Marxism. In Russia this strain of thought has been coloured by Orthodoxy and chauvinism including anti-Semitism. Most Russian nationalists, commonly known as national patriots, are typical traditionalists in their Orthodox interpretation of the Russian Idea and in their yearning for the bygone prerevolutionary Russian past. Author Alexander Solzhenitsyn represents the moderate strain of traditionalist thinking. As for extreme traditionalism, Pamiat’ leader Dimitri Vasil’ev, probably, is its most outspoken exponent with his rampant anti-Semitism, anti-communism and antiliberalism. In religious matters, however, Vasil’ev is an Orthodox sectarian with obvious sympathies for the so-called Old Believers (staroobriadtsy).3 The most outspoken clerical traditionalist with extreme views has been the late Mitropolitan Ioann of St Petersburg, alias I.V.Snychev (1927–96). Modern conservatism alias neoliberalism

Introduction

9

Modern conservatism emerged and established itself in the Western pluralist democracies after World War II. In these countries, the modernisation process was more or less over. ‘The ideals of individual initiative, free enterprise and limited government have largely replaced the former core values of hierarchy, religion, and national traditions and culture—i.e. in fact incorporated the central tenets of classical liberalism’ (Hellén 1996, 28). In contemporary Russia, the ruling democrats adhere to the views of Western neoliberalism. Consequently, they could be called modern conservatives, even if their values still are rather imaginary goals than practical achievements in their country with a transitional economy. As a matter of fact, Gaidar’s radical democrats called themselves ‘liberal conservatives’. Later, at the turn of the millennium, all the democrats, with the exception of Yavlinsky’s party, united in the Union of Rightist Forces (Soiuz Pravykh Sil). For practical reasons, however, all the Russian democrats advocating neoliberalism will be called liberals in this study. The Russian radical right-wing tradition The radical right-wing tradition, proclaiming the ‘national revolution’, the ‘conservative revolution’, or the ‘Third Way’ mainly has its roots in Russian Panslavism, Russian ‘Black Hundredness’ (chernosotenstvo)4 as well as in West European rightist thought. The sources of influence and inspiration are The Protocols of the Elders of Sion5 as well as Adolf Hitler’s national socialism, Benito Mussolini’s fascism, and Francisco Franco’s falangism on the one hand, and contemporary rightist movements in the West including la Nouvelle Droite in France on the other. The Russian fascists and national socialists share many of the core values with the traditionalists like the rejection of both Marxism and liberalism. Yet, like their German and Italian precursors in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s their ideology is vitalist. In radicalising traditionalist values they worship action for action’s sake, eulogise war and violence, and are openly racist. They are at the same time inclined to get adapted to the ongoing modernisation by being pro-technological like Hitler and Mussolini. The Russian rightist extremists focus on secular theories like social Darwinism, geopolitics and biological racism rather than Orthodoxy. On the other hand, many of them have a passion for the occult sciences that have become almost fashionable in contemporary Russia. It should, however, be noted that today’s secularised Russian rightism is a broad ideological phenomenon including not only fascists and national socialists but also pragmatic nationalists advocating authoritarian rule and a police state of the Latin American type. Among the pragmatists we find the late General Lebed and his supporters who are not necessarily rampant anti-Semites or even racists. Furthermore, being realists they do not nourish any illusions about the possibilities of expanding or even restoring the former empire. For practical reasons, in this study, ‘conservatism’ will imply exclusively either its traditional or radical train of thought. Consequently, instead of ‘modern conservatism’, we use the term ‘neoliberalism’ or ‘liberalism’.

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Secularisation Secularisation in this study implies that political ideas based on non-religious arguments begin to replace religious norms in politics. ‘Non-religious,’ however, has to be interpreted broadly as including ‘atheistic’ as well as ‘occult’, ‘eclectic’ and ‘pragmatic.’ In several Western countries as well as in Russia, occultism seems to gain some popularity in society whereas official Christianity is losing believers. Political left versus political right Under Yeltsin, Russian mass media usually depicted the Duma as being dominated by the left, i.e. the communists spearheaded by G.Zyuganov. Viktor Chernomyrdin’s party was called centre-rightist, Gaidar’s rightist, and Yavlinsky’s Yabloko-movement was considered to be more or less social democratic. However, this way of classifying Russian political parties and movements leads to a contradiction as Zhirinovsky’s right-wing radicalism and Yegor Gaidar’s neoliberalism are antipodes, and Zyuganov’s ‘communism’ seems to be closer to the former. A.Dugin offers another illuminating example of the problems connected with the use of the left-right axis in Russian context. In economics and in matters of political culture we arrive at opposite conclusions, as can be seen from Figure 2. As we can see, the ruling liberals represent the right in economics, and the left in political culture. They reject both the Soviet past as well as the prerevolutionary Orthodox and tsarist Russian empire. Zyuganov’s communists being leftists in economic matters, are rightists as defenders of Russia’s time-honoured political traditions, including that of Orthodoxy. In this study, the political right as a denomination will be interpreted from the point of view of political culture. This approach has its precursors and parallels in the writings of Walter Laqueur (see Laqueur 1993) and John B.Dunlop (see Dunlop 1995, ix). The Russian nationalists or national patriots The national patriots, since 1992, constitute the so-called ‘third political force,’ offering an alternative to both Marxism and liberalism. They are organised in numerous political parties and movements including V.Zhirinovsky’s liberal democratic party (LDPR) and A.Barkashov’s Russian National Unity (RNE) as the most influential. Among organisations representing the extreme right, A.Barkashov’s Russian National Unity is by far the most important. These national patriots adhere either to the ideas of traditional conservatism or to the views of its radical equivalent, or to both strains of thought. In this case, however, a Russian national socialism of sorts has, in fact, outweighed traditionalism.

Economics

Political left

Political right

Nationalisation (Zyuganov)

Privatisation (Gaidar, Anatolii Chubais)

Introduction Political culture

Universalism Rejection of the old, of the traditional (Gaidar)

11 Preservation of the national traditions including the pre-revolutionary (Zyuganov)

Figure 2 The contradictory left-right axis in Russian context (cf., Dugin 1994, 185–8)

The nationalist-minded communists A political denomination from the Soviet time, the nationalist-minded communists imply both neo-Stalinists and so-called national Bolsheviks who want to restore the Soviet Union, the historical continuation of Imperial Russia. After 1917, national bolshevism established itself as a nationalist and anti-Semitic shadow ideology behind the officially sanctioned, omnipotent, Marxist ideology of the state (For more information, see Agurskii 1980 and Chalidze 1988). Originally and officially, the national Bolsheviks were pro-communist atheists, but they did not adopt an antireligious posture (see Dunlop 1983, 263.) Before 1985, on the samizdat level, some of them even tried to unite Marxism-Leninism and Orthodox Christianity. As an irony of history, after 1988, the state doctrine actually was considered bankrupt and was replaced by Orthodoxy as the guiding ideology in society. In the years of perestroika 1985–91, the neo-Stalinists and national Bolsheviks were allies in resisting Western-style reforms. However, this ‘marriage of convenience’ could never remove their fundamental disagreements on the Bolsheviks’ policy of the 1920s and 1930s. The national Bolsheviks condemned collectivisation and the repressive measures taken against the Church, whereas the neo-Stalinists defended this policy (cf., Andreeva 1988). Today, numerous national bolsheviks have turned pure nationalists, the rest are to be found in the ranks of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF). Allensworth views national bolshevism as evolving from Black Hundredness and Stalinism, and maintains that this ideology often manifests itself as a uniquely Russian fascism (cf., Allensworth 1998, 145). This view is acceptable as far as extreme national Bolsheviks are concerned. The ‘red-browns’ Generally, this term coincides with that of ‘national Bolsheviks’. Yet, it can be given even a broader interpretation as including also those nationalists who are ready to cooperate with national-minded communists. Weltanschauung (Germ.) World outlook, a general conception of the world, in which the beliefs, values and metaphysical presuppositions are all woven together so as to instill the world with significance and facilitate the transition from thought to action (see the title-word

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Weltanschauung in Scruton 1982, 493). ‘Weltanschauung’ was a favourite word in the Third Reich.

Sources This study, being a continuation of sorts of my book The Rejection in Russia of Totalitarian Socialism and Liberal Democracy (1993) is partly based on the same literary sources. In particular, there are several Western scholars—historians, political scientists and experts on Russian culture who have written on Russian nationalism: John B.Dunlop, Alexander Yanov, Stephen K.Carter, Walter Laqueur, etc. However, this monograph is mainly based on new Russian and Western theoretical discussions about Russian nationalism having taken place in the 1990s or later. First, there is a general theoretical study of Russia and the West as two clashing and interacting civilisations. Anatoly I.Utkin, a historian, is the author of Rossiia i Zapad: istoriia tsivilizatsii (Russia and The West: A History of Civilisations) which was published in 2000 in Moscow. This book provides a general intellectual context of our topic in the historical perspective. Second, among Western secondary literature on Russian nationalism in the 1990s and later, there are some basic studies that deserve to be mentioned first: Walter Laqueur’s study Black Hundred. The Rise of the Extreme Right in Russia (1993), Stephen D. Shenfield’s book Russian Fascism: Traditions, Tendencies, Movements (2001), and Tim McDaniel’s The Agony of the Russian Idea (1996). Both Laqueur and Shenfield make the important distinction between traditional and modern nationalism even if they give them other names: the ‘Old Right’ versus the ‘New Right’ (Laqueur), and conservatives/reactionaries versus fascists (Shenfield). In Tim MacDaniel’s study, the shortcomings of Yeltsin’s policy are explained as a consequence of a widespread loyalty to the ‘Russian Idea’ in society. In addition to the aforementioned literature on Russian nationalism the following important books have been referred to in this study: Wayne Allensworth, The Russian Question (1998); Judith Devlin, Slavophiles and Commissars (1999); Peter Duncan, Russian Messianism (2002); John Dunlop, The Rise and the Fall of the Soviet Empire (1995); Geoffrey Hosking, Russia and the Russians (2001); G.Hosking & R. Service (editors), Russian Nationalism (1998); Luke March, The Communist Party in post-Soviet Russia (2002); Iver Neumann, Russia and the Idea of Europe (1996); Sven Gunnar Simonsen, Pains of Partition (2002); Vladimir Solovyov & Elena Klepikova, Zhirinovsky. Russian Fascism and the Making of a Dictator (1995); Vera Tolz, Russia (2001); Joan Urban & Valerii Solovei, Russia’s Communists at the Crossroads (1997). Third, the primary sources include several pamphlets written by well-known Russian nationalist ideologists. Undoubtedly, these writings do not represent scientific research. On the other hand, they are first-hand documents on how nationalist-minded Russians generally view the world. In other words, part of the sources will represent scientific research, part will consist of pamphlet writings. Geopolitician Aleksandr Dugin’s book Konservativnaia revoliutsiia (1994) is an

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excellent presentation of Russian and European radical conservative thought including its different manifestations in Yeltsin’s Russia. Another outstanding conservative thinker is the writer and Nobel prize winner Alexander Solzhenitsyn who has served both as a precursor of Russian nationalist thought of the 1990s and as a moralist condemning the repressive Soviet regime as well as Yeltsin’s Russia with its corrupt regime and criminalised economy. Along with a great number of pamphlet articles written before he returned to Russia in 1994, Solzhenitsyn has published several new books. Among them the following ones deserve to be mentioned: Kak nam obustroit’ Rossiiu (Rebuilding Russia) (1991); Po minute v den’ (Minute a Day) (1995); Russkii vopros k kontsu XX veka (The Russian Question at the End of the Twentieth Century) (1995); Rossiia v obvale (Russia in a landslip) (1998); Dvesti let vmeste (Two hundred Years Together) (2001). There are some excellent writings of Igor Shafarevich and Vadim Kozhinov, two nationalist-minded intellectuals, who have commented on contemporary Russia or analysed earlier periods in Russian history. In 2000, Shafarevich published his illuminating in-depth analysis of today’s Russia: Russkii narod na perelome tysiacheletii. Beg naperegonki so smert’iu (The Russian People at the Turn of Millenia. Racing with Death). On the other hand, Kozhinov has contributed to the history of Russian thought from a nationalist point of view: Rossiia. Vek XX-i (1901–1939) (Russia. Twentieth century 1901–1939), and Rossiia. Vek XX-i (1939–1964). Furthermore, he has written an interesting book on Russian ‘Black Hundredness’ (chernosotenstvo) as it was before and during the Bolshevik revolution: Zagadochnye stranitsy istorii XX veka. ‘Chernosotentsy’ i revoliutsiia (1995) (Mysterious Pages in the Twentieth Century History. ‘Black Hundredness’ and the Revolution). Late Lev Gumilev, a historian and a geographer, has contributed to the emergence of the so-called neo-Eurasianism that is part of contemporary Russian nationalism. He has written monographs on the life cycle of the ‘ethnos’ or ethnic group. He has developed some concepts about the origin of Russia. His most important book is Etnogenez i biosfera zemli (Ethnogenesis and the Biosphere) which was published in 1989. Dealing with the main nationalist forces including anti-communist national patriots as well as ‘red-browns’ or national Bolsheviks, I have chosen to resort to the pamphlet writings of the respective Party leaders. This provides us with first-hand documents on how the respective parties or movements view the world and the situation in Russia, and what they suggest to be done. The authors are as follows: Vladimir Zhirinovsky, leader of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, published in 1993 the book Poslednii brosok na iug (The Last Push to the South); Gennadii Zyuganov, leader of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, published in 1994 Derzhava (Great Power), a short pamphlet, and in 1997 a voluminous geopolitical study— Geografiia pobedy (The Geography of Victory); Aleksandr Dugin, earlier a supporter of Zyuganov and his party, now leader of a party of his own, represents the same great power imperialism and geopolitical thinking as Zhirinovsky and Zyuganov. His book Osnovy geopolitiki (Foundations of Geopolitics) was published in 1999; Aleksandr Lebed’, leader of the Russian People’s Republican Party, published in 1995 the pamphlet Za derzhavu obidno (Humiliating for a Great Power). Being a pragmatic nationalist, he

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was most worried about the future of the Russians as an ethnic group, in particular of those living in the provinces and in the former non-Russian Soviet republics; Aleksandr Barkashov, leader of the movement Russian National Unity, is the author of Azbuka russkogo natsionalista (ABC of a Russian Nationalist). He and his companions-in-arms are outspoken national socialists. The fact that Russian nationalists have been influenced by Western fascism and national socialism necessitates the use of some literature on this ideological phenomenon as well. In this study, there are three books on German national socialism that are often referred to: George L.Mosse, The Crisis of German Ideology. Intellectual Origins of the Third Reich (1964); Christian Zentner and Friedemann Bedürftig, Das Grosse Lexikon des Dritten Reiches (The Great Dictionary of the Third Reich) (1985); Louis L.Snyder, Encyclopedia of the Third Reich (1998). In this study, different background material has been used with regard to globalisation and neoliberalism, a process that post-Soviet Russia is also undergoing. The most important writings in this respect are George Soros’ article The Capitalist Threat (1997) and his book The Crisis of Global Capitalism (1998). Another illuminating book is The Global Trap (Die Globalisierungsfalle), written by Hans-Peter Martin and Harald Schumann. I have used both Russian and Western background literature dealing with the practical implementation and the consequences of Yeltsin’s neoliberal reforms. In this respect, Vladimir Sogrin’s book Politicheskaia istoriia sovremennoi Rossii 1985–1994 (A Political History of Contemporary Russia 1985–1994) is of primary importance. Among Western monographs, David Remnick’s book Resurrection (1997) deserves to be mentioned. In addition to these sources, different documents on the ongoing political debate in post-Soviet Russia are used as basic information for analysis and comments. On the one hand, there are articles on Russian fascism or national socialism published in liberal papers and magazins like Izvestiya, Novoe vremia and Transitions. On the other hand, there are sharp attacks on the ongoing liberal reforms in monographs like Stanislav Govorukhin’s Velikaia kriminal’naia revoliutsiia (The Great Criminal Revolution) which was published in 1994; Aleksandr Zinov’ev’s book Russkii eksperiment (1995); and Andrei Sinyavsky’s pamphlet The Russian Intelligentsia (1997). Furthermore, countless articles published in nationalist and ‘red-brown’ papers are referred to in this study. Among the first-mentioned, the national socialist mouthpiece Russkii poriadok (Russian order) is a case in point, whereas weekly Zavtra (Tomorrow) can be classified as ‘redbrown’. Finally, use has been made of some recently published Western general literature on Vladimir Putin who seems to represent a synthesis of democracy and nationalism: Dale R.Herspring ed. (2003), Putin’s Russia: Past Imperfect, Future Uncertain; Richard Sakwa (2002), Russian Politics and Society, third edition; Putin’s election campaign biography Ot pervogo litsa (First Person) published in 2000 serves as a primary source in this respect.

1 Modernisation and conservative backlash The protracted and painful process of political and economic modernisation of Russia has been going on for three centuries, or ever since the reforms of Peter the Great. The conflicting issue has always been about Russia’s future: should there be a Western model of progress or a separate Russian path of development? In plain language, the conflict is between Russian tradition and Western reforms leading to modernity. In the Russian national consciousness, there has been a hate-love attitude toward the West due to Russia’s historical handicap—its political and economic backwardness. The Russian aspirations vis-à-vis the West have been contradictory: on the one hand, Russia should catch up with the most advanced Western countries, on the other, the Russian identity embodied in its traditions including that of Orthodoxy should be preserved from Western influences. As a consequence, Russia has been a divided society between Westernisers (zapadniki) and Slavophiles (slavianofily)—in our time there are the reformers and the conservatives—ever since the publication of Petr Chaadaev’s Philosophical letters (Filosofskie pis’ma) in 1836.6 In the 1990s, a time of accelerated Westernisation and globalisation, this division of intellectual Russia was aggravated and resulted in something resembling a collective mental crisis in society.

Civilisations and ideologies Will Russia Westernise or are the Russian and Western values incompatible? This question has been asked time and again in Russia as well as in the West. In our time, the discussion about Russia’s future is still going on between optimists and pessimists. Among the latter, Samuel Huntington with his article Clash of civilizations? is a case in point.7 Huntington deserves special attention as his writings have gained popularity among Russian nationalists.8 His view of the world as consisting of seven or eight different civilisations rejects universalism and is consonant with old conservative theories of ‘national particularism’. In the West, however, some of Huntington’s critics have equated his theory with racist thinking (cf., Becker 1997). In Huntington’s world of ‘clashing civilizations,’ Russia is a typical ‘torn country’ with a civilisation identity problem (cf., Huntington 1993, 43 f). The Western values, being introduced in the country are clashing with those of a ‘distinct Slavic-Orthodox civilization’ (ibid.). As a matter of fact, from the point of view of many Russians, the Russian values and the Russian identity are threatened by the rapid Westernisation of life. Huntington is convincing in pointing out that differences among civilisations are far more fundamental than differences among political ideologies like Marxism and

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liberalism (cf., ibid., 25). Yet, there is a conceptual confusion in his argumentation as he factually equates ‘the West’ or ‘the Western civilization’ with ‘liberal democracy’. Are Marxism, fascism and National Socialism non-Western? Would it not be more logical to view the Western civilisation, in a broad sense of the concept, as including also Marxism and conservatism? Furthermore, as Orthodoxy is a branch of Christianity, Russia is culturally much closer to the West than to Islam or any other non-Western civilisation. The question arises, in the broadest sense of the term, whether Orthodoxy is also part of the Western Christian civilisation. It would imply that in contemporary Russia there is a clash going on between related sub-civilisations—those of the Russian idea and liberalism—within the confines of the same Western meta-civilisation, that of Christianity.9 Be that as it may, the existing contrasts, confessional and cultural, between Russia and the West, are not at all as basic and uncompromising as, say, between the West and Islam. Thus, in the long run, Russia and the West will rather come together than clash in international politics. It is astonishing that Huntington, contrary to his own theoretical premises, arrives at the same conclusion in one of his scenarios of the future (cf., Huntington 1997, 314 ff). For the time being, neoliberalism is the predominant political ideology in the West, Marxism being almost inactive. On the other hand, the ongoing contradictory globalisation process towards a ‘world market dictatorship’ (cf., Martin-Schumann 1997, 18) has already resulted in radical conservative backlashes in countries like Italy, Austria, France, Israel and the USA. The strength of the new extreme right in these countries lies in the seductiveness of its slogans against immigration, as well as its ideas favouring denationalisation and moral purification (ibid., 212). In Yeltsin’s post-totalitarian Russia, the conflicting parts were the ruling Westernminded liberals on the one hand, and the anti-Western opposition, consisting of nationalists and nationalist-minded communists, on the other. The Western-minded reformers were advocating the maxims of Western neoliberalism à la Milton Friedman and Friedrich von Hayek in their attempts to speed up reforms. They were trying to integrate Russia with the Western international economic system, in accordance with the ongoing globalisation process. The communists and nationalists, for their part, adopted a conservative position in the spirit of the ‘Russian Idea’, and resisted all integration plans. In the Russian parliament before the elections in December 1999, the supporters of neoliberalism and democracy formed a small minority, while the overwhelming majority of the deputies represented attitudes more or less close to a conservative backlash philosophy. Most of these deputies adhered to the ‘Russian idea’ in its traditional interpretation, but there were also those who openly expressed more or less fascist or national socialist views. The ideological climate in Russian society has been more and more coloured by the ideas of both traditionalism and radical conservatism. This mood has been budding in broad layers of the population in the post-Soviet years.

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Progress versus decay and entropy Developmental optimism and pessimism represent two different lines of thought within the Western culture in the broad meaning of the term. The former ‘progressive’ view postulates man’s desire and capability to improve the world, the latter being conservative and rejecting man’s possibility to create a world that would be better than the existing one. Developmental optimism Being ‘offsprings’ of the Enlightenment rationalistic philosophy, both Marxism and liberalism proclaim the idea of progress that implies a linear vision of historical change along an upward trajectory. Needless to say, both theories include the concept of historical necessity. Furthermore, the idea of progress implies an endless economic growth. Writer and Nobel Prize laureate Alexander Solzhenitsyn, as a genuine Russian national patriot, launches a scathing attack on ‘the endless, infinite progress dinned into our heads by the dreamers of the Enlightenment’ (Solzhenitsyn 1974, 21). Proclaiming secularisation and modernisation of society, both afore-mentioned Western theories represent historical optimism, a belief in man’s reason and his ability to build a Brave New World, a paradise on earth. Paradoxically, being politically and ideologically conflicting conceptions, individualistic liberalism and collectivist Marxism turn out to be ideological relatives in several basic respects. In principle, both ideologies reject traditional institutions and values as guiding lines in politics. This is something fascists and national socialists never forget to point out. A.Dugin, a contemporary Russian moderate national socialist thinker, emphasises that Karl Marx, notwithstanding his severe criticism of capitalism, ‘did not call in question the primacy of the purely material aspects of life’. Furthermore, Marx’ attitude towards man was as quantitative, mechanistic and ‘technical’ as that of the classic liberals (cf., Dugin 1994, 176). Western lifestyle with its limitless freedom of choice and its philosophy of entertainment, is considered to be immoral and disastrous for man in that it is devoid of any ethical guidance. Solzhenitsyn views Christianity in its Russian Orthodox interpretation as providing the ethical guidance needed. This explains his traditionalist aversion against the Soviet regime and the intellectual West alike: ‘These two worlds are atheistic, and not so very alien to each other’ (Solzhenitsyn 1979, 29). In the twentieth century, Russia has served as a testing ground for both Western theories. The Bolshevik plan to remold society and man in a historically very short time in accordance with the given Marxist model turned out to be a terrible tragedy for the population. The forcible construction of a Brave New World, called socialism in the first stage and communism in the coming and final stage of development, caused an extremely grievous loss in human lives. Furthermore, the precipitated industrialisation and urbanisation programme implied a tremendous waste of natural resources leading to great ecological disasters. National

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patriots are particularly scathing in their criticism of the construction of socialism in the 1920s and 1930s calling it ‘utopian project-making’ (utopicheskoe prozhektërstvo). The liberal experiment, after some unsuccessful modest attempts to liberalise the Soviet economy, at least partly, began to materialise in 1985–91, and was more or less completed in 1992–96. Nearly 80 per cent of the Russian economy was thereby in private hands (cf., Remnick 1997, 366). Yet, the great majority of Russians were deeply disappointed with the liberal reforms being perceived as leading to economic polarisation as well as to widespread corruption and criminalisation of society. Originally imported from the West, the bankrupt Marxism and the ‘cynical’ and ‘hardboiled’ liberalism seemed to have lost their attractiveness as guiding ideologies in Russia. Instead, there was an ideological void to be filled with a Third Way’ Weltanschauung. Time had come for both traditionalism and radical conservatism, in the shape of the ‘Russian idea,’ the exponents of which are Orthodox national patriots as well as ‘secularised’ ‘conservative revolutionaries’ or pragmatic nationalists. Pessimistic visions of history What makes conservative ‘Third Way’ thinking differ from ‘progressive’ theories like liberalism and Marxism? Being of European extraction, it can be traced back to some of the fundamental principles of traditionalist thought. First, seen in a broad perspective of modernisation of society, it reflects a world-view contradicting that of the Enlightenment: instead of developmental optimism there is a rather pessimistic and apocalyptic vision of history. Solzhenitsyn’s statement that ‘economic growth is not only unnecessary, it is pernicious’ is a good case in point (Solzhenitsyn 1974, 19). Second, ‘Third Way’-thinking represents a non-linear religious vision of history implying that there is no progress, only decay and ultimate destruction. Instead of believing in a bright future as the liberals and Marxists do, the traditionalists yearn for the golden past. In our days, this train of thought appears inter alia in various movements of religious fundamentalism. Third, history is considered sacred as having a divine source and a divine final purpose. In the beginning there is the Perfect Idyllic World that cannot but degenerate as it is withdrawing from its divine source. When the degeneration has reached its peak, a sudden reintegration takes place. The idea of a cyclical course of events is present in numerous religious fundamentalist movements of our time. This traditionalist train of thought has later influenced even more or less secularised views of history, notably those being characteristic of radical conservatism. History is considered a non-linear cyclical process in which different cultures or civilisations replace each other. This train of thought can be found in Oswald Spengler’s Der Untergang des Abendlandes (Decline of the West) which was published in 1919–22. The human past is portrayed as being the story of self-contained cultures conforming to biological patterns of growth and decay. Each culture has a life cycle of about 1,000 years implying that Western culture is now at its end. Among Russian national patriots, Lev Gumilev (1912– 92) represented more or less the same train of thought. According to his theory of

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ethnogenesis, every nation, i.e. every ethnos, is born, then it flourishes, and later it passes away (cf., Peuranen 1995, 88; Gumilev 1989, 169–216). The ethnos is biological in character and based on passionarnost (‘instinct’ or ‘drive’) (cf., Gumilev 1990, 33–44; Gumilev 1992, 19). The idea of the cyclical character of history testifies to an organic view of society, i.e. a Weltanschauung according to which society or the state forms an organic whole that cannot be influenced by the outer world. This train of thought can be traced back to nineteenth-century romanticism, one of the manifestations of the conservative backlash thinking in Europe and Russia of that time. In the twentieth century, the word ‘organic’ became fashionable in the vocabulary of Hitler’s national socialism as denoting something that has grown in a natural non-artificial way.10 Igor Shafarevich, one of the leading traditionalist thinkers in contemporary Russia, introduced the well-known distinction between the organic and the mechanistic view of society. In the former case, society is perceived as a living organism that develops spontaneously on the basis of the accumulated experience of the nation; the advocates of the latter theory equate society with logical and expedient manmade mechanism (cf., Shafarevich 1989, 178). Dugin, for his part, explains the same distinction between two approaches to society by referring to metaphors. The rationalism and individualism of John Locke and Bernhard de Mandeville implied ‘the metaphor of a clockwork’. Society is a mechanism, an aggregate, an artificial construction consisting of autonomous parts—‘egotistic individuals’ going in for personal welfare. The adherents of the organic view including Immanuel Kant, Johann Wolfgang Goethe and Samuel Coleridge presented as their counter-argument ‘the metaphor of a tree’ (Dugin 1994, 173). According to this theory, Man and society are organic, not mechanistic phenomena, and they cannot be described in terms of egotistic and material incentives exclusively. Man and society are conditioned by numerous historical, national, cultural, geographical and other factors that serve not as quantitative but as qualitative parameters (ibid., 172 ff).

Some comments on the history of Russian conservative thought European roots As is well known, European universalist traditionalism emerged as a reaction against the Enlightenment in general and the French Revolution of 1789–93—the breakthrough in the process of modernisation in continental Europe—in particular. Traditionalist thinkers like Joseph Marie de Maistre and Félicité de Lammenais advocated the traditional theocratic society. Later, in Europe of the nineteenth century, the universal character of traditionalism gradually disappeared in favour of national particularism. With the emergence of national states, this backlash conservatism adopted in some countries a rigid, anti-liberal form of nationalism, which subsequently was to degenerate into the kind of racism that led to fascism and national socialism (cf., Parland 1993, 72). The extreme nationalists in Germany and Italy of the early twentieth century represented already a more or less secularised radical right because their argumentation

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was not based on Christian premises. In Russia, on the other hand, even extreme nationalism was always coloured by Orthodoxy, and, consequently, was to be considered traditionalist. Orthodoxy lost its status as an official state doctrine in Russian society in 1918 when the Soviet government issued a decree separating the Church from the state. A new doctrine was adopted, i.e. the ideology of the Bolsheviks, which became known as Marxism-Leninism after Lenin’s death. Formally, this atheistic and allegedly ‘scientific’ ideology, actually became a new pseudo-religion. This being the case, the first actual secularisation of the ‘Russian idea’ could start only in the 1990s, in post-totalitarian Russia with its political and confessional pluralism. Are these obvious differences between Russian and Western conservative nationalism due to a distinct Russian culture? This question has been asked time and again in Russia as well as in the West. Contemporary Russian nationalists cherish the idea that Russia represents a non-Western culture with other values than democracy, separation of powers, the rule of law, the individual’s rights and freedoms and the like. This view emphasising Russia’s uniqueness is shared by some Western specialists on Russia, as has been seen above. Undoubtedly, it has its practical advantages. For example, in today’s Russia, the reformers’ several shortcomings so far can always be explained by referring to Russia’s allegedly non-Western stubborn culture. Furthermore, the very fact that Russia in the course of history has served as a battlefield between Western-minded reformers and their traditionalist adversaries seems to corroborate the view that the traditional Russian values are non-Western. Yet, this train of thought, based on equating ‘the West’ with liberalism, is untenable, as has been seen earlier. Yet, is not the conservative ‘Russian idea’ non-Western as it proclaims a separate path of development for Russia? A look into Russian intellectual history, however, makes us arrive at the opposite conclusion. As is well known, the original ‘Russian idea’ can be traced back to the Slavophiles in 1830–50. They represented a Weltanschauung of sorts that was strongly influenced by European romanticism, notably German idealistic philosophy in the shape of Johann Herder, Johann Fichte, Friedrich Schelling and Friedrich Hegel. Politically, these thinkers, consciously or unconsciously, were typical conservatives. The idea of a special or separate path of development can be found in cultural traditions of a great number of countries. Tim McDaniel’s observation is striking: ‘The Russian idea sounds suspiciously like the German, Islamic, African ujaama, or Catholic “idea”’. All alike are cognate responses to the challenges of the English and American models of modern society (McDaniel 1996, 13). It should be noted that the Slavophiles were highly educated people; most of them knew Europe well. In Laqueur’s words they were ‘steeped in French and German culture’ (Laqueur 1993, 6). It turns out that even the Russian nationalist thought in the shape of Slavophilism had European, i.e. Western, roots! It turns out that the word ‘Western’, at least in a historical context, is to be interpreted broadly including not only liberal democracy, but other ideologies and Weltanschauungs like that of conservatism as well. Orthodoxy—a characteristic trait of Russia

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Then, what differs Russia from the West? Historically, the most fundamental distinction is confessional. As is well known, more than a thousand years ago Russia accepted the eastern branch of Christianity, Orthodoxy, which had far-reaching consequences for Russia’s entire history. Being considered the only pure and true religion, Orthodoxy was used as an argument against the secularised and superficial West, where Catholicism was based on the rationalist heritage of pagan Rome and Protestantism was conducive to excessive individualism (cf., Parland 1996, 118). Actually, Russia separated itself from the mainstream of Christian civilisation that flowed westwards (cf., Pipes 1974, 223). As a consequence, Russia played no part in Europe’s classical heritage represented chiefly by Roman law, i.e. a rationalised legal system. Instead of feodalism Russia had a patrimonial rule11 and Gemeinschaft instead of Gesellschaft prevailed.12 This being the case, in pre-revolutionary Russia, the process of modernisation and secularisation of state and society was much slower and less influential than in most West European countries where religion had been separated from politics at an early stage. The Russian Church was never an independent institution as it had from the very beginning placed itself more docilely than any other church at the disposal of the state (cf., ibid., 222 f). ‘For Byzantine theorists it was axiomatic that the church could not subsist without the protection of the state’ (ibid., 225). The relationship between church and state was symbiotic: being upheld by the secular authority the spiritual one supported the former and its policy. In a word, as the Emperor’s will was justified by religion, a real secularisation of state power was excluded. The inherent conservatism of the Orthodox Church made it perceive church tradition, not the Gospels, as the ultimate authority. Even in our days, this traditionalist thinking sometimes manifests itself within the Russian Orthodox Church as well as in the rhetoric of some national patriot thinkers.

Mutual exchanges of Western and Russian rightist ideas in history In a broad historical perspective, rightist currents of thought in Europe and Russia have influenced each other from time to time and this takes place even today. Before 1917 In the nineteenth century, there was a continuous exchange of ideas between Slavophilism and German nationalism. The influence of German idealistic romanticism on original Slavophilism in general has already been mentioned. More specifically, Johann Gottfried Herder’s philosophy of history (see title-word Herder in Flew 1979, 135) inspired the Slavophiles to emphasise the organic character of development and society. Yet the Russian idea was not at all a copy of German national thought (‘Teutonophilism’) as it was coloured by Orthodoxy and, consequently, still represented traditionalism. The degeneration of the Russian idea towards the advocacy of imperial chauvinism and Panslavism, and outright anti-Semitism during the three last decades of the nineteenth

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century had its approximate nationalist parallel in Germany. According to A.Dugin, ‘the national archetype of the German soul and the geopolitical position of the Germans make them like the Russians most predisposed to the ideology of the Third Way’ (Dugin 1994, 12). The intellectual interaction between both currents of thought manifested itself in reciprocal influences. Among the thinkers belonging to the second generation of Slavophilism,13 Nikolai Danilevsky (1822–85), the chief theoretician of Panslavism, deserves to be mentioned as having anticipated geopolitical thinking. In his magnum opus, Rossiia i Evropa (Russia and Europe) of 1869, he advanced a theory of cultural types of civilisations as the main divisions of mankind. Of these different cultural types conceived by him as self-contained and self-sufficient entities, the ‘Slavic culturalhistorical type’ was considered superior. Paralleling the German nationalists’ idea of reuniting all Germans by means of seizing all the territories that they inhabited, Danilevsky preached a Slavic Anschluss of sorts. He advocated the repossession of Constantinople, the capital of the former Greek-Orthodox Byzantine Empire, and urged the Slavs to liberate themselves from Turkish and German domination and join Russia in forming one great Slavic empire headed by the Russian tsar. Danilevsky became ‘the most eloquent spokesman of the believers in a Russian imperial mission’ (Laqueur 1993, 9). In Danilevsky’s writings, there are some remarkable signs of modern secularised political thought contrasting with his usual Orthodox traditionalist argumentation. He actually advocates a policy of strength in declaring that Russia could only fulfill her historical mission after transforming herself into a giant superpower (cf., Yanov 1987, 34). The alleged ‘spiritual decay’ of the West as well as Russia’s alleged national interests served for Danilevsky as a moral justification of a strategy of imperial expansionism. In plain language, in his argumentation, Orthodox messianism was replaced by geopolitical thinking. The third generation of Slavophilism that appeared at the turn of the twentieth century professed nothing but unbridled anti-Semitism. When Danilevsky had been an exponent of the confrontation between Russia and a ‘rotten West’, the new nationalists presented a more simplified view, that of a worldwide Jewish conspiracy. Later, in the 1920s and 1930s, Danilevsky’s geopolitical ideas were to be paralleled and even surpassed by the German national socialists’ geopolitical projects. The aforementioned semi-fascist Russian extreme right is often called the ‘Black Hundred’ (chernosotentsy). The name refers to the paramilitary groups that belonged to the Union of Russian People (Soiuz Russkogo Naroda), the most important rightist party that had emerged before the first Duma elections in 1906. The new message of the Black Hundred was that the fundamental confrontation of the contemporary world was ‘Russia versus Jewry’. The idea of a Jewish conspiracy against Russia was gaining ground among Russian nationalists mainly as a result of the appearance of the notorious Protocols of the Elders of Zion (Protokoly Sionskikh Mudretsov), an infamous forgery attributed to the tsarist secret service, the ‘Okhranka’ (see Nilus 1905). The anti-Jewish dimension of the Russian idea had already become a key issue in Russian domestic politics by the 1880s. However, this phenomenon differed from the

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traditional confessional anti-Semitism that had been cultivated from time immemorial by the Russian Orthodox Church. The new kind of anti-Semitism had come from the crisisstricken Germany, where it served as a backlash movement against the accomplished political and economic Emancipation of the Jews (cf. title word ‘Antisemitismus’ in Zentner/Bedürftig 1985, 29). Among the German modern anti-Semites, there were the radicals who represented racial biology, and the moderates who wanted to oust the Jews from public service (ibid.). The latter category was to become predominant among Russian rightists after the revolutions in 1917 when the Russian Jews got access to government offices. As an ideological phenomenon, the Black Hundred was ‘a halfway house between the old-fashioned reactionary movements of the nineteenth century and the right-wing populist (fascist) parties of the twentieth’ (Laqueur 1993, 16). Adhering to Orthodoxy and monarchism, its members were traditionalists, whereas, as one of the leaders of the movement years later declared, the spirit of this Russian movement was almost similar to that of national socialism (cf., Markov 1935, 4). The view that there was a coincidence of interests between Jewish revolutionaries and Jewish capitalists, in fact, anticipated one of the main planks of nazism. The Black Hundred advocated direct action against the Jews, the alleged enemies of the Russian people. In plain language, the Russian semi-fascists initiated pogroms and eliminated Jewish deputies to the Duma. The state subsidised these activities (cf., Carter 1990, 32), which were carefully coordinated with the efforts of the secret police (the okhrankaz) to quench the socialist and liberal opposition (Petrov-Chërnyi 1990, 14). It should be noted that the Black Hundred as a political phenomenon does not belong to history only. In 1990, the aforementioned Union of Russian People (Soiuz Russkogo Naroda) was refounded at a meeting in the House of the Soviet army in Moscow (cf., Laqueur 1993, 17). Furthermore, a paper by the name Chërnaia sotnia (Black Hundred) appeared since 1994 in one of the towns of the Moscow region. In tsarist Russia before 1917, all the extreme right organisations described the socialists and the liberals as a destructive anti-Russian force. They referred to the large proportion of Jews in the upper echelons of the opposition parties—particularly within the Menshevik and Kadet parties. The subsequent rise of Jews to prominence within the Bolshevik party was seen as an additional proof of a Jewish conspiracy. The exchange of ideas between German and Russian rightist movements was to culminate in the export of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion to Germany in 1918. By that the Russian semi-fascist nationalists repaid their debt for the German anti-Semitic doctrine that had been conveyed to them in the 1880s (cf., Laqueur 1993, 31; Yanov 1987, 33 f). In the 1920s and 1930s, Russian rightist émigrés cultivated the notion that the October revolution had been the work of the Jews, who now were the new masters of Russia. In Germany, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and the idea of Bolshevism’s identity with World Jewry became a major component in the anti-Jewish arsenal of nazi propaganda (cf., Yanov 1987, 34). After 1917 (1): The Russian émigrés and German national socialism/Italian fascism

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After the Bolsheviks’ seizure of power and their victory in the civil war, the extreme right could openly continue its activities only abroad, in the Russian émigré community. In this study, the role of rightist Russian émigrés in Germany before and after Hitler’s Machtübernahme (seizure of power) deserves to be dwelt upon in the first hand. However, émigré movements in other countries will be taken in account when related to nazi Germany. In the early 1920s, the proponents of the Black Hundred ideology exchanged views with German extreme nationalists. As a complete ideology, national socialism was still in the making. While the Russian rightist émigrés adapted themselves to the ideological situation in Germany, their own ideas influenced greatly their German confreres. This being the case, Hitler’s national socialism was, at least partially, inspired by foreign, i.e. Russian, rightist ideas. Laqueur even speaks about the ‘Russian sources of national socialism’ (Laqueur 1965, 51). Then what are these ‘Russian sources’? The Protocols of the Elders of Zion with their rampant anti-Semitism has already been mentioned. The idea of an international Jewish conspiracy fell on fertile ground in Germany which had suffered a humiliating military defeat. As is well known, the Jewish question became one of the cornerstones of national socialism. The rather placid German anti-Semitism had become saturated by its rampant Russian equivalent. Thus, the ‘Protocols’ served as an important source for Hitler when he was writing Mein Kampf (Ganelin 1992, 131 f). Among the émigrés, there were those going to the extreme in advising how to resolve the Jewish problem. Fëdor Vinberg, a Baltic German and former colonel in the tsarist army who had turned writer, declared that the Aryan nations could be saved only if the Jews were exterminated (ibid., 139). Thus, Alfred Rosenberg, the chief nazi ideologist in Germany, had his precursor of the Final Solution (Vinberg died in 1927). Among the Russian rightist émigrés, there were a great many indulging in expectations of a coming civil war in the Soviet Union which would lead to the fall of the Bolshevik regime. In plain language, they counted on nazi Germany as the only power capable of defeating Stalin. Paradoxically, the most striking of the Russian rightist influences on national socialism manifested itself in Hitler’s anti-Slavic and Russophobian foreign policy. This paradox was due to the active role played in the émigré community by F.Vinberg. In his view, the Russian people should not be idealised but punished for having betrayed the tsar. In practical politics, there were numerous Russian prominent émigrés who were working for the nazis after Hitler’s rise to power. Among these collaborators, N.Markov,14 G.Schwartz-Bostunich,15 General V.Biskupsky,16 and the aforementioned F.Vinberg deserve comment. Émigré organisations In the late 1920s and the 1930s, as well as during World War II, there were several groups in the Russian émigré community that could be called fascist or national socialist. The most numerous among them—the Russian Fascist Party (RFP)—existed in Harbin, Manchuria, 1931–45. The party requisites (uniforms, badges etc.) copied those of the German nazis, whereas RFP’s political programme resembled Mussolini’s in one respect:

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the principle of a corporative system of society (cf., Laqueur 1993, 78; Natsional’naia 1992, 154). Orthodoxy as well as the idea of a great Eurasian empire constituted the Russian component of RFP’s ideology (Natsional’naia 1992, 153 f). Yet, the RFP was unable to mobilise the masses because the number of Russian émigrés in Harbin was already considerably small. Furthermore, it was economically totally dependent on the Japanese Kwantung Army, which was at the time in charge of Manchuria. The other émigré parties representing the extreme right—the All-Russian Fascist Organisation (VFO) in Connecticut, USA, and the Russian nazi party in Germany (ROND) are not dealt with in this study as they were less influential than the RFP. Yet, the only two of the Russian émigré movements of lasting importance were the NTS and Eurasianism. With some reservation, they could be considered remote ‘relatives’ of fascism or national socialism. The National Labour Union (Natsional’no-Trudovoi Soiuz) is better known under its Russian abbreviation NTS. Today, it is the only émigré group still in existence. It was founded originally in Yugoslavia in 1930. In July 1941 its leadership moved to Berlin. Consisting of members of the younger generation of émigrés, the NTS represented anti-communist activism. The central aim was to continue the struggle for the ‘white idea’ in Russia, and throw down the Soviet regime. In the 1930s and during the World War I, the NTS was anti-liberal and had a more or less favourable view on fascism and national socialism (cf., Laqueur 1993, 82). Liberalism and liberal democracy were rejected. Instead a corporative system of society was suggested. Furthermore, before and during World War II, there were open manifestations of antiSemitism in the NTS publications (ibid.). However, with all the proximity to national socialism, the NTS had an ideological profile of its own. The NTS in the 1930s and during World War II was strongly influenced by the ideas of Ivan Il’in, a former professor of philosophy at Moscow University who had been expelled from Russia in 1922. In pamphlets and articles Il’in professed a ‘white activism’ of sorts; in fact, he advocated the armed overthrow of the Bolshevik regime by a revolutionary minority. His nationalist teaching was akin to fascism. At the same time, this ideology was different including elements of Orthodoxy as well as of monarchism (cf., Utechin 1964, 273). The basic political philosophy of the NTS has been solidarism coloured by Orthodoxy as an alternative to the theory of class struggle. Solidarism implies harmonious relations between classes that being tantamount to national unity. In the organic worldview of the NTS, the nation is considered to constitute a living superorganism with a long life (cf., Stolypin 1986, 26). On the whole, NTS was closer to conservative authoritarianism than to totalitarian national socialism. Yet, as Laqueur concludes, this did not prevent a close cooperation with nazi Germany, in particular during World War II (Laqueur 1993, 83). Many NTS members worked for Alfred Rosenberg’s Eastern Ministry in occupied Russia. Others joined the Russian pro-nazi daily Novoe slovo (The New Word) in Berlin. The greatest political undertaking of the NTS, however, was its close cooperation with General Andrei Vlasov (1900–46) and his Russian Liberation Army ROA (Russkaia Osvoboditel’naia Armiia) composed of Soviet prisoners of war. As is well known, having been captured by the Germans in 1942, Vlasov agreed to cooperate with the Wehrmacht in order to save Russia from Bolshevism (see title word Wlassow in Zentner/ Bedürftig 1985).

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The post-NTS version of its own history claims that the NTS as well as the ROA constituted a ‘third force’ instead of siding with Hitler or Stalin. After the war Vlassov was executed as a traitor in the Soviet Union. However, in the years of glasnost, some Soviet historians and publicists tried to reinstate his ideas and his army. In 1990, the Vlasovites’ union (Soiuz Vlasovtsev) was formed ‘to defend the maligned memory of the Vlasov army’ (see title-word Vlasovites’ Union in Wilson-Bachkatov 1992, 236). The debate on Vlassov’s role in history is still going on. In 1996, a nationalist newspaper called Klich (The call) began to appear in Moscow as the mouthpiece of the Social movement ROA. The notorious General Viktor Filatov17 served as editor-in-chief. Eurasianism (Evraziistvo) Originally, the Eurasians were a movement among young Russian émigré intellectuals in the 1920s and early 1930s. The founder of their doctrine was Prince Nikolai Trubetskoi (1890–1938). The Eurasian manifesto entitled Exodus to the East (Iskhod k vostoku) was published in Prague in 1922. Rejecting the possibility of a universal civilisation, the Eurasians pointed out the detrimental impact of the expanding European (Romano-Germanic) culture on other civilisations. This being the case, Nikolai Danilevsky’s view of the contagious rotten Europe was more or less revived. Russia’s future was considered to be in the East. As a concept Eurasia was defined as a politically, historically and culturally indivisible territory which more or less coincided with that of imperial Russia. It constituted an organic and harmonic totality and needed protection from alien cultural influences. Thus, Russia should not copy European institutions but preserve its own traditions. In plain language, this implied a traditionalist policy. Spiritually, Russia should return to its prePetrine state—Muscovite Russia that had been an Orthodox theocracy. However, besides being traditionalist Eurasianism included elements of modern nationalist thought. In particular, the new science of geopolitics was more or less adopted by the Eurasians. Moreover, even some germs of German racist thinking can be found, in particular in Trubetskoy’s writings coloured by unsophisticated cultural anthropology. The attitude of the Eurasians towards Italian fascism was almost benevolent. Their view of the ideal, culturally autarchic and ‘ideocratic’ state was influenced by the principles of a corporative system of society (cf., Utechin 1964, 258f). Soviet Russia, for its part, provoked contradictory feelings. Among the Eurasians, there were those who more or less sympathised with the Soviet regime. At the same time, they hoped that Bolshevism sooner or later would be replaced by Eurasianism. In their view, there were some positive features in the Soviet system such as a strong government with a clearly identifiable ruling group (the communist party) and the Soviets permitting ordinary people to participate in governing the country. Nikolai Alekseev, the leading political scientist in the Eurasian movement, advocated ‘a Russia with Soviets, but without communists’ (Utechin 1964, 260). In a word, Russia should abandon Marxism, reject the communist party, and adopt Eurasianism as her new guiding doctrine. In the early 1930s, the movement was split as the numerous anti-communist Eurasians withdrew and, in fact, moved towards the extreme right, i.e. the NTS or the Russian fascists and national socialists. In 1992, the ideas of Eurasianism became a fashionable

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umbrella ideology for numerous Russian nationalist movements and groupings. ‘Eurasia’ became a codeword for Russia’s lost imperial identity emphasising the differences between Russian and European civilisations. Concepts like the ‘Eurasian space’ (evraziiskoe prostranstvo) implying the territory of the former Soviet empire, ‘Eurasianism’ or ‘Russia’s geopolitical interest as a Eurasian power’ became frequent in the national patriots’ vocabulary. As time went on, the slogans of almost all political movements including those of Zyuganov’s communists and Yeltsin’s liberals became more or less coloured by Eurasianism. This thinking coincided with a renewed interest in the traditional strong Russian state. The idea was that the Russian state needed to be strong, powerful and centralised in order to be able to rule its vast territory. This being the case, Russia should not be too democratic, the argument went. In principle, this train of thought became a common denominator for the nationalists and communists in the opposition as well as for the liberals in power. After 1917 (2): National bolshevism The birth of the Soviet state was accompanied by a totally new ideological phenomenon in Russia, that of interaction between the extreme left, the ruling Bolsheviks, and part of the extreme right, the proponents of the Russian idea. As a result, a new red-white, or later even a red-white-brown, ideology called national bolshevism, came into being. This phenomenon, however, was not confined to Soviet Russia, but appeared in Europe as well, in particular in the Russian émigré community and in Germany. Thus, there was a continuous interaction of Bolshevik and rightist ideas not only in Soviet Russia but also in Europe, and above all in Germany. This process of reciprocal influences was especially fruitful in the 1920s. National bolshevism in Soviet Russia Before the October revolution, Vladimir Lenin had pledged himself to work for the dissolution of the Russian empire. In his view, the granting of national self-determination to smaller nations would lead to a voluntary union between them and socialist Russia (unification through separation) (cf., Iivonen 1990, 22; Lenin 1968, 435). The Leninist thesis about the nations’ right to autonomy and secession from the Russian empire earned the party an influx of enthusiastic members from among the various national minorities, primarily among Jews, but also among Latvians and Georgians (cf., Chalidze 1988, 71). Yet, when the Bolsheviks had seized power, Lenin faced a new unexpected problem. His principle about the peoples’ right to self-determination ‘no longer weakened the position of the Czar but, on the contrary, that of the Soviet government…’ (Iivonen 1990, 22). The Azerbaijani, the Armenians and the Georgians declared their independence, and other countries—Ukraine, White Russia (Belarus), Poland, the Baltic countries and Finland—followed suit. In this new situation, the Bolsheviks realised that their political survival required all their efforts to save and restore the Russian empire. This being the case, they made a political volte-face in turning down the idea of world revolution in favour of saving Russia. As the Bolshevik regime had a very narrow social base—many of the leaders of the party were Jews—finding a modus vivendi of sorts with anti-Western

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Russian nationalists was a conditio sine qua non. The civil war of 1918–20 divided the rightist and nationalist forces. There were numerous proponents of the extreme right within the army, the security police and the Church, who sided with the Bolsheviks in the spirit of ‘red patriotism’. These antiliberal and anti-Western conservatives considered the Bolsheviks to be the only political force capable of restoring the Russian empire. In their view, the socialist and internationalist character of the Soviet regime was a transient phenomenon (cf., Agurskii 1980, 159). Large parts of the tsarist officer corps, including Aleksei Brusilov, the commander-inchief, and Admiral Vasilii Altwater, joined the Red Army and greatly helped the Bolsheviks win the civil war (cf., Chalidze 1988, 71 f; Kozhinov 1995, 196). The White movement was considered to rather serve foreign interests including those of Great Britain. As a paradox, Russia’s national interests were now defended by internationalist Vladimir Lenin who opposed a partition of the former empire. The Bolsheviks were promoting the imperial idea by re-establishing Russia’s supremacy over White Russia (Belarus), Ukraine, and Transcaucasia. In the wake of the civil war, the Bolsheviks were to deepen and extend their cooperation with the Russian national right. The new Marxist-Leninist ideology, like the early Christianity, had to make its peace with the state. Revolutionary Bolshevism had to compromise with Russian state power’ (Carter 1990, 46). Already during the civil war, there had been signs of a gradual merger of bolshevism with a traditional Russian concept of the state as the incarnation of the imperial idea. Lenin urged upon the Bolsheviks the necessity for intelligent compromise with their national conditions (ibid., 46). Thus, the preconditions for the emergence of national bolshevism, the new shadow ideology, were created. Being formally radical and leftist, it actually represented conservatism and great power nationalism. In the early 1920s, this new trend of thought was paralleled abroad by an émigré movement with the journal Smena vekh (Change of Landmarks) as its mouthpiece. Its adhererents who were called smenovekhovtsy had close contacts with their like-minded compatriots in Soviet Russia (see below). Moreover, the budding national bolshevism had its equivalent even elsewhere in Europe, in particular in Germany (see below), where nationalist sentiments ran high in all political movements including the communists and their supporters. In a word, the ideological experiment of combining radical leftism with radical conservatism was, finally, the product of both Russian and European ideas. Yet, the rightist European and Russian proponents of this misalliance naturally hoped that the Bolsheviks would sooner or later jettison their internationalist Marxism and turn true patriots. In Soviet Russia, the fruits of the new policy could be seen in the recruitment of numerous nationalist-minded bourgeois professionals and specialists in Soviet industry. Furthermore, the extent to which people with close ties to the Union of the Russian People got top-level positions in the power structures (the army, police, and the central administration) is a remarkable phenomenon in its own right (cf., Frank 1990, 231; Carter 1990, 48). The march of national bolshevism in the early 1920s was marked by several political changes such as the introduction of the New Economic Policy (NEP) favouring the peasants in 1921 and the foundation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in 1922 which amounted to no more and no less than a formal recognition of the

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old imperial structure.18 Within the Bolshevik party, the ideological metamorphosis from Marxist internationalism to factual Russian nationalism was a painful and protracted process of struggle for power that was to aggravate with Lenin’s death in 1924. Siding with the nationalist faction and by playing his main internationalist Jewish opponents—Leon Trotsky, Grigorii Zinov’ev, and Lev Kamenev—against one another, Iosif Stalin succeded in removing them from the party’s central committee one by one. In the new situation in Europe—the revival of extreme nationalism and anti-Semitism instead of the expected world revolution—the Soviet government had to wipe out its reputation, at home and abroad, as some kind of Jewish puppet regime (cf., Agurskii 1980, 195). A return, at least partly, to Russia’s national identity and traditions was necessary. Stalin’s thesis about building socialism in one country, factually, implied a gradual return to Russian traditions and values. This policy ‘represented recognition that the USSR would have to rely on her own resources to build socialism, without the help of the West European proletariat’ (Duncan 1996, 61). It could be characterised as a modification of the old Slavophile notion of a separate Russian path of development. Yet, here can also be seen the influence of the new nationalist and rightist thinking in Europe of the 1920s. European liberalism and parliamentary democracy, including social democracy, were considered outdated. Russia should rather focus on the radical conservative model of development, that of authoritarianism, statism, autarchy, activism, nationalism and militarism. In plain language, Russia’s ‘separate path’ implied the rejection of universal Marxism in favour of a more or less nationalist interpretation of socialism (cf., Laqueur 1993, 62–5). Through Komintern, Stalin strongly influenced the Communist Party of Germany (Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands, abbr. KPD) and its policy. He rejected liberalism as well as social democracy, but did not totally rule out contacts and cooperation between German communists and ‘leftist’ German national socialists, i.e. in fact, German national bolsheviks. This ideological misalliance spilled over to the Armed Forces in both countries. Since the signing of the Treaty of Rapallo, industrial and economic cooperation had started being accompanied by clandestine direct military contacts between Soviet Russia and Germany (cf., Geust 1993, 133f). Both the Red Army and the Reichswehr were institutions strongly influenced by national bolshevism. Stalin had supported national bolshevism in order to provide the Soviet regime with a certain amount of national legitimacy. Yet, being a pragmatist, Stalin himself could hardly be called a national Bolshevik (cf., Dunlop 1983, 154).19 National bolshevism and national socialism After 1936, Stalin’s policy moved further towards national bolshevism in its chauvinistic interpretation. The political institutions of the Soviet republics were effectively russified.20 During the war against Hitler’s Germany, traditional Russian nationalism was restored de facto. On the other hand, this current of thought had, paradoxically, been influenced also by German national socialism that could be seen in Soviet domestic policy. In 1945, the Soviet Union was like a carbon copy of Hitler’s Germany in some

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important respects: its system had become dictatorial, nationalist and anti-Semitic (cf., Carter 1990, 52). Disguised as Soviet patriotism Russian nationalism had manifested itself in the form of large-scale deportations of ethnic groups like the Crimean Tatars and Volga Germans, who were suspected in having collaborated with Germany. During the war, the occupied territories had been a hotbed of anti-Semitism. This ideological climate reached even the ranks of the partisans and the Red Army (cf., Pinkus 1988, 139). Russian traditional anti-Semitism was refueled by its German modern equivalent. After 1945 and, especially, with the outbreak of the cold war in 1946, a far-reaching isolationism took effect in the Soviet Union. The political atmosphere became outright xenophobic, and the anti-Semitic feelings were to intensify. In 1948–53, this policy continued as a campaign against ‘Zionists’ and ‘rootless cosmopolitans’ (cf., Allensworth 1998, 155 ff). In plain language, the state and party hierarchy, the arts and the theatres, the universities and colleges and the mass media should be cleansed from Jews. The poorly camouflaged anti-Jewish campaign culminated in November 1948, when the Jewish anti-fascist committee21 was disbanded and almost all its members arrested. A show trial of Jewish doctors was held in March 1953 (Pinkus 1988, 141). ‘…Stalin saw in the trial a way to prepare the ground for exiling the Jewish population from the centre of the Soviet Union’ (ibid., 180). Before the deportation the aformentioned Jewish doctors should be executed by hanging (Allensworth 1998, 176). This anti-Jewish campaign could be interpreted as a Russian version of Hitler’s Final Solution. However that may be, Stalin’s death put an end to all these projects. In the Brezhnev era, the influence of national socialist thinking was to revive, at least partly, along with national bolshevism within the establishment when society became strongly militarised. In the late 1970s, something like a ‘fascistisation of young functionaries’ of the party, Komsomol and state apparatus could be observed. Books about the Third Reich gained popularity and it became ‘fashionable to praise the firmness of the leaders of the Third Reich—Hitler, and Himmler and Bormann even more’… (Yanov 1987, 254). National bolshevism in Europe As an ideological phenomenon, the Russian national Bolsheviks had their ideological allies and relatives in Europe. In this study, we find it expedient to dwell on two movements, the aforementioned smenovekhovtsy, and the German national Bolsheviks. In contemporary Russia, both currents of thought are frequently referred to in the ongoing political and ideological discussion in Russian mass media. The smenovekhovtsy came into being as a political movement in 1920, when they published a symposium, Smena vekh (Change of Landmarks), and later a journal under the same title. The publication appeared in Prague in 1920–21. The chief theorist of the movement was Professor Nikolai Ustrialov, a former member of the Constitutional democratic party who had taken part in the civil war against the Bolsheviks. Having earlier turned his back on the theory of Rechtstaat22 Ustrialov now professed a Slavophilism of sorts. He had become interested in the theories of several European and Russian conservative thinkers including Niccolo Machiavelli, F.Hegel, N.Danilevsky and O.Spengler (cf., Agurskii 1980, 69–70, 75, 96). Furthermore, Ustrialov followed how

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national bolshevism as a new ideological trend was emerging in Germany. In his view, Soviet power was a genuinely Russian phenomenon worth supporting in spite of the Bolsheviks’ emphasis on internationalism. In the long run, the national perspective was bound to get the upper hand and to conquer Bolshevism altogether (cf. Agurskii 1980, 159). Ustrialov had arrived at this conclusion after the humiliating defeat of the Whites in the civil war. The West was considered a traitor which had been pursuing its own egotistic interests and which, in fact, had tried to weaken Russia. Ustrialov and his ideological confreres, who in 1921 began to call themselves national bolsheviks, influenced much more their compatriots in Russia than the émigré community. They counted numerous sympathisers within the Red Army and among bourgeois intellectuals in Russia. Several leading adherents of Ustrialov’s émigré movement, notably the ‘leftist’ national bolshevik writers Count Aleksei Tolstoy and Il’ia Ehrenburg as well as the former Chief Procurater of the Holy Synod, V.L’vov, soon returned to Russia (Utechin 1964, 254; Agurskii 1980, 91). Usually referred to as ‘non-party Bolsheviks’, they became prominent members of the privileged intellectual elite in the Soviet Union. The émigré national bolsheviks differed in some respects from the aforementioned Eurasian movement. First, most of them could more or less easily identify themselves with the Soviet regime, even if they did not accept Marxism. Second, they were more or less indifferent towards Orthodoxy, the cornerstone in the Eurasians’ doctrine. Third, the ‘moralistic’ Eurasians had almost no impact on the political discussions in Soviet Russia of the 1920s, but Ustrialov and his counterparts had! In Germany of the 1920s and the early 1930s, national bolshevism existed as a separate ideological ‘Third Way’ movement, though it had connections with both the left wing of the nazi party NSDAP (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei; i.e. National Socialist German Workers Party), and the nationalist wing of the German communist party (KPD). This phenomenon, so typical of the Weimar republic, constituted a peculiar synthesis of right-wing nationalism and revolutionary proletarian socialism. In those years, the NSDAP was strongly influenced by the ‘leftist’ and ‘revolutionary national socialists’. As a matter of fact, the national bolsheviks played the role of messengers for establishing contacts and cooperation between nationalist-minded communists and ‘revolutionary national socialists’ whenever there were issues of common interest. National bolshevism manifested itself as an independent movement in the shape of numerous small organisations and groupings of agitation and political education throughout the country. Yet, it ceased to play a role as a political phenomenon as the communists cut off their contacts with the nazis in 1932 and Hitler eliminated the leftwing national socialists including Röhm and the SA in 1934. In the former case, the Soviet-French relations had been improving which prompted Moscow to urge the KPD to change its former anti-French and anti-Versailles policy (cf., Barygin-Kolpakidi 1992, 81), and, factually, avoid cooperation with the nazis. In the latter case, Hitler chose to ally himself and his party with the national economic and military elite in Germany. This political and ideological volte-face implied a total separation with the political left. How did national bolshevism emerge? This question can, at least partly, be answered by referring to the specific situation that prevailed in Germany after the humiliating Versailles treaty. There had grown up numerous organisations that became hotbeds of national socialism and national bolshevism. Most important were the so-called

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‘Freikorps’, i.e. militarised voluntary corps of ‘200,000 unemployed captains and lieutenants’ who opposed the Versailles treaty (Barygin-Kolpakidi 1992, 87 f). Furthermore, there were youth organisations and the so-called ‘Völkisc h’ movements and parties harbouring nationalist and anti-Semitic ideas (ibid.). In addition, in the command of the Reichswehr, there was a strong group of officers favouring cooperation between Germany and Soviet Russia. With the signing of the Treaty of Rapallo in 1922, this idea could materialise in industrial and economic cooperation that resulted in a beginning rearmament of Germany. The Treaty of Versailles could be circumvented as Soviet Russia did not belong to its signatories. Among the numerous forms of interaction that took place between the two countries, there were also clandestine direct military contacts between the Reichswehr and the Red Army. The German Army was granted the possibility of establishing a number of secret training facilities on the territory of the Soviet Union (cf., Geust 1993, 135). Later in history, it is true, this cooperation was to evoke harsh criticism among nationalist-minded Russians including Nobel prize winner A.Solzhenitsyn: the Germans were given the opportunity to explore Soviet territories for military purposes. As a matter of fact, this advance information was extremely important to Germany in 1941 when it attacked the Soviet Union. On the other hand, in Germany, there had been numerous generals who, wanting to eliminate the Versailles treaty, advocated an alliance with the Red Army (BaryginKolpakidi 1992, 91). ‘The Eastern orientation’, implying a confrontation between the continental great powers Soviet Russia and Germany on the one hand, and the atlanticist great powers France and Great Britain on the other, remained a potential option for these Germans throughout the 1930s. German national bolshevism was not so much influenced by Marxism as by the socalled ‘national revolutionary movement’ (see below) that proclaimed the idea of ‘a German conservative revolution’. This current of thought, actually, served as a starting point for various conservative ideologies: national bolshevism, ‘revolutionary national socialism’, ‘leftist’ national socialism, and rightist national socialism (Hitlerism). This is illustrated in Figure 3. In this figure there are some signs, concepts and names that need to be explained: Signs:

One arrow (→) shows the direction of influence Two arrows (→) (←) stand for inter-action, cooperation

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Figure 3 The ‘conservative revolution’ as a source of different conservative ideologies

Concepts and names: ‘The German conservative revolution” implies a traditionalist Weltanschauung combined with nationalist and social radicalism; The national revolutionary (sometimes called ‘social revolutionary’) movement is connected with the ideas of the ‘conservative revolutionaries’ in a radicalised form. Originally, most of these radicals were former traditionalists who in the new situation after the World War I had turned their back to the status quo philosophy and become adversaries of the established liberal democratic political order. Among the leading thinkers of this movement, A.Dugin mentions Moeller van den Bruck, Oswald Spengler and Werner Sombart (Dugin 1994, Laqueur 1993, 142). Among the ideas proclaimed by the ‘national revolutionaries’ the main ones were: a negative attitude towards humanism and Marxism, and a positive attitude towards violence, statist socialism (‘Prussian socialism’), autarchy, the hierarchical principle, and an orientation towards Soviet Russia. In history, Friedrich II, Friedrich Hegel, Carl von Clauzewitz and Otto von Bismarck were considered heroes. In contemporary politics, the ‘national revolutionaries’ opposed the Versailles treaty and the democratic Weimar republic. The German national bolsheviks adhered to the aforementioned ideas but added to them Lenin’s theory of class struggle, and Stalin’s thesis about socialism in one country. The first attempt to unite communists and patriots against Western imperialism was made by a group of communists in Hamburg spearheaded by H.Laufenberg and F.Wolfheim, who had participated in the foundation of the KPD. National bolshevism ceased as a movement in 1934. The leftist national socialists formed a very influential faction within the NSDAP in the 1920s. The leaders were brothers Otto and Gregor Strasser. The influence of the leftist national socialists was greatest in the northern and western parts of Germany whereas the

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right-wing national socialists spearheaded by Adolf Hitler and Hermann Göring were strong in the south, in particular in München. The ‘revolutionary national socialists’ existed as a separate political movement in 1930–1934. Actually, it consisted of leftist national socialists who along with Otto Strasser had quit or been excluded from the NSDAP. Their influence was strong within the S.A.23 As is well known from history, in 1934, Hitler liquidated the S.A. and the supporters of Strasser and became the unchallenged Führer of the NSDAP, and of Germany. The interplay of Russian and European conservative thought in history has left its traces even in the intellectual debates of post-Soviet Russia. This could be seen in numerous nationalist and ‘red-brown’ booklets and papers of the 1990s. National bolshevism appeared undisguised without paying lipservice to Marxism-Leninism. Furthermore, Eurasianism and the philosophy of ‘conservative’ or ‘national’ revolution, directly or indirectly, became fashionable objects of discussion within the opposition including nationalist-minded communists and numerous non- or anti-communist nationalists. As a striking example, Zyuganov’s communist party adopted the most essential parts of neo-Eurasianism as its new ideology. Among far right and extreme Russian nationalists, fascism as well as Hitlerite national socialism seemed to be the most attractive ideologies. With some reservation, all these phenomena can be considered to represent a ‘Westernisation’ of sorts of Russian conservative nationalism.

The post-Soviet era as an object of study In Stalin’s Soviet Union, in particular from the late 1930s on, national bolshevism as a shadow ideology had de facto a decisive influence on the country’s domestic and foreign policy. After Stalin’s death, however, a new era began in the history of the Soviet Union. Remaining a one-party empire, the post-Stalin Soviet Union was a divided country. Within the almighty communist party, there were more or less Western-minded reformers and Russian-minded conservatives fighting each other. At the same time, there were anticommunist both democratic and nationalist dissidents fighting the regime. Gorbachev’s policy of glasnost and democratisation aggravated this confrontation that culminated in the failed coup d’état organised by the conservatives within the party top hierarchy. The democrats and liberals took over. At the same time, numerous anti-Russian separatist movements in all the non-Russian Soviet republics were getting stronger and stronger. This process ended up in the dissolution of the Soviet empire in December 1991. The post-Soviet Russia that took over the rights and duties of the Soviet Union serves as the main context in this study. After the fall of the Soviet regime, the ideological situation in society changed. The Soviet modernisation project had failed. The democrats and liberals in power proclaimed instead a neoliberal model of development, a policy that mobilised the opposition—the nationalist-minded communists and the nationalists—to resist vehemently all attempts to reform Russia. The main verbal alternatives excluding each other were liberal democracy and market economy versus national authoritarian rule and mixed economy. In plain language, the

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traditional controversy dividing Russia—the Western model of modernisation versus a separate national path of development—appeared now undisguised. As will be seen in the next chapter, the abrupt and radical dismantling of the Soviet system resulted in great problems for the common people as well as in growing contradictory tendencies. The division of society was deepening: on the one hand there was a ‘robber capitalism’ emerging and taking over in state and society; on the other, a budding conservative antiliberal mood was making itself felt in society. These phenomena with roots in the Soviet past created a seedbed of modern Russian nationalism of the 1990s. In other words, the new Russia that came into being under Yeltsin serves as a concrete political and socioeconomic context of the topic of this study—the Westernisation of the Russian radical right of the 1990s as well as of the first years of the new millennium.

2 Yeltsin’s Russia as a divided country—a seedbed of growing conservatism In Russian history, conservative anti-Western thought has originally been coloured by traditionalism embodying the values of the Slavic-Orthodox civilisation. Later on, during the last decades of the nineteenth century as well as during the first half of the twentieth century, there were strong influences of German radical rightism. Nevertheless, before the 1990s most Russian nationalists remained traditionalist in their aspirations—the monarchy and Orthodox theocracy should be restored in Russia. With the birth of post-totalitarian Russia, the old conflict between reform and tradition was undergoing a gradual transformation into a controversy between different political options of modernity. More and more nationalist-minded Russians began to realise that the ongoing development was irreversible and tried to adapt to the changing reality. After the fall of the Soviet regime and the break-up of the Soviet empire, the new political and economic realities in Russia could be characterised as follows: • After an initial period of dual power (1991–93) when the popularly elected President Yeltsin and the popularly elected Supreme Soviet of Russia had been confronting each other, presidential rule was introduced in Russia (see Dunlop 1995, 316–23). In addition, a parliament with a weak power status was appointed through general multiparty elections. As a result, the executive power was almost sovereign. This being the case, Russia was closer to authoritarian than democratic rule. At the same time, the Russian state was weak and economically dependent on the West. • Notwithstanding the aformentioned authoritarian tendency, political pluralism was firmly rooted in the shape of numerous political parties and movements along with a very great number of publications of the most different political orientation. • The process of dismantling the Soviet system including privatisation of state-owned enterprises took place in a situation of lawlessness and anarchy. A ‘wild big capitalism’ with criminal connections emerged and took over the country. Officially, Yeltsin and his administration pursued a policy of reforms aiming at creating a market economy. This liberal experiment resulted in several unexpected serious problems.

Historical precursors in the Soviet era Contemporary Russian capitalism and ideological pluralism did not emerge ex nihilo. As a matter of fact, both these phenomena can be traced back, albeit in a disguised form and to a limited extent, to the late 1950s. At that time, the ideological climate changed from terror and isolationism towards limited openness and growing contacts with the West.

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Notwithstanding all ideological restrictions, the impact of Western culture on the Soviet Union, particularly on Soviet urban life, became more and more obvious with the growing number of tourists and the increasing economic, technological, scientific and cultural exchanges between the Soviet Union and the West throughout the 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s. With the rapid pace of urbanisation that had started in all parts of the Soviet Union in the late 1950s, a more or less bourgeois urban life style was developing in Moscow and other big cities including Leningrad. The Western material culture in general, and the Western ideal of good life in particular, attracted large numbers of admiring Russians. The nomenklatura, the privileged social strata, served as trendsetters and other social strata followed suit. The urban environment, with Moscow playing the leading role, became fertile ground for a rampant petty bourgeois—some would say philistine—mentality. The infatuation with Western patterns of consumption had sneaked into Soviet society through the back door in spite of all the official propaganda to the contrary. In the long run, people simply were not willing to renounce all worldly goods for ideological slogans that held out the prospect of a bright, but distant, utopia. At the same time, this tendency of adopting certain patterns of Western life style was paralleled by a national awakening among Russian-minded intellectuals who adopted a traditionalist attitude towards Russia’s prerevolutionary past. As a consequence, a disguised rightist Russian nationalism was emerging in the Soviet Union in the late 1960s and gradually developed into an overt opposition, offering an alternative to the official ideology of the Brezhnev regime as well as to the Western ideas of liberalisation and democratisation of the Soviet society. ‘Shadow capitalism’ In the late 1950s, a new social class emerged along with the transition to a more or less normal monetary economy in post-Stalinist Soviet society. This class represented a coalition of the emerging business elite with the nomenklatura of the party and the state apparatus. Vladimir Pastukhov, a Moscow political scientist, called it ‘the nomenklatura bourgeoisie’ (nomenklaturnaia burzhuaziia). It was formally second only to the top level of the nomenklatura in importance (Pastukhov 1992). In the 1960s and 1970s, the increased trade and economic cooperation between the Soviet Union and certain Western countries created new opportunities for the economic elite to strengthen its position. By the late 1970s and early 1980s, this Soviet bourgeoisie had developed into a ruling class that had got everything but formal recognition. The widespread corruption within the establishment provided the representatives of the nomenklatura bourgeoisie with ample opportunities to get rich at the expense of the state. Thus, the precursors of today’s Russian capitalists were ordinary crooks. As a matter of fact, there had been a symbiosis of sorts between the socialist command economy and the so-called capitalist shadow economy ever since the late 1950s. The pervasive government regulations of economy and the indifference of the Soviet command system to a number of economic laws (which resulted in some artificially low prices) paved the way for these informal relations with the command economy. The merger of the two systems resulted in different forms of symbiosis. Some of them were of mafia variety, others were less criminally biased’ (Alapuro 1992, 6). The fact that the

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emerging new bourgeois class was intermingled with a mafia structure within the establishment, from the bottom to the very top, became a matter of public knowledge only during the glasnost era. This being the case, we can conclude that today’s criminalised Russian capitalism is much older than post-totalitarian Russia! Paradoxically, the high degree of corruption in Brezhnev’s Soviet society paved the way for a business philosophy of sorts, albeit in an abnormal way, and a more or less advanced monetary economy could emerge on the quiet. In plain language, a disguised commercialisation of life was going on within the new class: in time almost everything— university degrees, doctoral dissertations, appointments, decorations, and marks of distinction—could be obtained for money. In the light of this kind of analysis, perestroika and the call for a market economy stood out as a by-product of a changing balance of power within the nomenklatura, more specifically between the politically defined top stratum and the socioeconomically defined nomenklatura bourgeoisie. In the 1980s, the latter had gained so much clout that a subordinate role was no longer appropriate. The situation resembled that of France almost 200 years ago when the representatives of le tiers état demanded political power. Thus, in the 1980s, there were certain signs that seemed to foretell the arrival of a Russian version of the French revolution of 1789: the political interests of the new economic elite, the nomenklaturnaia burzhuaziia, became the driving force of Gorbachev’s perestroika in 1985–91. A growing nationalist opposition The post-Stalin period marked, in fact, a deep and protracted ideological crisis in the Soviet Union. Nikita Khrushchev’s de-Stalinisation campaign manifested itself in a critical re-evaluation of the recent past. The lawlessness and repressive policy that had prevailed under Stalin could now be discussed, at least to a limited extent. As a consequence, numerous intellectuals lost interest in socialism as an ideal society. This disillusionment was aggravated by Khrushchev’s unsuccessful attempts to resolve the Soviet Union’s chronic agricultural problems. Russia’s classical problem had arisen: Should the country correct its inefficient socialism by adopting elements of the Western liberal model of development or should it choose a separate path of development based on its own national traditions? Under Khrushchev, there had been some modest attempts to make Soviet society more like the West. ‘Catch up with and surpass the most advanced capitalist states in production per capita!’ the slogan went. Yet, it was becoming increasingly apparent that Khrushchev’s proud economic visions of the Soviet future had been completely unrealistic. As a consequence, his reform policy was totally compromised. Brezhnev’s takeover in 1964 marked the beginning of the so-called period of stagnation. The first years of this era were marked by some minor Western-style economic reforms that, in fact, came to nothing. The mentality of the ruling stratum was oriented towards the preservation of the status quo. ‘Order’, ‘work’, and ‘patriotism’ were catchwords of that time (cf., Laqueur 1994, 18). As a result, even among staunch supporters of the regime, Marxism-Leninism as a source of belief was more and more being replaced by conservative patriotism, i.e. by Russian nationalism in its traditionalist

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as well as national bolshevik versions. An increasing number of Russians had been looking for more tenable ideals in Russia’s history before 1917, and, thus, for their original national identity. This tendency was strengthened by fears for the future of the Russian people: the low birth-rate of the Russians, the increasing alcoholism and corruption in society were perceived as manifestations of a moral degeneration. At the same time there was a deep popular fear of China, especially after the border clashes in 1969. The main impulse behind the revival of Russian nationalism under Brezhnev seems to have been the desire to defend the Russian interests, and the Russian people itself, against whatever was threatening it (Duncan 2000, 69). This national awakening in the middle of the 1960s later took place within as well as outside the establishment. Within the communist party and the state apparatus, it appeared in the shape of national bolshevism manifesting itself in the growing influence of the military establishment and the KGB. In literature, the so-called rural writers (derevenshchiki) like Valentin Rasputin and Vasilii Belov focused on rural Russia with its centuries-old traditions as the one and only tenable ideal in Russian history. This national romanticism gained ground among intellectuals including a religious revival in all strata of society, as well as a growing interest in Russia’s history before 1917, and in the preservation and restoration of national monuments, primarily churches. A current of conservative traditionalist thought, often called national patriotism, was spreading throughout the country and offering an alternative to the official ideology of the Brezhnev regime. Actually, it was a political dissident movement with ideological ramifications deep into the political establishment where, as we have seen, it appeared in the shape of national bolshevism. Outside the aforementioned establishment, there were nationalist-minded dissidents called pochvenniki24 (the soil-bound), a derivative of the Russian word pochva (soil). These ethnocentric nationalists had had their precursors in the nineteenth century. Before 1985, the pochvenniki as well as their allies among literary critics and publicists used to circumscribe Orthodox Christianity by referring to centuries-old ethical traditions of the Russian people. Unable to blame Marxism-Leninism openly for the moral decay and the spiritual crisis in Soviet society, they chose to talk about the dangerous influence of Western culture and cosmopolitanism on the moral health and cultural heritage of the Russian people. The Russian dissident nationalists who operated at samizdat-level could openly declare their ideas which, in general, were coloured by Orthodoxy, monarchism and anticommunism, and, often, by anti-Semitism. In 1969, they were joined by the Nobel prize winner A. Solzhenitsyn, who, however, represented moderate nationalism. On the other hand, in the late 1970s, his comrade-in-arms academician Igor Shafarevich moved towards the extreme right. The main adversary of the nationalists was not the CPSU as such, but its reform—and more or less Western-minded members as well as their non-partisan counterparts who wanted to continue the reforms that had started under Khrushchev. In their view, the Soviet system could be corrected through some certain Western-style democratic and liberal reforms. The most radical of them, like the academician Andrei Sakharov, a noncommunist liberal, and the historian Roy Medved’ev, a liberal-minded Marxist, became dissidents at samizdat-level. Others like Aleksandr Tvardovskii25 tried to pursue their

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ideals within the establishment. They wanted to introduce a democratic socialism a la Dubcek. Formally, Marxism-Leninism remained the official state ideology that people paid lipservice to. Thus, in principle, totalitarianism was still in force. Actually, MarxismLeninism served as a façade behind which a clandestine struggle between different ideological factions of the CPSU was going on. The main confrontation took place between liberal- and Western-minded reformers and Russian-minded conservatives, usually called national bolsheviks. The first open ideological confrontation between Marxism and Russian nationalism took place in the late 1960s between Novyi mir (New World), a cultural and political periodical that represented the liberal Marxist point of view, and Molodaia gvardiia (Young Guard), a periodical representing the national, or rather the national bolshevik, point of view.26 The national patriots and neo-Stalinists cooperated and came out the winners in this struggle. The outcome of the ‘Iakovlev affair’ in 1972 also proved that the national patriots were arguing from a position of strength within the state and party hierarchy.27 Another proof of the strength of Russian nationalism in society was the authorities’ selective treatment of dissidents. People professing liberal and democratic ideas were repressed without mercy and sent to labour camps or mental hospitals, whereas right-wing nationalists, in most cases, got off with a scratch. Laqueur presents an illuminating example: being a nationalist, Igor Shafarevich was left in peace, notwithstanding the fact that he had written a devastating critique of socialism—it was published in the 1970s in Paris—as well as numerous similar essays. Furthermore, he had signed various appeals by dissidents. On the other hand, Andrei Sakharov, whose ideas at the time were those of a Western social democrat who did not reject socialism per se, was subject to many years of persecution (cf., Laqueur 1993, 65 f). It turns out, that even the anti-communist nationalists had well-wishers and protectors among the supreme party leadership. The bonds of loyalty between nationalists were stronger than those between communists. In the 1970s and early 1980s, the national patriots, in fact, gravitated towards the extreme anti-Semitic right. This could be seen within the establishment, notably among young functionaries, as has been noted earlier. Among the dissident national patriots, the dividing line between extremists and moderates was becoming more marked, as was the case with Veche, an underground publication in 1971–74. The name Veche referred to the local assemblies that had existed in certain ancient Russian cities such as Novgorod and Pskov. Veche’s editorial staff with Vladimir Osipov28 as editor-in-chief was more or less national-liberal,29 while its anti-intellectual readers represented chauvinistic and antiSemitic views. The former tried to play the role of a loyal opposition to the regime and emphasised how important it was for Russia to isolate itself from the rest of the world and from its dangerous influences. In plain language, it preached rigid isolationism in foreign policy. In his famous letter to the Soviet leaders in 1973, Solzhenitsyn suggested that Russia should be allowed to develop according to its own national peculiarities (cf., Solzhenitsyn 1974). This implied the deurbanisation of society, or more specifically, the restoration of a peasant and Orthodox Russia. Solzhenitsyn’s letter was never answered by the Soviet leadership, but the influence of some of the moderate traditionalist ideas expounded in it

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can be seen in the ideological metamorphosis of Gennadii Zyuganov and his communist party that materialised in 1993–96. This phenomenon is discussed later in this study. If Veche officially proclaimed liberal nationalism of sorts, the readers of this publication—the so-called ‘patriotic masses’—represented attitudes coloured by rampant anti-Semitism and anti-intellectualism. One of these numerous readers, Mikhail Antonov, wrote a long letter to the editor in which he pointed out the irreconcilable opposition between Russian and Western views in all spheres of life. He perceived the Russian Western intelligentsia as contaminated by a false ‘Jewish-Puritanical worldview’. Therefore, all Jews should be weeded out from their positions of influence. A union of Russian Orthodox Christianity with Leninism was needed to consolidate the forces of the nation (cf., Yanov 1987, 138 f). The idea of cooperation between the CPSU and Orthodox nationalists was followed up by another Russian extreme traditionalist, Gennadii Shimanov, who interpreted the Soviet system as a divine instrument for constructing a new Christian world (ibid., 236). In his view, in time, the communist party would transform itself into an Orthodox Christian party and embrace the notion of Orthodox theocracy. The ultimate goal was ‘the Orthodoxisation of the entire world resulting in a certain russification of it‘(cf., Chalidze 1988, 92). During the late 1970s and the early 1980s, dissident national patriotism went through a semi-fascist stage of development that reached a climax with the formation of the Pamiat movement in 1985. In 1987–91, the foreign as well as Soviet mass media focused on Pamiat as the first independent political organisation representing the extreme right in the USSR.

The late ‘bourgeois’ revolution in 1991 With the fall of the Soviet regime in 1991, the series of European revolutions starting in 1789 had come to an end. The French Revolution had signified a final breakthrough for societal modernisation on the European continent. Its ideas served as a driving force in introducing democracy and economic liberalism in most European countries. Even in tsarist Russia, there had been several attempts to replace autocracy with a constitutional monarchy, to abolish serfdom and to introduce a democratic legislature along with a declaration of the civil rights of Man, i.e. the objectives of a bourgeois revolution. The Decembrist uprising in 1825, the abolishment of serfdom in 1861 and the subsequent Great Reforms, the revolution of 1905 and the February revolution in 1917 were important landmarks in the history of Russia’s protracted and unfinished modernisation. As is well known, all of these ended up as failures or half-measures. With the demise of the totalitarian one-party regime in August 1991 and the subsequent break-up of the Soviet Union in December 1991, the ‘bourgeois’ democratic revolution,30 finally, seemed to have accomplished its mission, at least in dismantling the old system and emancipation of man from ideological tutelage. Transition to European modernity in politics and in the field of economics became possible. However, the question arose: If in European history, feudalism was defeated by capitalism, what stage of development did the Soviet era 1917–91, actually, represent?

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In the social and political debate of the 1990s in Russia, the concept ‘feudal socialism’ was frequently used.31 The view that the Soviet era represented a military-feudal totalitarian society is still quite popular. On the other hand, V.Pastukhov, a political scientist, rejects such an assessment of the above period. In his view, the Soviet Union represented a post-feudal but pre-capitalist stage of development (cf., Parland 1993a, 573). From the point of view of modernisation, the collectivisation and industrialisation of the country did represent a historically inevitable stage of development as the old paternalistic agrarian society was thereby swept away. In this specific sense, the extremely high price in human lives that had been paid for this policy does not change the matter. The democratic ‘August revolution’ in 1991, actually, signified nothing but the removal of the façade of an already lifeless one-party socialism. Within the nomenklatura, the party ideologists who had been the final decision-makers at all levels (the first secretaries) of the party administration (the nucleus of the state apparatus) were replaced by the business- and more or less Western-minded second and third party secretaries (cf., Sogrin 1994, 146) who had turned anti-communist. Significantly enough, the ban on the CPSU and the Russian communist party did not evoke a single protest in society. Thus, there was no real need for a party that was paralysed by internal conflicts and ideological divisions. Furthermore, internationalist Marxism-Leninism in its Soviet interpretation had compromised itself for good. This being the case, problems other than the traditional controversy between communists and anti-communists began to divide society. The situation did not change in 1992, when several communist parties were founded. Being by far the largest and most influential among them, Zyuganov’s party, in fact, started to jettison Marxism in favour of conservative nationalism coloured by Orthodoxy. Other communist parties that adhered more or less to the ideas of internationalist Marxian socialism and communism, stressed their Stalinist, or old-fashioned, Leninist interpretations. At the same time, even these communists were Russian-minded and strongly anti-Semitic. Thus, they too were unable to resist totally the influence of Russian nationalism. However, as political parties they were too small to play any significant role in Russian politics. We can therefore conclude that most Russian communists were moving from Marxism-Leninism to non-Marxian Russian nationalism. After the fall of the communist regime, Yeltsin’s anti-communist ideological movement, Demokraticheskaia Rossiia (Democratic Russia) began to disintegrate. Already in the Autumn of 1991, three right-centrist movements—M.Astaf’ev’s constitutional democrats,32 V.Aksiuchits’ Christian democrats33 and N.Travkin’s Democratic Party of Russia (DPR)34—quit Yeltsin’s ‘camp’. The two first-mentioned moved far to the political right and joined the intransigent opposition, whereas the DPR sided with the political conservative centre. Adhering to the principle of ‘one, indivisible Russia’ (edinaia i nedelimaia Rossiia), however, Astaf’ev, Aksiuchits and Travkin were opposed to the dissolution of the Soviet empire. Instead, they advocated the idea of strong centralised state power (cf., Sogrin 1994, 138; Dunlop 1995, 296 f). In a word, all of these new opposition movements were influenced by the conservative ‘Russian idea’ which manifested itself in the shape of great power nationalism and conservative paternalism. The same could be said also of Vice President A. Rutskoi’s party—the

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Popular Party ‘Free Russia’ (Narodnaia partiia ‘Svobodnaia Rossiia’)—which joined the opposition at the end of 1992. New examples of this ideological metamorphosis were to appear in 1993–97.35 Yeltsin’s neoliberal reforms—economic determinism Marxism-Leninism had represented political determinism, i.e. a belief that the state and the party could change man’s nature and eliminate all the vices of society. Yet the radical reformers’ ideological alternative represented utopian thinking, too. Their argumentation was coloured by economic determinism: a free-market economy without state tutelage would resolve all the problems in society. In plain language, they had adopted the neoliberal ideas of Friedrich von Hayek and Milton Friedman, the most important representatives of contemporary Anglo-Saxon economic thought. Originally, the ruling democrats’ radical reform policy was based on the belief that Russia could and should be reformed in accordance with the Western universal ideal of a totally free market economy. Russia’s own traditions, habits and historical experience were not taken into account except for the old ambition of both Peter the Great, Lenin, Stalin and partly even Khrushchev to accelerate the process of modernisation in order to catch up with the West. An echo of this thinking was sounding in Yeltsin’s promise in October 1991 that the reforms would quickly (in one year) stabilise the economy and result in a better life for people (cf. Sogrin 1994, 115). As the economic situation in Russia, on the contrary, turned out to be much worse in the autumn 1992 and continued to deteriorate in the following years, the democrats and their ideas were losing more and more of their credibility. This could be seen in their defeat in the parliamentary elections in 1993, not to mention the subsequent elections in 1995. Then, have Yeltsin’s reforms been a failure, as Tim McDaniel sees it (cf., McDaniel 1996, 162–86)? The answer could be both Yes and No. It is beyond doubt that the Soviet system of totalitarian socialism has been totally dismantled and the development towards market economy and a limited democracy of sorts has become irreversible. At the beginning of 1997, nearly 80 percent of the Russian economy had been privatised (cf., Remnick 1997, 366). This fact seems to have been accepted even by the main opposition parties which were adapting to the new situation. The presidential elections in 1996 were conducted without greater problems and there was no party to contest the result—the reelection of Yeltsin. On the other hand, the price for the government’s neoliberal policy had been very high. Already the Gaidar reforms in 1992 resulted in the impoverishment of the population and the establishment of a limited group of the very rich (cf., Birman 1996, 742). Society became polarised in a way that resembled the Marxian view of the primitive accumulation of capital: the rich become wealthier, the poor poorer (cf., Sogrin 1994, 131). The economic situation in Russia did not improve. On the contrary, living standards on the whole declined sharply and for the vast majority the decline continued (cf. Birman 1996, 746). Ordinary people’s disillusionment with the reformers could already be seen in the fact that the very word ‘democrat’ had become a swearword, as Boris Fedorov, previously Yeltsin’s minister of economics, put it. Furthermore, the Russian capitalist development was marked by a widespread corruption and criminalisation of society and state administration.

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Criminal capitalism—the New Russians and the mafia The democrats in power, spearheaded by Yeltsin, actually relied upon the bourgeois nomenklatura whose economic position in society needed to be legitimised and strengthened. At the same time, with the confiscation and redistribution of the immense property of the communist party (CPSU) throughout the country, numerous leaders of the democrats became rich enough to join the economic elite (cf. Sogrin 1994,145 f). As has already been noted, there had been links between the earlier disguised capitalist elite and the mafia. Later on, this increasing interaction, as it seems, resulted more or less in their merging. As an irony of history, the disappearance of the CPSU, the nucleus of the state apparatus, signified the entry of the criminal world, ‘historically the most enterprising part of Russia’ (cf., Sinyavsky 1997, 80), into Russia’s economy and political structures. As the external restrictions on human behaviour in general, and on private ownership in particular were abolished, a perfect environment for mafia growth had been created: the secret wealth accumulated by underground tycoons and party barons found now a legitimate outlet (cf., Handelman 1994, 87ff; Modestov, 1996, 384 f). The result was a real paradox: Yeltsin’s sweeping reforms aiming at creating a market economy were paralleled by an obvious criminalisation of state and society. Politically, the democrats and the criminals had had a mutual interest in opposing the communists: ‘Gangsters ranked among the staunchest defenders of democracy during the August 1991 coup’ (Handelman 1994, 93). Before that time, organised crime in the Soviet Union had been considered by the democrats to be a product of the lack of freedom in a communist one-party system. The gangsters would turn honest businessmen in a Westernised capitalist free Russia, the argument went. Yet, after the ‘democratic revolution’ in August 1991 the development was the opposite: an ever-increasing corruption and criminalisation of state and society distorted the political and economic development in Russia. State power became controlled and administered not by society as in normal democracies but more and more by the criminal world. The privatisation campaign conducted by Anatolii Chubais36 is a good case in point. In plain language, the purpose of that privatisation was to legalise the economic elite’s status. About two-thirds of all privatised state property were transferred as private property to the same people who had earlier been entitled only to use it. Very often, property sold by auction could be obtained for next to nothing by representatives of the economic elite who were assisted by criminal groupings in intimidating potential rival bidders (cf., McDaniel 1996, 167). Consequently, when the reformers privatised state monopolies they ended up with private monopolies that excluded competition. In Goldman’s view, the absence of a real competitive market in Russia is at least a partial explanation for the dominance of the mafia (cf., Goldman 1997, 315). In post-totalitarian Russia, the criminal aspect of this capitalism could not remain a taboo in the ongoing political debate. The situation was getting more and more alarming as there were a growing number of political murders along with contract murders in the field of business and media that had remained unresolved. The problem with organised crime was debated not only in the media and in the Duma; it also became a new exciting topic for writers and publicists. In 1994, the national-minded film director

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S.Govorukhin37 published his sensational book Velikaia kriminal’naia revoliutsiia (The Great Criminal Revolution), which delivered a devastating criticism of Yeltsin’s regime. The view that Russia was run by criminals was shared by nationalists as well as by communists. Later on, in 1996–97, with the rise to power of a new class of oligarchs— the bankers, media barons and industrialists who had financed Yeltsin’s re-election in 1996—even some representatives of the establishment began to talk about ‘banditskii capitalism’ or ‘criminal capitalism’ in Russia. Furthermore, even the American multibillionaire George Soros33 paradoxically, declared, that ‘the system of robber capitalism’ has taken hold in Russia (Soros 1997). Among Russian democrats opposing Yeltsin’s regime, G.Yavlinsky, the leader of Yabloko, said in 1998 that Russia had consolidated a semi-criminal oligarchy that was already largely in place under the old Soviet system. ‘After communism’s collapse, it merely changed its appearance, just as a snake sheds its skin’ (Yavlinsky 1998, 69). Commercialisation in the extreme sense of the word got also hold of the Orthodox Church, the supposed stronghold of Russian ethical and spiritual values against Western materialism. Behind the scenes, the Moscow Patriarchate was doing business with the West importing duty-free alcohol and tobacco as humanitarian aid (cf., Zolotov 1996, 6). As in today’s Russia, virtually, everything is for sale, one can conclude that secularisation and, consistently, Westernisation of society have become irreversible. This being the case, it is not surprising that ordinary Russians were inclined to identify free-market economy with organised crime and corruption. As an irony of history, the distorted view of Western capitalism that had been presented by Soviet propaganda seems now to correspond much better to contemporary Russian reality. There were, however, numerous Russians who considered the flaws of Russian capitalism almost normal, or at least unavoidable. As they saw it, criminalisation had to be taken for granted as a sort of natural disaster (cf., Shlapentokh 1997, 331). As a consequence, political indifference, despair and cynicism were prevailing in broad layers of society. Yet, the Russian mafia became quickly very active also abroad and aroused the fears that it would penetrate the Western economies (cf., Handelman 1994, 95). By the way, the vision that these ‘New Russians’ would overrun the rich West has been presented in literature through A. Sinyavsky, in his book The Russian Intelligentsia (cf., Sinyavsky 1997, 81 f). As a matter of fact, Russian criminals have already joined transnational criminal groupings that operate in different parts of the world (cf., Modestov 2 1997, 154 f). Alarming reports in the press and other media about these activities have already resulted in legislative initiatives in numerous Western countries putting up barriers against the new Russians. Today, it is difficult for Russians to get citizenship in other countries. The aforementioned phenomena were aggravating the deep nationality crisis that Russians had been undergoing since the dissolution of the Soviet empire in December 1991. Furthermore, the prevailing mood in society had also been influenced by several other frustrating phenomena like the ongoing disintegration of Russia, the humiliating military defeat in Chechnya, the disastrous consequences of ecological neglect, the total uncertainty about the post-Yeltsin future, etc. Will Russia survive or is it going to repeat the fate of Weimar Germany? This question was repeatedly asked in the Russian mass media in the 1990s.

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Integration with the West: globalisation In society, the general dissatisfaction with the economic policy had been aggravated by the impression that Russia had lost not only its super power status but also its independence per se. The dominance of Western values and ideals was conspicuous in the ongoing economic reforms and in the ‘new Russians’ lifestyle. Yet, the large-scale economic and political cooperation with the West at this time—Russia was weak, and still is—seems to have aroused the fear among numerous Russians that their country was at the mercy of foreign interests. From the very beginning, the reformers including M.Gorbachev had been relying upon a certain support of the West. The philosophy behind this policy could be seen in A.Yanov’s statement, that Russia could not modernise without ‘the intellectual and political support of the world community’ (Yanov 1987, 75). As Huntington points out, ‘the very phrase “the world community” has become the euphemistic collective noun (replacing “the Free World”) to give global legitimacy to actions reflecting the interests of the United States and other Western powers’ (Huntington 1993, 39). After the August revolution in 1991 and the dissolution of the Soviet empire in December 1991, Russia’s integration with the Western international economic and political system became a task of primary importance for the West spearheaded by the USA. This being the case and due to its contemporary weakness, Yeltsin’s Russia became very dependent on the West and its economic aid in the form of loans given by the IMF and the World Bank. As Duncan concludes, the enforced Westernisation of Gaidar and the IMF was ‘a social and economic disaster since it did not take Russian reality into account’ (Duncan 2000, 148). Those numerous Russians who were frightened by the vision of a weak Russia being robbed by the West and transformed into a semicolonial market for Western junk paid attention to some striking facts. They were as follows: First, Russia was exporting only oil, gas and raw materials, but importing everything else, including food. As a result, Russia’s domestic market was taken over by foreign products and commodities. Second, the ‘New Russians’ had become rich not through hard work but through speculation, good connections and illegal activities. The national industry was put on a back burner. The situation reminded of that in the Weimar republic where the nazis advocated national capitalism that was said to represent schaffendes Kapital (creative capital). Germany was viewed as threatened by Jewish raffendes Kapital (robber capital). Accordingly, post-Soviet Russia was perceived as being at the mercy of speculative capitalism embodied in the so-called oligarchs who in most cases happened to be Jews. Third, in Russia, dollars circulated as a national currency and newspaper advertisements indicated prices of goods in American dollars (Shlapentokh 1997, 331); common people were inclined to perceive this as corroborating the view of Russia as being transformed into a colony or semi-colony of the West. Solzhenitsyn described the situation with the words ‘the strike of the dollar’ (udar dollara). ‘We are now creating a cruel, brutal, criminal society’…(Solzhenitsyn 1995a, 101) Fourth, rich Russians transferred their wealth abroad to foreign banks. As a result, in

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1996, already more than 300 billion dollars had left Russia (cf., Remnick 1997, 356 f). In this respect, the Russian ‘gangster capitalists’, as they are sometimes called, turned out to be much less patriotic than their American equivalents 70–100 years ago, who, nevertheless, invested all stolen or grabbed money in their own country. Fifth, Americanisation of urban life was conspicuous in Moscow and other major cities. In Moscow, that was being blanketed by foreign advertising, signs and names, many houses on the main streets had been bought or rented by foreigners, and the local population had been evicted to the outskirts (Sinyavsky 1997, 15). Sixth, Americanisation of the mass media was going on as well as the ‘incredible corruption of the language with foreign words’ (ibid., 14); writer Solzhenitsyn several times severely criticised this phenomenon. At the same time, the influence of American English on other languages is nowadays not only a Russian, but a global problem. Yet, even the West has changed since the cold war when the Soviet Union was considered to constitute a threat to the Western democracies. Judging from all, the welfare state philosophy that was cultivated in the West of that time served as an efficient ideological antidote against the communist alternative. Yet, after the cold war the victorious West, in fact, has jettisoned it in favour of the laissez-faire principle with the purpose of creating a global capitalism of sorts. As a consequence, with the increasing international mobility of capital, the authority of the state has been declining and that of the multinationals increasing. The public sector, as it seems, cannot survive the pressures of global competition in a situation when globalisation has opened tax-evading doors for multinationals and many individuals. In Susan Strange’s words, ‘society is at the mercy of big business’ as the state has less power than before to protect the vulnerable and to preserve the environment (S.Strange 1997, 369). Could it be that contemporary leading Western neoliberal economists and politicians have found the welfare state philosophy outdated as there is no Soviet threat anymore? Paradoxically, in 1997, laissez-faire ideology claiming to represent the absolute truth— was quite unexpectedly criticised by George Soros, the famous billionaire financier.38 Advocating the idea of income redistribution—‘if there is no mechanism for redistribution, the inequities can become intolerable’—he opposed social Darwinism by saying that ‘cooperation is as much part of the system as competition, and the slogan “survival of the fittest” distorts this fact’ (Soros 1997). As Soros underlines, if social services are cut too far while instability is on the rise, popular resentment could lead to a new wave of protectionism, and this could lead to a breakdown in the global capitalist system, just as it did in the 1930s. So far, this warning has fallen on deaf ears. With the neoliberal laissez-faire philosophy serving as a new universal dogma, Russia and the West began to resemble each other in some respects: First, the haste to integrate Russia with the West was nothing but part of globalisation. Thus, foreign, in most cases Western, investments are a normal phenomenon everywhere in the world. Consequently, there are numerous countries, not only Russia, where this development arouses resentment and fears that the own national identity will be lost; Second, Russia’s democratic deficit—the 1993 Constitution implies almost authoritarian rule and today’s economic elite represents a typical oligarchy—has its parallel in the West, at least as a trend. There, the democratic principle of accountability

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to the people is getting threatened as power is shifting from state structures to private companies. None of the new nonstate authorities including the multinationals are accountable, and few are even transparent (cf., Strange 1997, 366). Furthermore, the free international mobility of capital makes democracy superfluous. Third, today, both in the West and in Russia, the establishment adheres to the cult of success which is equivalent to the social Darwinist doctrine of the survival of the fittest. As a consequence, the economic polarisation is progressing, albeit at a lower speed, also in the West where a slow but implacable dismantling of the welfare state is making itself felt. In a way, this polaristion has been more conspicuous in Russia as there is no welfare state to be dismantled. Fourth, organised crime has been rapidly growing and expanding not only in Russia but also in all Western industrial countries (cf., Martin-Schumann 1997, 251). The Russian mafia, however, seems to be closer intertwined with the power structure than its colleagues in the West, at least so far. In 1995 Solzhenitsyn concluded, that ‘the first and the main liberty in Russia was committing crimes without any fear of being punished’ (Solzhenitsyn 1995, 13). Fifth, ordinary people’s growing dissatisfaction with the decreasing standard of living and the uncertainty about the future contributed to a rise of conservative and rightist backlash attitudes both in Russia and in the West. This tendency was obvious already during the second half of the 1990s. Good cases in point were the slogans of Pat Buchanan in the USA, of Jean-Marie Le Pen in France, of Jörg Haider in Austria, and of Silvio Berlusconi in Italy as well as the views held by Russian nationalists like A.Barkashov and V.Zhirinovsky. On the whole, the aforementioned parallel phenomena seemed to hint at a somewhat common future for both Russia and the West, at least as regards certain common problems. The perspective of right-wing conservative backlashes leading to undemocratic forms of rule in some Western countries as well as in Russia cannot be totally ruled out. ‘Eine Umwertung aller Werte’ (A re-evaluation of all values)—A conservative change of the ideological climate In post-totalitarian Russia, the contradictory image of the new regime as a combination of liberal democracy, authoritarianism and a partly criminal capitalism has had a confusing and embarrassing effect on the general opinion. Moreover, people felt cheated as the radical democrats in power spearheaded by Yeltsin had not lived up to their promises of a better life. The new neoliberal laissez-faire policy let everyone take care of himself and make his own fortune without any state tutelage. In this situation coloured by excessive economic individualism, attitudes hostile to social thinking and humanism were gaining ground in society and the ideological atmosphere became more conducive to conservative thinking including right-wing radicalism. These are some of the most typical attitudes. Pessimism Officially, Marxist-Leninist developmental optimism lasted as long as to the August events in 1991. Actually, it had lost its credibility 25–30 years earlier. In the mid-1960s, a

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pessimistic mood was emerging among the intellectuals along with a religious revival and a national romantic yearning for prerevolutionary Russia. This traditionalist spirit was well documented in the so-called village literature that focused on the depressing situation in the injured countryside. The growing interest in Russia’s rural past and national heritage coincided with a decline in faith in science and technology. In Laqueur’s words, ‘there were frequent references to the destruction of traditional life and the growing imbalance in the relationship between man and nature’ (Laqueur 1994, 63). An apocalyptic preview of a coming ecological worldwide disaster caused by Western and Soviet industrialism was brought forwards by Solzhenitsyn in his famous letter to the Soviet leaders in 1973 (cf., Solzhenitsyn 1974, 20 f). After 1985, side by side with the aforementioned fin-de-siècle disillusionment of sorts, in broad layers of society there were Western-minded intellectuals who hoped that Russia could be saved if helped by the West. Yet, this new developmental optimism, from 1990 on, coloured by neoliberalism, could not survive in Yeltsin’s new Russia for two main reasons. First, the break-up of the Soviet empire was a shocking and frustrating experience for most Russians—moderate national patriots and national liberals who had voted for Yeltsin considered it to be ‘too high a price for democracy’; second, the ruling democrats spearheaded by Prime Minister Y.Gaidar were unable in their practical policy to live up to their optimistic promises. The old pessimistic view of the situation in Russia shared by traditionalist nationalists was now gaining ground in broad layers of society. Even part of the democrats became pessimists. Mikhail Poltoranin, one of Yeltsin’s former associates and a former minister, is a good case in point. In April 1997 he said that Russia was already dying with all its stores of arms that are going to detonate in 5 or 7 years (cf., Bogdanova 1997). Social Darwinism As has already been noted, the economic reforms in post-totalitarian Russia were coloured by Western neoliberalism and monetarism. The state should not interfere in the operation of market in order to achieve economic and social goals or serve as a philanthropic institution. Everyone should take care of himself. Thus, the unrestricted and brutal capitalism that has established itself in Russia displayed a typical social Darwinism. Tim McDaniel’s description of the mentality of the new capitalist elite is illuminating: ‘We are now in the stage of the primitive accumulation of capital, they say. Concern about social justice, worker safety, environmental pollution, law, and other niceties of advanced capitalism must wait until the future. For now it is the survival of the fittest [my italics—TP], and these fittest will create a great and prosperous capitalist country that will rival the United States.’ (McDaniel 1996, 164). In Russian society, the struggle for survival was exacerbated by the fact that the rule of law actually was but a dead letter. In plain language, the new elite stopped at nothing in attempting to increase its wealth and power. The dividing line between ‘honest business’ and organised crime was blurred. The common people including owners of small firms were in an extremely difficult situation as there was no force to counterbalance these

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‘new Russians’. It has to be remembered that even if the overwhelming majority of its members opposed the practices of the new elite, the Parliament was actually powerless to pass laws against the will of the President and the cabinet. Thus, for the majority, capitalism had not brought freedom, but the rule of the strong (cf., Tim McDaniel 1996, 167). In Russian foreign policy, social Darwinism appeared in the shape of geopolitics that had become became fashionable in Russia after the dissolution of the Soviet empire in December 1991. The readiness of most former Soviet republics to apply for joining NATO as well as Russia’s alleged need to protect Russians living outside the borders of the Russian Federation became hotly debated issues in the media and in the Duma. Russia’s foreign policy evolved towards a more vigorous assertion of Russian great power national interests (cf., Sakwa 2002, 361). There were statements from Russian officials about ‘division of spheres of influence’ (Solovyov-Klepikova 1995, 214) and Russia’s ‘vital national interests’ on the territory of the former USSR. Furthermore, by the end of 1992 and in early 1993, there was a reassertion of Russia’s great power status in the world (cf., Sakwa 2002, 353). Vladimir Zhirinovsky, one of Russia’s outspoken geopolitical ideologists, emphasised that his country had always survived thanks to her Armed Forces (cf., Zhirinovsky 1993, 5). In his view, Russia will be respected by other nations only as a strong military power. After the parliamentary elections in 1993 in which Vladimir Zhirinovsky had won a great victory, some of the aforementioned ideas seem to have influenced Yeltsin’s and his government’s policy. At least, from 1994 Russian foreign policy became more and more assertive. Zhirinovsky himself served as a mouthpiece of the nationalist and conservative mood in society in general, and the military-industrial complex in particular. In the war waged against Chechnya in 1994–96 this mood manifested itself as imperial revanchism of sorts. During the second invasion of Chechnya in 1999 the militaristic rhetoric was even more pronounced. A strong political left in the real sense of the word is still missing in Russian politics. Thus, the only political force unconditionally and totally opposing Russian neoliberalism are the outspoken fascists and national socialists,39 including Barkashov’s party, Russian National Unity. On the other hand, social Darwinism is consonant with fascist and national socialist thinking implying that life is permanent warfare, and life acquires its meaning through constant struggle (cf., Hellén 1996). The Russian rightist movements’ backlash reaction was as racist and xenophobic as were the manifestations of the extreme right in Western Europe and in the USA. NonRussians in general and Jews in particular were blamed for deliberately ruining Russian economy through speculation, embezzlement and mafia activities, and for trying to turn Russia into a colony of the West. The question arises: Could it be, as many Russian nationalists claim, that the new almighty financial oligarchy in Russia, factually, represents a Russian branch of the international financial elite that is supposed to have emerged as the new influential actors in the ongoing globalisation process? At least, the rightist movements in both Russia and the West represent more or less the same pattern of backlash behaviour. One thing is clear: As a new example of Russia’s ‘Westernisation’, the first groups of Russian skinheads appeared in Moscow, St Petersburg and some other cities in 1997.

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Like their counterparts in the West these youngsters see their mission in beating up coloured people who are viewed as parasites in Russia (cf., Alisa Pedashenko, 1997). Inequality In 1992, the economic ‘shock therapy’ had resulted in an aggravation of the social contrasts in society. Those who belonged to the nouveaux riches considered these contrasts to be not only natural but justified as well (cf. Sogrin 1994, 130). As is well known, in continental Europe, democracy has always been perceived as implying both liberty and equality. The latter principle has materialised in the so-called welfare state. In contemporary Russia, however, the opposite attitude towards ‘equalisation’ (uravnilovka) was shared by almost all parties represented in the Duma of 1993 (cf., Davies 1997, 61). The general opinion was obviously influenced by the media that in 1991–92 had nothing good to say about the Soviet past. The buzz-word reflecting the hostility to social equality was ‘Lumpen’ (a derivative of Marx’ Lumpenproletariat, i.e. ‘the scum and offcast and detritus of all classes’) (ibid., 62). In Russia, however, this concept was used to refer to the lower depths of society, the underprivileged who were viewed as obsessed by social envy. The Soviet system and its ‘lumpenisation’ was condemned, and so were, consequently, even the ideas of social equality and workers’ democracy. Ordinary Russians who opposed the drive to the free market were dismissed as Lumpens. This attitude of contempt for the common people had much in common with American Republican criticism of the welfare state. Thus, today’s Russian reform-minded intellectuals have become the antipode of their antecedents, the prerevolutionary intelligentsia, who supported greater social equality and spoke for the underprivileged. The actual glorification of social unequality by the ruling reformers in Russia suited well with the fascist and national socialist hostility to egalitarianism. But today, this train of thought seems to have its parallels even in the West where the welfare state, as it seems, is being dismantled step by step at the same time as the gap between those who are well off and those who are not is widening. As a result, xenophobia and racism is gaining ground among people whose living standard is threatened. In France, the Le Pen phenomenon is a good case in point. Logically, if the political situation, whether in Russia or in the West, continues to deteriorate, the prospect of a police state of sorts preserving order and peace need not necessarily be ruled out as a preferable option in the minds of ordinary people. Anti-communism Ideologically, Yeltsin and the radical reformers rejected Marxism and adopted pure liberalism already in 1990, one year before the birth of post-totalitarian Russia. They had earlier condemned Stalin for deviating from the principles of Lenin and advocated the idea of democratic socialism a la Dubcek. Now they were ready to repudiate the whole course of development since October 1917. The new view prevailing among the democrats and liberals was that Stalinism was nothing but the logical continuation of Leninism and Marxism. Furthermore, Trotsky was

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considered to have been as bad as or even worse than Stalin (cf., Davies 1997, 15). This kind of argumentation began to resemble that of anti-communist nationalists including A. Solzhenitsyn who considered the Marxist ideology as such to be guilty of all the disasters in the Soviet era.40 In post-totalitarian Russia, anti-communism had, in Davies’ words, ‘become a new orthodoxy, adherence to which was a condition for prestige and publication’ (Davies 1997, 41). In its Russian version, this new ideology had elements of rightist thinking as it rejected not only communism but also all varieties of socialism including social democracy. Furthermore, it now ‘became fashionable to dismiss not only Lenin’s road to socialism via NEP but also Kerensky’s road to parliamentary democracy via the Constituent Assembly’ (ibid., 43). In 1992, during the visit of the South African President Frederik Willem de Klerk to Moscow, liberal Izvestiya published documents from the newly opened archives in Moscow which sought to discredit the ANC (African National Congress) as including the South African communist party, ‘the fifth column controlled by Moscow’ (ibid., 46). Actually, this action best served the interests of ‘Westernised’ Russian nationalists who had turned racists and proclaimed ‘white power’. After the crisis of October 1993, some influential democrats suggested that the communists and other opponents be forbidden to participate in the parliamentary elections. Yeltsin, however, resisted these efforts on grounds of both principle and expediency. The situation in Russia was explosive, and a further political polarisation of society could lead to a civil war. As being based on a total repudiation of the Soviet past, Russian anti-communism implied a re-evaluation of all other ideological alternatives. As communism was considered to be le mal absolu, any other ideology seemed to be better. Thus, even the Russian extreme right could now improve its reputation. The first ‘domestic’ national socialist to make the most of the situation was Alexander Dugin in an article in 1991. In his view, contemporary world was not any longer what it had been after the Yalta conference, and ‘the criminal character’ of the conservative revolution was not at all that ‘obvious’ and ‘self-evident.’ ‘In the light of present revelations of the past, the extent and the absurdity of crimes committed by the left, the communists, exceed by far all that the nazis have been incriminated for’ (Dugin 1994, 36). Another attempt to view German national socialism as something positive, at least to some extent, was made by Viktor Astaf’ev outstanding novelist, nationalist and antiSemite, in Literaturnaia gazeta in January 1997. His comments on the war 1941–45 were revealing: Compared with our despots, the fascists were like children in a kindergarten…. The fascists tried not to exterminate their own people, they even took care of them during the war. But in our country, people were killed, executed, or put in jail for not informing against others. (Astaf’ev 1997, 1997, 11) Heinrich Himmler was depicted in a rather favourable light. ‘He personally ordered that Germans unwilling to shoot at Jews should not be brought to trial. You see the difference,

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don’t you?’ (ibid). In 1992–93, the publication of two books by Viktor Suvorov, a former KGB-officer in exile—The Ice-breaker (Ledokol) and Day-M (Den’ M) caused a sensation in Russia. Suvorov claimed frankly that the German invasion of the Soviet Union had been a preventive strike against Stalin’s planned attack (cf., Suvorov 1995). This thesis had earlier (in the mid-1980s) been brought forward by Joachim Hoffmann and other rightwing German historians. Suvorov’s books became bestsellers and were read by millions of Russians. The reader gets the impression that Stalin, not Hitler, was the real aggressor and the architect of World War II. No wonder that national socialist leader A.Barkashov interpreted Suvorov’s writings as proving that Great Britain, USA and France had made preparations for destroying national socialist Germany with the help of the Soviet Union (cf., Barkashov 1994, 84). Significantly enough, the first historian to undertake the task of refuting Suvorov was not a Russian but an Israeli, Gabriel Gorodetsky, who published a book on the topic in Russian in 1995 (cf., Davies 1997, 57). In the light of the aforementioned exemplars, fascist and national socialist ideologies were getting almost acceptable among many Russians in post-Soviet Russia. Suggestions to rehabilitate General Vlasov In the 1990s, the role played by General Andrei Vlasov and other Russian collaborators during the war was introduced by some historians and even writers, as has already been noted. Earlier, in Soviet time, this delicate problem had been a taboo. The only Russian who had dealt with it was A.Solzhenitsyn, in his book The Gulag Archipelago that was published in the West in the early 1970s. In this book, the Russian collaborators are depicted as victims of the cruel war between two totalitarian states. Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt are condemned for having betrayed General Vlasov and his soldiers. Having surrendered to American and British troops, these Russians, nevertheless, were transferred to the Soviet Union. Solzhenitsyn gives the reader to understand that the Russian collaborators, in fact, deserve to be rehabilitated. Today it is known that in the occupied territories where the population counted 70 millions, about 600,000 Soviet citizens including General Vlasov’s Russian Liberation Army (abbr. ROA) totalling 310,000 men had voluntarily served in the German Armed Forces (cf., Malinovskii, 164f). Yet, so far there is no reliable information on how many representatives of the population had served in the local German occupational administration, either as employees or as informers. However that may be, even these incomplete numbers show that Russian collaborationism played a much greater role in the war than has been officially admitted. Then, was General Vlasov a Russian patriot or a traitor? On this issue, the views of Russian historians as well as of Russian writers are divided. With the general reevaluation of the Soviet past that started already in the years of the perestroika, even Russian collaborationism had its defenders. The idea that collaboration with the German nazis could be justified with the struggle against communism became quite a popular view (cf., Mlekhin 1994, 44). This problem was dealt with in Novoe vremia, a democratic

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periodical, in March 1994. With the change of the political and ideological climate in the new Baltic republics and in Western Ukraina, ‘those who had fought on Hitler’s side now became heroes’ (ibid.). To make matters worse, certain Lithuanian citizens who had been sentenced in Soviet courts as war criminals were rehabilitated in 1990. This action was a consequence of the new official view according to which Soviet court verdicts were to be considered illegal. Yet, the rehabilitation aroused strong protests in Israel and even among Jews living in the Diaspora (cf., Messmer 1998, 33). Then, will General Vlasov and his soldiers be posthumously rehabilitated? This will hardly happen, as collaborationism during World War II is still rather condemned instead of appreciated by the general opinion in Russia. The apologists of Vlasov seem to be much fewer than those who consider him to be a traitor. However this may be, even on this issue Russia is divided. The theory of the ‘third force’ has served as the main argument for justifying Vlasov and his soldiers. According to it, General Vlasov and his army had surrendered voluntarily to the Germans in order to cooperate with them in defeating Stalin and his hated regime. On the other hand, the Vlasovites never intended to merge with the nazis ideologically. On the contrary, as it has been explained, their Russian Liberation Army (ROA) would at an appropriate moment cross the front line and join detachments and units of the Red Army in order to get them involved in a liberation war against the Bolshevik regime (cf., Malinovsky 1996, 166). In the view of his defenders, General Vlasov was a national hero and a patriot of his Fatherland because he wanted to save Russia from Bolshevism (ibid.). Yet, the question arises how he, being at the mercy of the Germans, could have been allowed to wage a private war against Stalin. The Pinochet syndrome Among common people, democracy generally was perceived as anarchy and wilfulness, or something strange and un-Russian. In times of chaos, turbulences and economic depression the voices calling for a strong leader tend to multiply. This disposition of the Russians seems to explain why ruthless and cruel but efficient autocratic rulers like Peter the Great and Stalin have been more popular than their weaker and ‘softer’ colleagues. As a matter of fact, the attitudes of most reformers were often far from democratic. The democrats found it hard to accept democratic elections in which they had been the losers. After Zhirinovsky’s unexpected victory in the parliamentary elections 1993, some prominent reformers declared that Russia was not mature for democracy (cf., Solov’evKlepikova 1995, 190 ff). The ultraliberal Valeriia Novodvorskaia41 demanded that Zhirinovsky be arrested and the mandates of his party’s deputies be annulled. The situation was paradoxical, indeed. The democrats feared a democracy that could lead to dictatorship, whereas Zhirinovsky favoured democracy in order to become a democratically elected dictator. Novodvorskaia called everyone who had voted for Zhirinovsky’s party a ‘mob’ (ibid.). In a poll conducted in 1995, the view that the government should be able to suspend civil liberties to fight crime or slander of the authorities was shared even more by the radical democrats, i.e. Gaidar’s supporters, than by Zhirinovsky’s and Zyuganov’s voters (Devlin 1999, 201 f).

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The democrats found themselves in the company of traditional conservatives a là Solzhenitsyn, Shafarevich42 and Vasil’ev who declared Western democracy to be anathema. What should be done as the ordinary Russians, the demos, had turned their back to the reformers? In the ongoing discussion on Russia’s future in the media even a restoration of the Romanov monarchy had been suggested as an option. In 1995, there was an upswing of monarchist activity in Moscow and St Petersburg. As the monarchist idea was still quite popular within the nationalist camp, it seemed to offer a political alternative to Yeltsin’s presidential rule. Yet all attempts to unite and consolidate the existing monarchist movements failed. This could be seen at the monarchist conference that was held in October 1995 in Moscow. The Majority party (Partiia bol’shinstva) representing moderate liberalism was not even invited. As a result, the conference was taken over by the extreme right (K. Ulybin 1995). And, as time went by in modernising Russia where everything was getting more or less secularised, the ‘monarchist fashion’ began to fade away. Alongside this traditionalist yearning for a God-chosen beloved monarch, the vision of a strong leader resembling a military commander of sorts attracted growing attention within the nationalist camp as well as among numerous democrats. The ideal prototype was a more down-to-earth ‘secular’ hero who, nevertheless, was supposed to perform miracles. As a matter of fact, the problem of the desirability of a ‘democratic’ dictatorship had been discussed in the reformist press long before August 1991 (cf., McDaniel 1996, 176). The people would not accept the pain necessary for the birth of a new economic and political system, the argument went. Thus, the only way to modernisation was ‘enlightened authoritarian rule’. In Russian history, there is one illuminating example of this kind of carrying out of reforms. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Petr Stolypin43 carried out his agrarian reform by resorting to a very repressive policy. People should not be granted too much freedom too early. Before introducing democracy, a generation of citizens had to be formed ‘worthy of liberty’ (cf., Laqueur 1993, 122). In the political and ideological discussions on Russia’s future since the late 1980s, Stolypin has had numerous admirers of quite different political orientation. Most radical reformers as well as several spokesmen of the conservative extreme right including Pamiat’ leader Vasil’ev (cf., Parland 1991) considered this Russian antidemocratic reformer to represent the only realistic policy for Russia. In fact, out of these considerations, as a contemporary strong leader, Pinochet in Chile became an object of widespread admiration among democrats as well as among numerous national patriots from the very beginning of the 1990s. Even Japan, South Korea and Singapore were referred to as exemplary authoritarian regimes with a prospering economy. Modern authoritarianism, in fact, implied the idea of creating a police state. Contrary to the postulates of traditional conservatism, a modern dictatorship like this implied that the government should renounce its responsibility to protect people. It should act as the surgeon conducting a painful operation, but the patient had to heal himself (cf., McDaniel 1996, 172). The aforementioned considerations were more or less embodied in Yeltsin’s Constitution of 1993: the president was invested with almost dictatorial power whereas the parliament was given a secondary role. However, Yeltsin had overestimated his

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ability and possibilities to modernise Russia without seriously destabilising the political and economic situation. He seemed to believe that the key to change was to let heroes perform miracles (cf.s, ibid., 173). In 1995–96, General A.Lebed’s popularity was gaining ground and culminated in his successful peacemaking in Chechnya in 1996. He did not belong to the Moscow elite and rather mirrored the thoughts and feelings of ordinary people living in the provinces. He seemed to possess the qualities of the strong and honest leader that was now needed in fighting corruption and organised crime as well as in bringing discipline and order in Russia. Expressing his admiration for Pinochet, Lebed said that the Chilean dictator had been able to revive his country’s economy (cf., Remnick 1997, 342 f). In 1997, among the liberals even a young radical reformer like Boris Nemtsov, deputy prime minister in Yeltsin’s government, joined the chorus of politicians who had from time to time been suggesting the methods of A.Pinochet to put Russia’s economy on a sound basis (cf., Slavin, Pravda, 1). As even Anatoly Chubais, Yeltsin’s ideological comrade-in-arms in the government, was harbouring similiar views (cf., Vishnevsky 1998, 9,11) the Russian radical reformers, paradoxically, seemed apt to support rather authoritarian than democratic rule in Russia. Objectively, they seemed to come close to the moderate and pragmatic national patriots who advocated strong authoritarian rule. Today, the almost unanimous support given to President Putin by the liberals corroborates this assumption. National reconciliation on nationalist terms After the fall of totalitarian socialism, the attitude towards communists divided the Russian society. The radical reformers in power as well as the extreme nationalists in opposition were intransigent anti-communists, whereas other oppositional movements were ready to cooperate with the communists on certain conditions and bring about a national reconciliation of sorts. The latter attitude had its roots in a moderate conservative thinking that emphasised national unity. As Solzhenitsyn declared, ‘party rivalry distorts the national will’ (Solzhenitsyn 1991, 70). The idea of reconciliation was opposed by the political extremes, the radical liberals on the one hand, and the fascists and national socialists on the other. The most intransigent liberals like Valeriia Novodvorskaia wanted to criminalise communism as such. On the other hand, their political antipodes like Barkashov’s paramilitary Russian National Unity preferred to cleanse Russia from her ‘inner enemies,’ i.e. the ‘alien non-Russian elements’ in general and the Jews in particular as the latter were supposed to use the communists as puppets on the string. The strong drive against communism in 1991–93 was marked by the radical reformers’ desire to cut off all the ties to the Soviet past and do away with Bolshevism once and for all. The Soviet period was repudiated and considered a parenthesis in Russia’s history. This new political intolerance was sometimes labelled ‘neo-Bolshevism’ as repeating the Bolsheviks’ attitude towards political adversaries. Yet, the violent confrontation in October 1993 between the President and the legislature embodied in the Supreme Soviet had showed the extreme danger of dividing society politically. Yeltsin had therefore insisted that the communists and other opponents of reform must not be forbidden to participate in the parliamentary elections in

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December 1993 (cf., Davies 1997, 59). This, probably, created the preconditions necessary for holding the elections without disturbances. The drive towards nationalism The December elections brought the ‘third force’—Zhirinovsky’s victorious rightist party—to the fore. The ideological climate in society had changed towards great power nationalism as a manifestation of a grave identity crisis that Russia had been undergoing after the dissolution of the empire. The depressing situation had been aggravated by the ruling democrats’ Western-style reforms including ‘shock therapy’. The attitude towards the West became more critical, and the anti-communist campaign lost its dominant position in political life. Instead, with the growing nationalist mood in society, the idea of strengthening Russia and avoiding inner discord was gaining ground in leading quarters. In 1994–95, even Yeltsin’s domestic and foreign policies were influenced by the changed ideological climate. The amnesty to the putschists of 1991 and to the organisers of the armed uprising in October 1993, as well as the Agreement on civic accord signed in April 1994, were good examples of this influence. As a consequence, the politically overheated situation in Russia calmed down. A partial national reconciliation—the communists and the Agrarian party had not signed the aforementioned Agreement— became reality. The fact that Zhirinovsky as the leader of the LDPR, the strongest opposition party in the Duma, had signed the Agreement was of crucial importance. In 1995–96, political life was marked by a new polarisation due to the parliamentary and presidential elections. Yet, the political situation was not at all as explosive as in 1993 due to the 50th Anniversary of Soviet victory in World War II that was celebrated in May 1995. Becoming an occasion for national unity and reconciliation, these festivities, however, strengthened the position of the communists and the anti-Western nationalists at the expense of the pro-market parties. As a matter of fact, before the Duma elections in 1995, all political parties appeared under the banner of Russian patriotism. In 1996, the presidential election divided society between the supporters of Yeltsin and those of Zyuganov but the political confrontation was less dangerous than it had been in 1993. Thereafter, pragmatic reasons led to the establishment of a modus vivendi between the government and the opposition. National reconciliation in order to save Russia The anti-communist campaign at the beginning of the 1990s had never totally dominated the ideological climate. From the outset, part of the nationalist-minded Russians perceived the West and its ‘fifth column in Russia,’ the ruling liberals, as constituting a greater danger to Russia than the communists. According to this view, certain influential Western quarters had always harboured plans of destroying or weakening Russia in order to transform it into a colony of the West. The dissolution of the Soviet empire and the threatening perspective of a further disintegration of their country gave many anti-communist nationalists the impression that Russia had won the fight against communism only at the price of losing herself. ‘Our target was communism, but we hit Russia’ (Tselilis’ v kommunizm, a popali v Rossiiu)

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(cf., Nazarov 1995, 103 f). Their frustration was aggravated by the fact that the empire had broken up without a single shot. This being the case, the idea that the blue-eyed Russians had fallen prey to a smart plot organised by Russia’s enemies inside and outside its borders was getting more and more supporters. In the presidential elections in 1991, the democrats and the majority of the nationalists had voted for Yeltsin. Now many of the Russian President’s former supporters suffered from an ideological ‘hangover’ as they considered the loss of the empire to be too high a price for democracy. Moreover, official Russia had been leaning too much on the West and introduced Western models of development instead of taking into consideration its own experience and traditions. Numerous Russians turned towards the nationalist alternative embodied in the ‘Russian idea’. According to the nationalists, Russia could survive and restore its greatness only by uniting its patriotic forces. This could be seen in the ideological reorientation of several political movements that had belonged to Yeltsin’s democratic camp. Most of them moved to the nationalist right, as has been noticed earlier. The idea of uniting all the oppositional forces in Russia under the banners of the ‘Russian idea’ began to materialise. The weekly Den (The Day) was founded with writer Alexander Prokhanov as its editor-in-chief already in 1991. The self-imposed task of this rightist paper was ‘to gather all the competing schools of authoritarian nationalism in Russia—from religious monarchists to diehard communists—and also forge links with far-right parties in Western Europe, including French, Flemish and German ultranationalists’ (Clark 1996,120 f). The weekly Den was the first open manifestation of the ‘red-brown’-alliance. In the autumn of 1992, the efforts to create an umbrella organisation uniting the ideological former foes resulted in the founding of the National Salvation Front (Front Natsional’nogo Spaseniia). This motley coalition included Russian-minded communists like Viktor Anpilov,44 national Bolsheviks like G.Zyuganov, anti-communist Orthodox nationalists and monarchists like Igor Shafarevich and Stanislav Govorukhin as well as fascists in the shape of the National Republican Party of Russia (Natsional’norespublikanskaia partiia Rossii). Furthermore, the alliance was joined by some nationalliberals who had earlier supported Yeltsin but then moved to the nationalist right: Mikhail Astaf’ev, leader of the constitutional democrats, and Vladimir Osipov, chairman of the Union for Christian renaissance (Soiuz ‘Khristianskoe Vozrozhdeniie’). In this new situation, the traditional controversy between communists and nationalists was considered less important than the mission of saving Russia from Yeltsin and the democrats who were accused of acting in collusion with the West. For the anti-communist nationalists, the most difficult problem in coming to terms with the communists was the atheistic internationalist ideology of the latter as well as their positive assessment of the Bolshevik revolution and of the Soviet regime. This being the case, there were different attitudes towards the communists. By 1973, in his famous letter to the Soviet leaders, A.Solzhenitsyn had suggested cooperation in order to save Russia. The precondition was that Marxism-Leninism be jettisoned as a state ideology, and be replaced by patriotism (Solzhenitsyn 1974, 16f, 38). In plain language, the communists should do repentance and turn good Russians. In the 1990s, something like this happened in Russia as numerous communists abandoned the bankrupt Marxism-Leninism and

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converted to Orthodoxy. Actually if not formally, Zyuganov has at least partly undergone this metamorphosis as will be seen later in this study. Even among anti-communist nationalists there were those who pointed out the historical continuity between the Soviet era and the prerevolutionary past. After 1917, there were positive achievements, too, they said. Even Vladimir Zhirinovsky praised the Soviet development of Siberia, the intervention in Poland in 1939, the post-war Warsaw pact, and Soviet success in developing nuclear weapons (cf., Davies 1997, 68). Alexander Lebed, another popular nationalist, while harshly criticising the Soviet policy of repression and terror in the 1920s and 1930s, categorically opposed the total renunciation of the developments since 1917: ‘We do not have the right to renounce anything or anyone in our history. Without the past there is not and cannot be a future’ (Lebed 1995, 333). In his view, a real national reconciliation between the ‘whites’ and the ‘reds’ could best be attained through a nation-wide ceremony in which Nikolai II and Lenin were simultaneously buried, each in his proper place (ibid., 338). Partial rapprochement between Yeltsin and the opposition The Agreement on civic accord signed in 1994 did not include the communists who at that time rejected the whole idea of national reconciliation in general and cooperation with Yeltsin’s regime in particular. Besides, this act was condemned even by some prominent nationalists like Solzhenitsyn who called it ‘an agreement within the oligarchy’ (Solzhenitsyn 1998, 18). Yet, as both the democrats in power and the communists in opposition were influenced by the general nationalist mood they, too, had some impact on each other and on the nationalists. As a result, in 1996–98, the ideological climate in society became more and more coloured by pragmatic and/or moderate nationalism, whereas the popularity of rightist extremism was shrinking. In 1994–95, faced with the mood prevailing in society—disappointment with the Western-style reforms, a certain nostalgia for the Soviet past, and the need for restoring Russia’s identity with its history before and after 1917—the Yeltsin-Chernomyrdin government found it expedient to take into account the changed ideological climate. Furthermore, the unpopular war in Chechnya made the need for restoring national unity and reconciliation even more urgent. A political polarisation of society had to be avoided at any price. As national reconciliation could be based solely on traditional national values shared by both the ‘reds’ and the ‘whites,’ the authorities decided to focus on the commemoration of the 50th Anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War in 1995. In these celebrations, the role of the Army and the Church in Russia’s history became glorified. One of the most spectacular measures undertaken was the construction of the huge war memorial park at Poklonnaia Gora, a few miles from the centre of Moscow. Together with the Orthodox Church ‘St George the Victor’, it was completed on time, just before 9 May 1995. Another official arrangement in honour of the Victory was the erection of a statue to Marshal Georgii Zhukov in Manezh square near the Kremlin. Furthermore, Stalin appeared together with Winston Churchill and Franklin D.Roosevelt on a commemorative stamp. Along with several other similar arrangements, these moves were manifestations of the conservative ‘Russian idea’ and they mirrored more or less the new

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mood prevailing in society. Yet, the festivities seemed to mobilise more people sympathising with the communists and the national patriots than supporters of Yeltsin and his government (cf., Davies 1997, 75). The parliamentary elections in December 1995, and the presidential election in June and July 1996, seemed to lead to a new political polarisation of society. Actually, all the main parties had come closer to each other as all of them were campaigning with more or less nationalist slogans. The ideological components in Yeltsin’s and Zyuganov’s argumentation were partly identical: Geopolitics (modern nationalism), Orthodoxy (traditional nationalism) and the rule of law (liberalism). Only the priorities were different. Yeltsin focused on the rule of law, Zyuganov on geopolitics and Orthodoxy. When applied to Zyuganov liberalism, however, implied nothing but verbal adherence to the principle of the rule of law (printsip pravovogo gosudarstva) (See Sovremennaia 1995, 75). Notwithstanding all the ideological resemblances, both candidates for presidency accused each other of various mortal political sins: Zyuganov was said to go in for restoring the Stalinist past, whereas Yeltsin was supposed to be in collusion with the West which was trying to transform Russia into a semicolony. After all, ideological controversies are long-lived and seem to be very needed during electoral campaigns. After the re-election of Yeltsin, the ongoing confrontation of Western and Russian values entered a phase of pragmatic compromises between government and opposition. With the rise of a new financial elite, that of the richest bankers, to actual power, economics established its primacy over politics. This being the case, the ideological struggle was more and more overshadowed by pragmatic dealings between Yeltsin and his government on the one hand, the Duma dominated by the communist, the nationalist and the democratic opposition on the other. In the autumn 1996, Yeltsin called for elaborating a national ideology that would consolidate Russian society. In plain language, he took up the cudgels for national reconciliation, not because he liked the communists or the nationalists but because the liberals in power were so unpopular. On the other hand, the Duma opposition in general and Zyuganov’s communists in particular found it more expedient to find compromises with the government instead of pursuing a policy of confrontation. In the Duma, the privileged status of the deputees made them reluctant to challenge the president who could dissolve the Parliament whenever he considered it necessary. Even if Yeltsin’s call failed to materialise, it, nevertheless, showed how the political climate had changed from open confrontation to a striving for national unity. As a political phenomenon this was typical pragmatic conservatism. As an irony of history, the West was to promote this trend by pursuing its NATO enlargement policy in 1998 as well as by launching air strikes in Kosovo in 1999. This made the Russian liberals join the nationalists and the ‘red-browns’ in condemning the West. Among Russian nationalists, some of the aforementioned attitudes like pessimism, anticommunism and the preference for national reconciliation could be shared by traditionalists as well as by other more secularised nationalists. The rest, in particular social Darwinism, the gloryifying of inequality and the Pinochet-syndrome seemed to have been products of or influenced by Western neoliberalism or some Western currents of rightist thought. However that may be, all these inter-acting attitudes formed a

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breeding ground of the new modern Russian nationalism that gradually became the mainstream within the conservative opposition in Yeltsin’s Russia. Yet, the new conservative mood was by no means an isolated phenomenon in society. On the contrary, among nationalist-minded Russians it co-existed with various traditionalist attitudes including those voiced by A.Solzhenitsyn and the village writers. The extreme manifestations of this mood could be seen in the time-honoured Russian anti-Semitism. At the same time, great power chauvinism was growing in society—there were numerous politicians, publicists and military men aiming at restoring the empire, whether the old Russian or the Soviet one. These phenomena appeared both in traditionalist and secularised versions. Furthermore, after the bankruptcy of MarxismLeninism, numerous communists looking for a new identity and new ideals began to gravitate towards national patriotic arguments and slogans. On the whole, different currents of thought began to merge, at least partly, in a general antiliberal opposition against the pro-Western official policy. The most striking manifestation of this common conservative mood could be seen in the emergence of a great number of nationalist rightist parties and movements including the ‘red-browns’. At the same time, these visible actors of the conservative resistance represented different political views from anti-communist monarchism and Orthodoxy to national bolshevism as well as to fascism and national socialism. The spectrum of nationalist conservative parties will be dealt with in the next chapter.

3 Actors of the conservative resistance: movements and parties Chapter 2 dealt with certain antagonistic tendencies in post-Soviet Russia including criminal capitalism and a conservative antiliberal mood. This chapter will focus on the organised form of conservative nationalist resistance against the ongoing liberal reforms, in particular on the existing parties and movements. Under the Soviet one-party regime, the Russian nationalists could operate as an independent political force only at Samizdat-level. Officially, they had to disguise themselves and their ideas within the ideological framework of Marxism-Leninism. Yet they were against democratisation of society including the introduction of multipartyism as Western-style ideological pluralism was considered much more dangerous for the Russian traditions as well as for the Soviet empire than the existing one-party system. The national Bolsheviks within the establishment and the CPSU wanted to be in advance of the liberals in seizing power whenever time was ‘ripe’ for political change. With Gorbachev’s rise to power in 1985, the liberal forces got the upper hand. The introduction of glasnost in 1986, however, implied that nationalist views could be voiced, more or less undisguised, in nationalist or national bolshevik publications as well as through the ‘informals’ (neformaly)45 With the introduction of multi-partyism in 1990, a great step was taken towards political modernity in Russia. In the shape of numerous movements, parties and associations, national patriotism, eventually, became a politically independent current of thought, an ideological alternative to both Marxism and liberalism. The three main political forces in post-totalitarian Russia have been the ruling liberal Western-minded reformers, on the one hand, and the anti-Western opposition, consisting of communists and nationalists, on the other. The ideological antipodes are Western neoliberalism à la Friedman and Hayek, and the ‘Russian idea’. After the bankruptcy of Marxism-Leninism in 1991, the communists in general and Zyuganov’s party in particular have become strongly influenced by the latter. In this study, the CPRF is considered to be a nationalist party as its ideology is much more coloured by the ‘Russian idea’ than by Marxism-Leninism, as will be seen later on. The political and ideological—nationalist as well as communist—resistance against Yeltsin’s and the ruling democrats’ neoliberal policy had grown in strength ever since 1992. This could be seen not only in the activity of numerous nationalist organisations but also in the distribution of a great number of leaflets and publications throughout Russia as well. Public statements made by several well-known nationalist-minded thinkers coloured the ongoing political debate in society. Yet, all attempts to create a single all-Russian rightist nationalist movement have so far failed. From the very beginning, numerous movements and groupings were contending

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each other. In 1995, there existed around 100 national patriotic and right-radical organisations in Russia (cf., Pribylovsky 1995, 6). In the late 1990s, the number dropped as numerous movements and parties had disappeared or reappeared under new names as a result of disintegration or of fusion. On the other hand, some quite new nationalist organisations came into being. The Russian People’s Republican Party (Rossiiskaia narodno-respublikanskaia partiia) founded by General Lebed’ was a good case in point. Another example was provided by the Movement in Support of the Army, the Defence Industry and Military Science (Dvizhenie v Podderzhku Armii, abbr. DPA) that was founded in 1997 by General Lev Rokhlin, partly with the assistance of the CPRF (cf., March 2002, 153). Rokhlin had become popular for exposing and severely criticising social conditions including corruption within the Armed Forces (cf., Herspring 2003, 162). Rokhlin was murdered under mysterious circumstances, and, as a result, the DPA evolved towards undisguised anti-Semitism and racism. This policy was counterproductive and the DPA lost much of its earlier political importance. As a third new nationalist party, albeit with an amorphous image and with some ingredients of liberalism, we can mention the Unity (Edinstvo) party that was founded in the autumn of 1999 (cf., Remington 2003, 42 f, 45–52). Its aim was to support the government as well as Vladimir Putin in his bid to become President of the Russian Federation. The party was later renamed Edinaia Rossiia (One Russia). It is worth noting that Russian nationalism had, and still has, its supporters in almost all layers of society: within the army and the security forces, within the Orthodox Church and the state administration, among the 25 million Russians living outside the Russian Federation and among Russian émigrées, and so on. There has been a great variety of Russian nationalist organisations: anti-communist Orthodox monarchists, fascists and national socialists as well as national bolsheviks, neo-Eurasians and admirers of Franco and Pinochet. In this chapter, practical reasons make it appropriate to dwell upon the important nationalist movements and parties that existed at the time when Yeltsin was in power.

Different types of Russian nationalism The aforementioned different categories of Russian nationalist-minded people need to be classified in a clear way. There are, indeed, some general dividing lines among them with the help of which we can establish the main types of nationalist currents of thought. Accordingly, the politically relevant nationalist parties and movements as well as the main thinkers of nationalist orientation can be more properly assessed. Ethnocentric nationalism versus statism/great power nationalism In this chapter the concept ‘national patriots’ or ‘nationalists’ is given a rather broad definition due to Russia’s historical legacy as well as to its contemporary situation. This category of people includes not only Russian nationalists with ethnocratic views but also Russian nationalist-minded imperialists. Nowadays, this two-fold nationalism proclaiming the ‘Russian idea’ can be described in terms of etnotsentristy (ethnocentric

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nationalists)46 and gosudarstvenniki (statists) or derzhavniki (great power nationalists).47 Sometimes, the latter are called Eurasians (evraziitsy) or neo-Eurasians (neo-evraziitsy). This classification has its approximate equivalents in the works of some outstanding Western authorities on Russian nationalism like J. Dunlop and S.Carter. In his study published in 1983, Dunlop makes a distinction between the patriotic dissidents, the socalled vozrozhdentsy,48 who resemble our ethnocentric nationalists, and the procommunist loyalists, the national Bolsheviks, who can be considered statists (see Dunlop 1983). Carter, for his part, calls the two major streams of thought Slavophile or vozrozhdenets nationalism on the one hand, and chauvinist great Russianism on the other (see Carter 1990, 72). Historically, these different trains of thought refer to two basic interpretations of the ‘Russian idea’. The former emphasises the primacy of the ethnos, i.e. the Russian nation and its traditions, the latter the primacy of the state, i.e. the Russian empire before 1917, the Soviet Union in 1917–1991, and post-totalitarian Russia (1992 to the present day). Theoretically, the difference between the aforementioned types of nationalists can be seen in their priorities as shown in Figure 4. Ethnocentric Russian nationalism can be said to constitute the heritage of classical Slavophilism that existed in 1830–50. It involves a typical conservative outlook with respect of traditional Russian values (the Russianness), and reflects a yearning for the bygone peasant commune and Orthodox culture. Today, typical representatives of this traditionalist turn of mind are Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Igor Shafarevich. The former is a moderate pochvennik, the latter, with his anti-Semitic views, is closer to the extreme right of ethnocentric nationalism. Pochvenniki or etnotsentristy

Gosudarstvenniki or derzhavniki for instance, the Eurasians

Inner development Rural Russia

Expansionism Urban Russia

A monoethnic Russia or a russified Russia

A multinational empire

Russia’s enemies are the aliens (inorodtsy) Russia’s enemies are the West in general, and the living in Russia USA in particular Isolationism

Imperialism/restoration of the empire

Figure 4 Two basic types of Russian nationalism

The statists glorify the former multinational imperial Russia, or the Soviet Union as its historical continuation. One of the first Russian statists with imperial thinking was N.Danilevsky. Those who belonged to the establishment before the August events in 1991 were called national Bolsheviks. Yet, with the dissolution of the Soviet empire in December 1991, the name evraziitsy (Eurasians) became fashionable as a common denominator of all pro- and anti-communist statists. Typical anticommunist statists are party leader V.Zhirinovsky and the late Metropolitan Ioann of St Petersburg, whereas G.Zyuganov represents Russian-minded communists. Geographically, the official statist nationalism is found within the establishment in

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Moscow, St Petersburg and the central parts of Russia. On the other hand, there is the ethnocentric interpretation of the ‘Russian idea’ encouraged by non-conformist Orthodox sects of the rural periphery (cf., Parland 1993, 13). Hence, the latter train of thought is closer to common people and makes itself felt at grass-root level. Being two-fold, Russian nationalism partly reflects the controversies existing between central power and local authorities in Russia, between the capital and the provinces. The importance of applying our method in classifying Russian nationalists is emphasised by the so-called regionalisation (regionalizatsiia) process, i.e. the different regions’ aspirations towards greater independence vis-à-vis Moscow. This process started with the perestroika and has continued to thrive after the break-up of the Soviet Union (for more information see Remington 1999, 57–66). It should be noted that the differences between etnotsentristy and gosudarstvenniki are less important than their general outlook, i.e. the ‘Russian idea’ that unites all Russian national patriots. They hold out a separate nonWestern path of development, reject the Western liberal and democratic models of political culture, and are more or less anti-Semitic. The extreme right versus moderate/pragmatic nationalism In this chapter, as has been noted before, priority is being given to the Russian extreme right even if its proponents form a small minority of all national patriots. Being undisguised and clearcut, the extremists’ ideological messages are more valuable from the point of view of our research. The moderate and pragmatic national patriots’ views have a rather complementary function. Even Zyuganov’s and his party allies’ metamorphosis from Marxism-Leninism to pragmatic national patriotism is mainly the result of the influence of ideas belonging to the far right, as will be seen later on. The outstanding feature of the extreme national patriots is their racism in general, and morbid anti-Semitism in particular. They interpret all Russia’s misfortunes entirely as the result of machinations and intrigues of foreign and domestic enemies. The supposed enemies are ethnic aliens (inorodtsy) in general, and Jews in particular. There is the conviction that ethnic Russians are inherently superior in Russia’s political, economic and cultural life. Moreover, future Russia is supposed either to russify the world or at least to play a leading international role among the nations. Who then are these Russian extremists? Among the ethnocentrist nationalists there are the protofascist Pamiat’-movement and several openly fascist or national socialist parties and groupings like Barkashov’s Russkoe Natsional’noe Edinstvo (Russian National Unity, RNE), Russkii Natsional’nyi Soiuz (Russian National Union) led by Konstantin Kasimovskii, and others. All ethnocentric rightists are concerned about how the ethnic Russian should be saved from being ‘dominated’ by aliens, i.e. non-Russians, in general, and by the Jews in particular. The numerous solutions suggested range from ethnic purges to introducing a system of proportional representation of different ethnic groups in Russia’s power structures. Furthermore, as regards mass media, all Russian ethnocentric rightists advocate a censorship of sorts; Russia should be protected from the pernicious Western culture. As regards the derzhavniki or, as they are sometimes called, evraziitsy (the Eurasians), extremists among them are radical in theory rather than in practical politics. Zhirinovsky

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is a good case in point. He has made statements in favour of national socialism and suggested that Russia’s frontiers be extended to the Indian Ocean (Zhirinovsky 1993, 63f). In the Duma, however, the LDPR faction has often supported the government’s liberal policies, which testifies to a very inconsistent radical conservatism. The statists’ or Eurasians’ main goal is to restore the former empire, either in the shape of the Soviet Union or of the One and Indivisible Russia. Contrary to the intransigent rightists, the pragmatic or/and moderate nationalists do not exclude cooperation with other political forces and are ready to make compromises with those in power. This applies to the two remaining national patriotic or Russian-minded political forces that played an important role in Russian politics of the late 1990s: Lebed’s Rossiiskaia narodno-respublikanskaia partiia (Russian People’s Republican Party) and Zyuganov’s Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF). The constellation of different nationalist movements and parties can be presented graphically as follows in Figure 5. Some of the abbreviations or key names in Figure 5 need to be explained. Pamiat’ appeared in 1987–1988 as the first political organisation outside the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and soon became an ideological rallying point for national patriots of the extreme right wing. Ideologically, it represented Orthodox monarchism, Russian chauvinism and morbid anti-Semitism. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion became a veritable Bible within the movement. From 1991 on, its leader D.Vasil’ev has openly called himself a fascist.49 Yet, the ideology of the Pamiat’ movement contains too many ‘pre-historic traditionalist relics’ like monarchism and commitment to Orthodoxy to qualify it as more than a semi-fascist phenomenon (For studies of fascism, see Who 1980, Bracher 1982, DeFelice 1977). After a series of internal crises, Pamiat’ split into several parts, and in 1990, it lost its leading place in the Russian nationalist movement. Nevertheless, it has played a decisive role in paving the way for Russian fascism and national socialism. As a matter of fact, several fascist and national socialist organisations were founded in the 1990s by former members of Pamiat. The RNE (Russian National Unity) emerged in 1990: its members having quit Pamiat thirsted for action instead of theoretical discussions. In the late 1990s, this organisation had become the largest party of national socialist orientation in Russia. A more detailed

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Figure 5 Different nationalist movements and parties

presentation of RNE will be given later on. RNS (Russian National Union) was a national socialist organisation with German elements. It published a paper called Shturmovik (The Stormer), a counterpart of the German racist paper Der Stürmer (founded in 1923), and the magazine Natsiia (The Nation). (For more information see Shenfield 2001, 237–44.) NRPR is the abbreviation of Natsional’no-respublikanskaia partiia Rossii (National Republican Party of Russia), a paramilitary national socialist organisation that was represented in the Duma in 1993–1995. In late 1994, it split into two separate parties. The two successor parties had the same old name—one led by Nikolai Lysenko, a Duma deputy in 1993–95, the other by Iurii Beliaev, a police officer, who, according to Lysenko, professed ‘unrestrained germanophilia’ and ‘extolled German fascism’ (cf., Belin 1995, 9). During the presidential election campaign in 1996, Lysenko’s NRPR was leaning towards supporting Yeltsin, Beliaev’s equivalent towards supporting Zyuganov (for more information see Shenfield 2001, 231–6). Alexander Dugin, a former member of Pamiat’, has written some pamphlets including Konservativnaia revoliutsiia (The Conservative Revolution) and Konspirologiia (Conspirology). Furthermore, he was editor-in-chief of the exclusive periodical Elementy (The Elements), which published material on European rightist movements and ideologies of the twentieth century. As the editorial staff consisted of representatives of the extreme right of Russia as well as of France, Italy, and certain other European countries, the periodical could be called a typical ‘ideological joint-venture’ of the Russian and European extreme right. Alexander Prokhanov, a writer called ‘the nightingale of the General Staff’ (solovei Genshtaba), owing to his book on the campaigns in Afghanistan 1980–88, is editor-inchief of the weekly Zavtra (Tomorrow), a ‘red-brown’ mouthpiece of anti- and procommunist nationalists. General Lebed’s position is difficult to specify. He could be considered an ethnocentric

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nationalist because of his concern for the fate of the 25 million Russians living in the ‘near abroad’.50 Furthermore, he represents the thoughts and views of ordinary Russians living in the provinces, i.e. the regions. On the other hand, he has made numerous statements reflecting statist thinking. This being the case, his position is more or less inbetween. Sergei Baburin and his ROS (founded in December 1991) represented moderate statist nationalism advocating a partial restoration of the empire. Russia should settle for reincorporating only Belarus, Ukraine and parts of Kazakhstan (cf., Belin 1995, 10). Pro- and anti-communist national patriots Another deep division among Russian nationalists is that between ‘pure’ national patriots and national Bolsheviks. After the break-up of the Soviet Union in December 1991, the latter have played an important role in endeavours to unite the nationalists and the communists into a common opposition bloc. As a result, the so-called ‘red-brown’ alliances51 emerged as a new political phenomenon in 1992, in the shape of umbrella organisations like the National Salvation Front (Front Natsional’nogo Spaseniia FNS) and the Russian National Assembly (Russkii Natsional’nyi Sobor RNS). These coalitions embraced nearly all the prominent thinkers and party leaders of both the left and the right opposition. The odd cooperation between conservative communists and anti-communist nationalists was, apparently, based on pragmatic considerations: the former needed to revitalise their bankrupt ideology with some new content, but had kept their organisational structures operative, the latter could offer them an acceptable ideology, whereas their organisations were weak and poorly articulated (Parland 1993, 68). The first attempt to unite nationalists and national-minded communists within a single party was made by the writer Eduard Limonov, who founded the National Bolshevik party in 1993. He labelled it ‘red-brown’, a term that thereafter was used by the democrats to characterise all alliances between communists and nationalists. In reality, however, the great majority of Russian nationalists cannot be considered ‘brown’, i.e. fascist or national socialist. They rather deserve the epithet ‘white’. Some of the ‘pure’ nationalists like Alexander Dugin and Igor Shafarevich were willing to cooperate with those communists who rejected internationalist Marxism in favour of Orthodoxy and/or a national socialism of sorts. Zyuganov tried to renew his communist party along these lines, as will be seen later on. Yet, during the presidential elections in 1996, only some nationalists, including Iurii Beliaev’s NRPR and S.Baburin’s ROS, opted to support G.Zyuganov for president. All the remaining nationalists, including national Bolshevik E.Limonov as well as fascists and national socialists like D.Vasil’ev and A.Barkashov, decided to support Yeltsin. However, one should not forget that the presidential election was an extraordinary event where most nationalists believed that the incumbent president was a more predictable ruler and a lesser evil than Zyuganov. In reality, the number of procommunist nationalists or nationalists ready to cooperate with communists, was greater. Lebed, who advocated a national reconciliation of the ‘whitses’ and the ‘reds’, is a good case in point (cf., Lebed 1995, 337). Other representatives of this train of thought were A.Prokhanov, A.Dugin and the film director Stanislav Govorukhin. On the other hand, there were nationalists who rejected all forms

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of contact with any communists. Typical representatives of this attitude were Pamiat’ leader D.Vasil’ev, A.Solzhenitsyn, the ‘village writer’ Viktor Astaf’ev and RNE’s leader A.Barkashov. The constellation of typical pro- and anti-communist national patriots can be presented graphically as follows in Figure 6. Procommunist nationalists

Anticommunist nationalists

Movements Parties Associations

CPRF ROS (Baburin) RNS NRPR (Beliaev)

Pamiat’ (Vasil’ev) RNE (Barkashov) ROD LDPR

Thinkers

Govorukhin Prokhanov Dugin Shafarevich Sinyavsky Limonov Lebed

Solzhenitsyn V.Astaf’ev, V.Zhirinovsky

Papers

Zavtra

Shturmovik (mouthpiece of RNS)

Periodicals

Elementy Molodaia gvardiia

Russki poriadok (Russian order) (mouthpiece of RNE)

Figure 6 Pro- and anti-communist nationalists

The periodical Molodaia Gvardiia (The Young Guard) has been known as a mouthpiece of national Bolshevik ideas. It assumed this role in the 1960s. Zhirinovsky’s liberal democratic party (LDPR) is, perhaps, more noncommunist than anticommunist. There has been no spectacular or practical cooperation with the CPRF. However, just before the second round of the presidential election in 1996, Pravda published an appeal full of national patriotic rhetoric addressed to Zhirinovsky. The leader of LDPR was urged to save Russia by supporting Zyuganov. This paradoxical gesture on the part of the communists had nothing to do with ideological preferences. The reason was much simpler: General Lebed’s alliance with Yeltsin had made the communists and their supporters desperate in trying to secure broader support for their candidate. Zhirinovsky, however, did not respond to the offer of the communists. Traditionalism versus modern national patriotism Contrary to European nationalist thought, contemporary Russian nationalism is still strongly influenced by religion, i.e. by Orthodoxy. Only in the 1990s, with the breakthrough of political modernisation of Russia, a growing number of national patriots

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began to ‘secularise’, i.e. to adopt elements of Western non-religious rightist thought. This being the case, we can view the emergence of contemporary modern national patriotism as preceded by a traditionalist period, encompassing the years 1988–91. 1988–91: Traditionalist movements and parties During the Soviet era before 1988, the Russian nationalists who appeared at samizdatlevel or were living abroad as émigrées could voice their views openly. Most of them were traditionalists in advocating Orthodoxy and monarchism. Alexander Solzhenitsyn is a good case in point. In the Soviet Union, some of the rural writers like Vasilii Belov and Viktor Astaf’ev harboured analogous views that could be voiced undisguised after 1988. With the political rehabilitation of the Orthodox Church in 1988, the existing Orthodoxmonarchist movement could appear under its own banners. Its strong influence could be seen even within the party and state establishments, where many national Bolsheviks stopped paying even lip-service to Marxism-Leninism and started to convert, or at least to pay homage to, Orthodox Christianity (cf., Katys 1990, 26). In a word, they were evolving towards the traditional version of Russian nationalism represented by nationalist-minded Orthodox anticommunists, who opposed liberalism as well as Marxism.52 The general opinion in society manifested a growing interest in Russia’s prerevolutionary past of monarchy and Orthodoxy. Hence, the last 3 or 4 years of communist rule (1988–91) signified an ideological breakthrough: Marxism-Leninism was fading away and was replaced by Orthodoxy as the new guiding ideology in society. The restoration of Orthodoxy in Russia as a theocratic institution of moral guidance was accomplished in 1991 (cf., Radyshevskii 1991). A paradoxical situation was taking shape in Russia: the ongoing Westernisation process in terms of secularisation and commercialisation of life, in particular in metropolises like Moscow and St Petersburg, was paralleled by an opposite tendency— that of a clericalisation (klerikalizatsiia) of society (cf., Parland 1996, 122 f). Several political leaders and top-level officials, including President Yeltsin, began to attend important religious ceremonies conducted by the Orthodox Church. In this situation, traditionalist thinking became fashionable among Russian nationalist-minded citizens. An Orthodox-monarchist movement had appeared in the shape of Pamiat’ (Memory), the ultranationalist and anti-Semitic organisation that became famous under the charismatic leadership of Dimitrii Vasil’ev. In the beginning, Pamiat’ had been more or less national Bolshevik, but in 1990 it turned anticommunist and traditionalist. If Pamiat’ represented radical ethnocentric traditionalism, the appointment of Ioann of Kronstadt as the Metropolitan of St Petersburg and Ladoga in 1990 signified the breakthrough of radical traditionalist thinking among statists. Ioann’s public statements and writings were coloured by clerical anti-Semitism and great power Russian chauvinism (cf. Ioann 1995). The outstanding feature of all extreme traditionalists was their obviously Manichaeistic Weltanschauung: there is a life-and-death struggle going on in the world between good and evil, between God, with the Russian people as the Chosen People, and Satan (The West, the Jews and the Masons). All of Russia’s disasters including the Bolshevik

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revolution were viewed as having been engineered by a global Zionist-Masonic conspiracy. This vision rejected completely all forms of modernisation. Instead, there was yearning for the past, for the old Russia before 1917. All extreme traditionalists were by definition hostile towards both Marxism and liberalism. Pamiat leader D.Vasil’ev is a case in point. Moderate traditionalists like A.Solzhenitsyn represented a more or less similiar view. The most typical and well-known examples of traditionalism are presented graphically in Figure 7. Some comments are needed: pure traditionalism exists only in theory. In reality, contemporary Russian traditionalism is sometimes marked by certain ‘modernist’ influences. Pamiat’s anti-Semitism, for instance, was not only confessional, but also more or less racist. Metropolitan Ioann’s view of the Jews’ role in history was based on the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the notorious pamphlet that had been used by Hitler and his party for anti-Jewish propaganda. Igor Shafarevich is known for his anti-Semitic pamphlet Rusofobiia which was published in 1989 in the national Patriotic periodical Nash sovremennik (Our contemporary). He could be classified as belonging to the extreme right. Nevertheless, in other respects his views were less extreme, sometimes even pragmatic. This being the case, Shafarevich’s ideological position is somewhere between the extremists and the moderates and pragmatists. Patriarch Aleksii II has tried to balance national liberalism and rightist chauvinism within the Church which, however, seems to have been leaning more towards the national patriots than towards the democrats. Thus, we can consider the Patriarch’s ideological position to be close to pragmatic and moderate nationalism. Etnotsentristy

Gosudarstvenniki/ derzhavniki

The extreme right

Pamiat’ Shafarevich

Metropolitan Ioann

The moderate/ pragmatistic right

Solzhenitsyn

Patriarch Aleksii II

Figure 7 Examples of traditionalism

1996 to the present day: Modern nationalist movement and parties Russian traditionalism, sometimes called the ‘Old Right’, had barely established itself as the new common nationalist ideology before it was challenged by a ‘New Right’ of sorts. Among the extremists, there were geopolitical theoreticians like writer A.Prokhanov and theoretician A.Dugin who advocated pro-German and anti-American ‘modern Eurasianism’, on the one hand, and several fascist and national socialist organisations and groupings proclaiming direct action in order to save Russia and the ‘white Aryan race’, on the other. This ‘New Right’ represented a revision of ‘metaphysical traditionalism’ which was considered old-fashioned with no future. Accepting the ongoing political and economic development of society towards modernity as an irreversible fact, the new rightists were much less influenced by Orthodoxy, even if they paid lip-service to it. Instead, they adopted more secular theories of Western extraction like national socialist

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geopolitics and racial biology. Zhirinovsky is a case in point. As is well known from history, a similar ‘ideological modernisation’ of nationalism occurred already at the beginning of the twentieth century not only in Italy and Germany, but also in Russia as well as among rightist Russian emigrées. The existence of historical precursors explains to some extent the rapid rebirth of fascism and national socialism in contemporary Russia. In 1992 and later, there emerged several moderate or pragmatic Russian nationalist movements and organisations, often considered to represent the ‘respectable right’. Among them were S.Baburin’s ROS, the constitutional democrats spearheaded by M.Astaf’ev and the Christian democrats led by V.Aksiuchits. Even if many of these ‘respectable’ rightists seemed to be close to traditionalism, they, nevertheless, were much more in touch with the new political reality than Pamiat’ was. After the Duma elections in 1995 and presidential elections in 1996, new politically very influential forces took over among the pragmatic and moderate nationalists: Lebed’s Russian people’s republican movement and Zyuganov’s CPRF. Officially, they seemed to be gravitating towards the political centre, but their nationalist rhetoric contained many rightist overtones. The new mood that was gaining ground among numerous nationalistminded Russians can, at least partly, be considered a reaction to the great political changes of 1991–92. The humiliating break-up of the Soviet Union had followed almost immediately after the rapid disintegration of the Warsaw pact. The threatening perspective of a further dissolution of the Russian Federation made the army and security forces hotbeds of modern rightism. From 1990 on, the demobilisation of Russian troops deployed abroad and the reduction in personnel of repressive institutions, such as KGB, created a situation that resembled that of Germany after World War I. There, the Freikorps (Free Corps) along with young, energetic and well-trained and unemployed intelligence officers became the backbone of Hitler’s future national socialist party (see the titleword Freikorps in Snyder 1998 and Zentner-Bedürftig 1985). In post-Soviet Russia, something similar was materialising. According to Oleg Vakulovskii, a well-known TV-reporter and specialist in fascism and national socialism, all existing national socialist movements and groupings cooperated in some way or another with Russia’s state security organisations and special services (Varshavchik 1998, 13). Moreover, even some garrisons of the Russian army established regular contacts with national socialist paramilitary troops, as will be seen later on. As a general tendency, if the traditionalists often appeared in cultural life, in Orthodox events, or in mass media, the new rightists preferred to focus on paramilitary activities. The basic element of fascist and national socialist parties and groupings had the form of what Maurice Duverger calls a militia (Duverger 1965, 36), i.e., ‘a kind of a private army whose members are enrolled on military lines, are subjected to the same discipline and the same training as soldiers, like them wearing uniforms and badges, and like them ready to meet the enemy with weapons in physical combat’ (ibid.). The political activities, including ostentatious street marches and rallies introduced by Pamiat’, were, at least to some extent, continued by Barkashov’s Russian national unity (RNE) and other fascist or national socialist organisations. The RNE’s primary activity (alongside military training) was propaganda work including distribution of publications and leaflets. As a rule, participation in elections was not of primary concern among the fascists and national socialists. Zhirinovsky’s less extremist LDPR was an exception.

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After 1995, the extreme movements did not get a single candidate elected neither in the State Duma nor, say, in the Moscow Duma. As has been mentioned before, Lysenko from NRPR was a deputy of the State Duma in 1993–95, but he failed to be re-elected in 1995. Some of the older generation did not believe in the possibility of a fascist or national socialist development in Russia. The legacy of World War II has made Russians immune to the ‘brown’ Weltanschauung, the argument went. Yet, with the disappearance of Soviet symbols and Marxist-Leninist liturgy in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the mentality and values of former Soviet citizens were transforming rapidly. In post-Soviet Russia, most young people had no clear understanding of fascism or national socialism. In the late 1990s, the extreme right was concentrating on the younger generation which, as it seems, is easier to influence than older generations. Among rightist organisations trying to enlist young members, the Werewolf Legion53 is a good case in point. Its members ranged from 15 to 20 years of age. Moreover, rightist youth organisations were developing rapidly, and in Moscow a growing number of Russian skinheads coordinated their violent activities with the national socialist Russian National Union (cf., Rstaki 1998, 10). As an alarming example, a black US embassy employee was seriously maltreated by them in May 1998 (cf., Parfenov-Sergeeva 1998, 34). As a general tendency, many of the older nationalist parties of traditionalist orientation had been in a state of protracted decline—Pamiat’ is a good case in point—whereas youth organisations were growing. With this modernisation of sorts taking place, some of the old organisations tried to ally themselves with the younger ones. The efforts of the fascists and national socialists to attract and win over young people including students caused much headache to the democrats (cf., Gaidar 1998,19) and, logically, also to the communists with their ageing party activists. As an ominous sign, numerous opinion polls conducted in the late 1990s in Russia showed that most young people were indifferent or hostile towards politics. At the same time, however, they seemed to have little or no immunity against fascist and nazi propaganda because the phenomenon as such was something they had never experienced before. Another distinguishing feature of modern nationalists was their cooperation with rightist organisations and movements in the West. Zhirinovsky, for instance, established connections with the Deutsche Volksunion in Germany and with Le Pen’s Front National in France.54 Another rightist organisation having extensive connections with its allies in the West was the Russian National Union (RNS). The international rightist periodical Elementy, serving as an ‘ideological joint-venture’ of the Russian and European extreme right, has already been mentioned in this chapter. With the help of all the aforementioned criteria (ethnic vs statist, extremist vs moderate/pragmatic, procommunist vs anticommunist and traditionalist vs modern nationalism) we can present the different types of contemporary Russian national patriotism graphically, as shown in Figure 8. The above organisations, publications and prominent persons were the most typical or/and politically most important representatives of the ‘Old’ (traditionalist) and the ‘New (modern) Right’ as they appeared after the parliamentary and presidential elections in 1995–96. On the eve of the millennium, the modern rightists including extremists as well as moderate and pragmatist nationalists had become the driving force within the national

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patriotic movement. Among the aforementioned nationalist parties and movements the four largest, strongest, and most influential ones55 were as shown in Figure 9. The ‘Blut und Boden’ (Blood and Soil) philosophy was one of the main principles of German national socialism under Hitler implying that a ‘healthy state’ could rely only upon the unity of its own people, upon blood, i.e. upon a homogeneous race, and upon a soil of its own (‘…dass ein “gesunder Staat” nur auf der Einheit von “eigenem Volk”, also “Blut” ((d.h.einer einheitl. Rasse)), und “eigenem Boden” beruhen kann’ (see titleword Blut und Boden in Zentner/Bedürftig 1985). Contemporary Russian national socialists frequently publish material on German nazism in their periodicals and papers. Ethnocentric nationalists (etnosentristy)

Statists/great power nationalists (gosudarstvenniki/ derzhavniki evraziitsy)

Traditionalism

Extreme (Orthodoxy, monarchism, antiSemitism)

Pamiat’ I.Shafarevich

Metropolitan Ioann

Traditionalism

Moderates/ pragmatists

A.Solzhenitsyn

Patriarch Aleksii II

Modern nationalism/ rightism

Extreme

Blut und Boden Philosophy Racial biology RNE, RNS NRPR (Beliaev) NRPR (Lysenko) ROD

Geopolitics Imperialism A.Dugin A.Prokhanov Periodical Elementy Weekly Zavtra

Modern nationalism/ rightism

Modern/ pragmatists

A.Lebed A.Baburin

G.Zyuganov

Figure 8 Different types of contemporary Russian national patriotism

In this chapter, racial biology as something characteristic of contemporary Russian fascism and national socialism implies white power-philosophy and anti-Semitism in general, and eugenics in particular. As an example, the RNS has held rallies in support of the white population of South Africa. ROD is the abbreviation of Russkoe Osvoboditel’noe Dvizhenie (Russian Liberation Movement), a small paramilitary national socialist organisation operating in St Petersburg. It recommended concentration camps for communists and mental hospitals for most journalists (cf., Khimich 1995, 13). The influence of German national socialism could also be seen in the party paper Voskresen’e (Resurrection) that sometimes quoted Hitler. This being the case, the ROD deserves to be mentioned here. The extreme right

Barkashov’s RNE Zhirinovsky’s LDPR

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Lebed’s Russian People’s Republican Party Zyuganov’s CPRF

Figure 9 The four strongest nationalist movements or parties

RNE and LDPR: two kinds of national socialism in operation Formally, the party leaders A.Barkashov and V.Zhirinovsky display certain similarities: each of them denies that he is a fascist, but accepts national socialism of sorts. Furthermore, neither the RNE nor the LDPR cooperates with any other nationalist party or movement. As a third common trait, both organisations have been frequently mentioned in Russian democratic media as warning examples of the danger of fascism. In practical politics, however, the RNE and the LDPR are totally different. They represent quite different interpretations of Russian national socialism. We will start with Barkashov’s party. The Russian National Unity party The Russian National Unity (RNE) movement was the biggest and the best organised of all the ultra-rightist organisations (cf., Parfenov-Sergeeva 1998, 34.). The LDPR was never extreme enough to belong to them. However, the RNE is not a political party in the ordinary sense. It emerged as a para-military organisation with squads of armed nazi-like storm troopers well-trained in shooting and hand-to-hand fighting. They were young men wearing black shirts or camouflage uniforms and saluting each other with a raised hand. The party’s symbol was a swastika combined with a cross, and its slogan ‘One nation, one people, one state’ carries familiar overtones of the brown ideologies of the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s in Europe (cf., Belin 1995, 8). The ethnocentrist RNE called for saving Russia through a national revolution. Society should be cleansed of ‘antisocial elements’ and the purity of the Russian gene pool be restored. The RNE struggled against ‘parasitic’ peoples like the Jews and the gypsies, and advocated eugenics. In plain language, ethnic and racial segregation were considered necessary. The RNE professed isolationism in foreign politics. The RNE’s strong regional network was expanding step by step, and in the late 1990s it covered most parts of Russia. By 1994, the RNE had approximately 350 regional organisations, 100 of which were officially registered with local authorities. At that time, the RNE had the fourth greatest number of regional branches after the CPRF, Russia’s choice (Gaidar’s radical democratic party which had the largest faction in the Duma in 1993–95, but almost disappeared in the December elections in 1995—TP), and the LDPR (ibid.). Estimates of RNE’s membership and active supporters varied from 50,000 to 200,000 (cf., Belin 1995, 8; Johansson 1997, 15). The circulation of the party paper Russkii poriadok (Russian order) was estimated to run in the tens of thousands (Belin 1995, 9). Yet, the strength of this party does not lie in how many members it had but how efficient, and how well-targeted its activities were in order to influence and recruit people.

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According to a Kremlin official, in the late 1990s up to 10 per cent of Russia’s population supported RNE implicitly or explicitly, and this percentage kept growing (ParfenovSergeeva 1998, 34). Moreover, RNE’s influence was expanding also in Russia’s ruling bodies, most notably in the Interior Ministry and the police (ibid.), as will be seen below. Generally, the RNE appealed to disaffected members of society, but did it in a selective way. Its activists focused on recruiting from among educated youth. They were addressing ‘soldiers, workers, and students’ (ibid.). Furthermore, RNE recruited even homeless children (‘street kids’) for its youth organisation where they were dressed in uniforms and got preparatory military training and ideological education. Besides ordinary activities like organising street marches and rallies, distributing party literature and leaflets, the RNE focused on carrying out military training and enforcing military-style discipline among its members. Furthermore, Barkashov’s party ran special training camps for young people who were being prepared for their coming military service. Here, the RNE was cooperating with the grateful local military (cf., Johansson 1997, 15). Furthermore, Barkashov’s party established close contacts with army units (Gritchin-Urigashvili 1997). The RNE’s popularity, however, was not confined to the army. In numerous cities throughout Russia—Stavropol and Voronezh are good examples—the police and other law-enforcement agencies were aided by RNE storm troopers in preserving law and order. Usually, these troopers patrolled central city areas. This being the case, ordinary Russians often perceived the RNE-units as protectors of the weak and defenceless people in a criminalised society. Moreover, in Moscow, St Petersburg and other important cities, a growing number of businessmen appealed to Barkashov’s party asking for protection against the mafia and its racketeers. The RNE’s dreaded fighters were ready to help Russian nationalist-minded entrepreneurs. As a matter of fact, numerous grateful businessmen reportedly paid voluntarily for these services that included not only physical protection but also rapid and efficient measures to collect debts from unwilling clients. This is, actually, how the RNE was financed. The RNE’s growing influence was particularly manifest in different regions and their urban centres. RNE extended its activities to several of the former Soviet republics outside the Russian federation: the Baltic States, Ukraine, Belarus and Tadzhikistan. As a typical example, in the Latvian seaport Liepaia the RNE groupings counted about 1,000 participants. They saw their mission as defending the Russian minority against alleged discrimination (Shatrov 1998). The deepening economic, political, cultural and spiritual crisis in Russia made part of ordinary people victims of national socialist propaganda a la Barkashov. The Russian Führer was abiding his time hoping that the unstable situation in the country would deteriorate and result in total chaos. As we know, something else happened when Putin, a smart and pragmatic nationalist-minded Russian, was elected President in 2000. The RNE split into those who were ready to cooperate with Putin and those who were not. Zhirinovsky’s liberal democratic party (LDPR) Contrary to the militarised RNE, LDPR has been a modern populist party trying to gain political influence and power through elections. Its paramilitary fighters called

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‘sokoly’ (falcons) play a secondary role, mostly serving as bodyguards. Yet, the LDPR differs from all Western parties in being a leader’s party. Without the ambitious and charismatic Vladimir Zhirinovsky, there would be no party at all. The LDPR has very much been a one-man show. The popular image of this party was created by the colourful statements of its leader who was the first to introduce a ‘Westernised’ Russian nationalism of sorts. In running election campaigns, Zhirinovsky always took advantage of the modern mass media in general and TV in particular. His unusual skills at marshalling public distemper and conducting election campaigns made his party one of the most influential in Russia. In 1991, Zhirinovsky came third in the presidential elections in the Russian Federation with six million votes (7.8 per cent). He made his breakthrough in the December 1993 parliamentary elections when the LDPR became the largest party in the state Duma with about 13 millions of votes (23 per cent). He had been able to capitalise on the mood of Russian humiliation after the break-up of the Soviet empire, as well as on the growing disappointment with Yeltsin’s liberal reforms. The December 1993 election result sparked a process which has been going on ever since’ (Simonsen 2001, 281). Zhirinovsky’s unexpected success ‘symbolized the change in the political atmosphere of the country as a whole’ (Urban-Solovei 1997, 97). The charismatic leader of the LDPR was a typical imperialist and great power nationalist: Russia’s national dignity and superpower status should be returned and the Russian empire restored. This implied a considerable strengthening of its military power, the only way to make other countries respect Russia. Zhirinovsky’s rhetoric was aggressive and often warlike. Had he been a forerunner of the nationalist drive in society in 1994–95? Some analysts of Russia such as Vladimir Solovyov and Elena Klepikova view Zhirinovsky as having greatly influenced Yeltsin’s policy in those years: ‘…the Kremlin’s international policy became increasingly independent of the West and increasingly similar to Zhirinovsky’s program’ (Solovyov-Klepikova 1995, 214). Other specialists in Russia such as R.Sakwa, view the changed political atmosphere in a much broader context: ‘Russia became the successor not only of the Soviet Union, but also to the geographical realities that had created the Russian empire earlier. Russia de facto became a neo-imperial power (my italics—TP) not by choice but by history’ (Sakwa 2002, 399 f). The dissolution of the Soviet empire had evoked a revanchist mood within the military establishment. Zhirinovsky’s rhetoric was, in fact, an extreme symptom of this backlash mentality and it, probably, had some feed-back influence on the ideological climate. The appeal of his nationalist statements in the December 1993 election alarmed much of the Russian political elite and made them incorporate some of his ideas into their own programmes (cf., ibid., 354). Formally, Zhirinovsky belonged to the opposition but was, actually, more inclined towards Yeltsin. Usually, when some proposition was put to vote in the Duma, Zhirinovsky and his faction supported the government’s position. When there was no voting, the LDPR leader lashed out against the democrats and liberals. Persistent rumours claimed that this nationalist leader was playing a double role and being well paid for his services by the Yeltsin administration. How strong was Zhirinovsky’s party? According to some more or less reliable sources,

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the LDPR counted about 100,000 members in April 1993 when the second party congress was held (Plekhanov 1994, 135; Solovyov-Klepikova 1995, 136). LDPR had become the largest of all the parties and groups in Russia except Zyuganov’s communist party. After the victorious December elections in 1993, the LDPR continued to grow. The Liberal Democratic Party of Russia appeared to represent quite a respectable part of society. Moreover 40 per cent of the members were white-collar workers, including many engineers and technicians. Every tenth member was a scholar or a scientist. The rest were workers, students, entrepreneurs and industrialists as well as a mixture of other social groups (Solovyov-Klepikova 1995, 136). At the same time, the majority of the members were related to the military-industrial complex in one way or another. Who voted for Zhirinovsky and his party in 1993? In 1991, his electorate had largely consisted of pensioners and drunks, now more than two-thirds of his voters worked. Yet, the most ominous news for the democrats was Zhirinovsky’s military electorate: more than 70 per cent of the military had voted for the LDPR (ibid. 182). The army turned out to be more conservative and patriotic than the civilian society. Yet, this is not a Russian phenomenon but rather something that tends to be characteristic of military institutions all over the world. In 1995, Zhirinovsky’s rating began to decline, and in the parliamentary elections in December 1995, the LDPR lost half of its electorate. The most disappointed people had given their votes to Zyuganov’s party that appeared under more or less nationalist slogans. Yet, with a turnout of 11.18 per cent Zhirinovsky’s LDPR still became the second largest party in the Duma leaving behind Chernomyrdin’s Nash dom—Rossiia (Our Home is Russia) and Yavlinsky’s Yabloko (Apple). Those parties received 10.13 per cent and 6.89 per cent respectively of the votes on the party list (Sakwa 2002, 153). In 1996–98, with declining support, Zhirinovsky was becoming more and more part of the establishment. He used his liberal democratic party with its 40-strong Duma faction as a tool for converting his political capital into cash. Through real-estate sales in Moscow, financial operations including selling hardware to Arab countries, oil exports, and arranging domestic and foreign bank credits, the ‘Westernised’ LDPR became one of Russia’s richest parties (Parfenov-Sergeeva 1998, 35). Zhirinovsky himself was even accused of taking bribes in return for supporting Yeltsin’s candidate Sergei Kirienko for the position of Prime Minister in April 1998.56 Being a ‘Westernised’ nationalist, Zhirinovsky has from the very beginning been looking for geopolitical and/or ideological allies in the world. He established ties with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, which, probably, was considered important as a dedicated foe of the USA. Zhirinovsky’s regular contacts with his ideological allies in the West like the ultra-rightist Deutsche Volksunion and Le Pen’s le Front National have already been mentioned. Ideologically, Zhirinovsky’s party represents great power statism with ingredients of a national socialist interpretation of geopolitics. During the election campaign in 1993, Zhirinovsky promised to restore the Russian borders of 1913, and even to extend them to the Indian Ocean. In restoring Russia’s greatness in the world, nuclear intimidation should be resorted to, if necessary. Zhirinovsky’s geopolitical doctrine is dealt with in Chapter 5. Anti-Semitism and racism played, at most, a secondary role in Zhirinovsky’s extreme nationalist rhetoric, probably due to the fact that his father was a Jew. On this issue,

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Zhirinovsky’s supposed national socialism is considerably moderate, indeed. On the other hand, his geopolitical ideas are strikingly close to national socialist reasoning. Moreover, it should be remembered that in Zhirinovsky’s view German national socialism was good as an idea (cf., Zhirinovsky 1993, 88). In domestic politics, Zhirinovsky put forward an anti-democratic ideology that was neither national socialist nor fascist but resembling more closely dictatorship of the Latin American type—authoritarianism with great pretensions and small resources. Furthermore, he preferred state capitalism in order to save the national capital, and the creation of a police state of sorts for efficient combating corruption and organised crime. All in all, Zhirinovsky professes an eclectic rightism that includes some important elements of national socialism. At the same time, his political role has been and still remains very paradoxical. Having tried to influence Yeltsin’s policy in 1994–95 (cf. Solovyov-Klepikova 1995, 216–222) he, at the same time, was getting more and more conformist vis-à-vis the regime. Zhirinovsky’s eclecticism was noted even in the West (cf. Service 1996, 196). The view that Zhirinovsky and his party never belonged to the political opposition was shared by Zyuganov’s communists, Yavlinsky’s democrats and Aleksandr Rutskoi’s57 nationalists. This assessment is already explainable by the fact that Yeltsin and Zhirinovsky never publicly criticised each other personally. On the contrary, at the beginning of 1996 Zhirinovsky and the Yeltsin administration were working together to discredit Zyuganov and his party which had won the largest share of the party list vote in the Duma elections the previous December (cf., Allensworth 1998, 202f). The nationalist leader’s role in Yeltsin’s Russia should not be underestimated. It turns out that Vladimir Zhirinovsky with his shocking statements, in fact, only voiced opinions that others did not have the courage to say out loud. These views were popular among broad layers of society and were perceived as an alternative to the unpopular official proWestern policy. Zhirinovsky, notwithstanding his sometimes excessive behaviour, seems to have been the first prominent politician with close ties to the establishment to pave the way for the idea of a strong authoritarian leader to be generally accepted in the autumn 1999. The second nationalist politician contributing to the same task was General A.Lebed.

A.Lebed and G.Zyuganov: two versions of pragmatic nationalism The parliamentary elections of 1995 and the presidential election in 1996 signified the end of the period of Zhirinovsky’s and his party’s role as the leading nationalist force in Russia. This role was taken over by party leader Zyuganov and General A.Lebed, two very different pragmatic and more or less moderate Russian-minded politicians with their respective parties. General A.Lebed In one respect Lebed’s Russian People’s Republican Party (Rossiiskaia narodnorespublikanskaia partiia RNRP) resembled the LDPR: it was a one-man show and a personalised movement. The parliamentary elections in December 1995 showed that

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politics in Russia were not so much about ideology or party programs as about personalities. At that time Lebed had belonged to the leadership of another political organisation—the Congress of Russian Communities (Kongress Russkikh Obshchin, KRO). His freedom of action, however, was restricted by his position as only vice chairman of KRO. This, probably, made Lebed decide to run on his own in the 1996 presidential elections. The RNRP was founded afterwards. General A.Lebed, as the born charismatic leader of this party, was now considered one of the strongest candidates in the forthcoming presidential elections in 2000. In politics, his meteoric career started in June 1996 when he ran third in the first round of the presidential elections with eleven million votes (15 per cent). In the second round in July 1996, Lebed played a decisive role by throwing his support to Yeltsin. His reward was to be appointed Secretary of the Security Council. At that moment, many predicted that he would become Yeltsin’s successor. Lebed, who openly had voiced his presidential ambitions, was fired by Yeltsin in October 1996. At that time, polls showed that the General had displaced Yeltsin as the most trusted politician in Russia. Thereafter, Lebed’s popularity continued to remain high, even though all the state-controlled media (TV, radio) boycotted him. In 1998, in the gubernatorial elections in Krasnoiarsk region, Lebed defeated the incumbent Governor Valerii Zubov who had been supported by the democrats, the LDPR and Zyuganovs’s CPRF. As a governor, Lebed automatically became a member of the influential Federation Council (Sovet Federatsii), the ‘upper house’ of Russian Parliament, Federal Assembly (Federal’noe Sobranie) Among Lebed’s political trump cards, one seems to have been his ability to present himself as a third force: a sort of Russian General Pinochet, capable of offering an alternative to the narrow choice between Yeltsin’s regime and the communists led by Zyuganov. To many Russians, the reformers were ‘corrupt and oligarchic’, whereas the communists ‘had already ruined Russia once’ (Lynch, 1996, 22). In 1998, Lebed attracted ordinary people, especially in the provinces; he was considered as ‘one of us‘rather than ‘one of them’, i.e. the establishment. In May 1998, Lebed was elected governor of Krasnoiarsk and dispelled all doubts about the seriousness of his ambitions of running for presidency in the 2000 elections. His victory was all the more remarkable as he had run his campaign as an ‘outsider’ in a region where he had been almost unknown. He became a real threat to the democrats in power as well as to the communists in opposition headed by Zyuganov. After the gubernatorial elections in Krasnoiarsk in 1998, Zyuganov called Lebed a Russian Hitler of sorts. These invectives testified more to the democrats’ and communists’ fear of the nationalist leader than to his political colour. Having served a few years as governor, Lebed died in January 2002 in an air crash. General Lebed was the first ‘heavy-weight politician’ who was perceived to understand the mood and the aspirations of the population in the provinces or regions in their struggle for greater independence vis-à-vis Moscow. This process called regionalisation (regionalizatsiia) had started and could not be stopped. Being seriously concerned about Russia’s future, Lebed, at the same time, did not exclude the undesirable possibility of a future confederation of independent small states instead of ‘one and indivisible Russia’ (Rossiia edinaia i nedelimaia). In practical politics, Lebed and his party seemed

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to appeal to military people including former colleagues turned businessmen as well as local elites in the regions. Without any doubt, a great part of Zhirinovsky’s, and, probably, even some of Zyuganov’s former national-minded supporters, had found Lebed more convincing and attractive. Lebed’s political credo could be formulated as follows: communism and democracy are nice but unrealistic ideas. It would be good to return from the heights of these ideas to the ground of reality. Lebed described his politics as policy of national pragmatism. His catchword was ‘law and order.’ In extreme situations, he advocated resorting to ‘the most drastic measures’ (Lebed 1995, 167). In plain language, Lebed was ready to wage a merciless war against corruption and organised crime—a commitment requiring that the existing weak state be strengthened and transformed into a repressive one, a police state of sorts. Today, some of these ideas can be seen as embodied in Putin’s domestic policy. At the same time, we should not forget that General Lebed was solely a professional soldier with neither instruction nor experience in any other field. This being the case, he seemed to look at Russia as a garrison where order and discipline ought to be restored. Generally, along with the other main parties in the opposition, Lebed demanded that the state should be given a greater role in organising and regulating economics. Domestic producers should be protected. In this respect as well as in advocating a national capitalism of sorts Lebed resembled Zhirinovsky, and partly even Zyuganov. In foreign politics, however, Lebed represented a very pragmatic nationalism that took into account Russia’s weakened position. His statements in favour of cooperation with the West and even with NATO testified to this. Today we know that President Putin (he was elected in 2000) embodies these very ideas both with regard to strengthening the state and to cooperation with the West. G.Zyuganov and his ‘communist’ party Officially, in Russia as well as in the West, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation is considered to belong to the political left, even if some analysts view it as gravitating towards the political centre. Furthermore, like all other existing communist parties,58 the CPRF presents itself as a leftist party. How can it be regarded ‘rightist’, as our study implies? A closer reading of party leader G.Zyuganov’s pamphlets published in 1994–96 reveals that this party was undergoing an ideological transformation from MarxismLeninism to geopolitics and Orthodoxy, a phenomenon that will be dealt with in the last chapter. However that may be, some Russian politicians have presented similar assessments of the CPRF. The radical democrat and former Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar is a case in point. In 1996, he pointed out that ‘today’s Communist Party of the Russian Federation is not at all a communist but rather a national socialist party’ (Gaidar 1996, 11). On the other hand, there were those who portrayed Zyuganov as a social democrat (cf., Stanley 1996, 45). As a matter of fact, ideologically Zyuganov’s party has been a divided party. Within it, there were, and still are, three main currents: 1 the biggest although not most influential, the ‘social democrats’ of the Russian type, represented by Valentin Kuptsov, vice chairman of the CPRF, and Gennadii

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Seleznëv,59 theDumaspeaker; 2 the derzhavniki (the great power nationalists), the most influential and best organised, represented and spearheaded by party leader G. Zyuganov himself; 3 the ‘Marxist-Leninist modernisers’ as they are designated by Urban and Solovei (Urban-Solovei 1997, 58). This group torn by inner struggle includes even ‘orthodox Marxist-Leninist’ hardliners like Anatolii Lukianov, and the generals Albert Makashov and Valentin Varennikov (cf. Parland 1997, 216). In this chapter, we call the CPRF nationalist and rightist due to the pivotal role played by the ‘derzhavniki’ within it. On the other hand, contrary to Gaidar’s view, this party’s rightism is too eclectic to be considered national socialist. In this respect, the fact that some of Zyuganov’s basic theoretical statements contradict each other is obvious (cf., Urban-Solovei 1997, 101 ff). As a matter of fact, the CPRF’s world outlook is rather a compromise between different ideologies, as will be seen later on. This being the case, Zyuganov’s party cannot be considered extremist but rather pragmatist. Party leader Gennadyi Zyuganov has played a decisive role in transforming the CPRF into a more or less nationalist party. Originally, there had been the Russian Communist Party (RCP) that had been banned along with the CPSU after the August revolution in 1991. The RCP had been founded in 1990 as a conservative, i.e. Stalinist and national Bolshevik counter-force against Gorbachev’s reforms and the ruling communist party CPSU dominated by the reformers. Yet, this narrow ideological profile could mobilise only some of the members of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. It goes without saying, that Russian nationalist-minded people holding anti-communist views could not be attracted by such a party. The task of transforming the Russian Communist Party into a more or less nationalist one was to be taken over by Gennadii Zyuganov. The CPRF was founded in February 1993 as a successor of the RCP. The Constitutional Court had lifted the ban on local and regional communist party organisations already in 1992 (cf., Urban-Solovei 1997, 48 f). With Zyuganov as its head, the revived party could gradually ‘resurrect’ itself and adopt a new ideological image. This metamorphosis materialised in bringing forward the idea of reconciling the enemies of the 1918–20 civil war in Russia. At party meetings, this intention was symbolised by two flags: the red Soviet banner, and the black, yellow and gold of the tsarist era (Remnick 1996, 47). However, as the third ideological component there usually were ‘a few black-shirted neo-Nazis guarding the podium’ (ibid.). Zyuganov’s party became the most ardent and steadfast proponent of a national front of leftist and rightist opposition forces (cf., Urban-Solovei 1997, 82). As a matter of fact, the CPRF assumed the role of a ‘red-brown’ force of sorts. Zyuganov himself had before, in 1992, joined the leadership of several right-wing nationalist and ‘red-brown’ umbrella organisations including the National Salvation Front and General Sterligov’s Russian National Assembly (ibid, 47f, cf., March 2002, 33). ‘Russian state patriotism’ was the new ideology to replace Marxism-Leninism. The state was looked upon as ‘the thread of continuity in Russian history and the key factor in the development of the country’ (Urban-Soloveii 1997, 76). Along with emphasising the priority of state interests over those of society, this ideology viewed the Russian people as ‘the nucleus and cement of the Russian and Soviet state’ (ibid.). Last but not least, Russian-Soviet history was considered to be ‘single and indivisible’. This ‘single stream’

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thinking of national Bolshevik vintage views the Soviet era to form a natural period in Russian history (cf., Allensworth 1998, 145 f). It is aimed at reconciling and uniting Russian-minded communists and anticommunist nationalists. For the anticommunist nationalists, the most difficult problem in coming to terms with the communists was their atheistic internationalist ideology as well as their positive assessment of the Bolshevik revolution and of the Soviet regime. Already in 1973, in his famous letter to the Soviet leaders Alexander Solzhenitsyn had suggested cooperation in order to save Russia (cf., Solzhenitsyn 1974). The precondition had been that Marxism would be jettisoned as a state ideology and, if possible, replaced by Orthodoxy. In the 1990s, something like this happened in Russia as numerous communists abandoned the bankrupt Marxism-Leninism and converted to Orthodoxy. Zyuganov was, de facto, or at least seemed to be, one of them. With regard to the history of Russia in the twentieth century, Zyuganov and other national Bolsheviks distinguished between ‘good patriotic Bolsheviks’ and ‘bad cosmopolitan communists’. The first-mentioned embodied ‘patriotism’, the latter ‘Russophobia’ (cf. Zyuganov 1994, 34). This impled that the communist party had always been divided: an eternal conflict was going on between constructive and destructive forces. Trotsky, Gorbachev, and Yeltsin belonged to the party of ‘national betrayal’ and served outside enemies, whereas the ‘true patriots’ could be found among the workers, peasants, military, national capitalists and intelligentsia, and Soviet heroes such as Marshal Zhukov and Yurii Gagarin (cf., March 2002, 74). Theoretically, in his pamphlet writings Zyuganov sometimes seems to gravitate towards the extreme right as he replaces the doctrine of class struggle with geopolitics. In this respect, he joins the radical conservative ideologists, such as Aleksandr Dugin and Vladimir Zhirinovsky. After the break-up of the Soviet empire, geopolitics became a fashionable concept in the political debates in the Russian media. Even Yeltsin was repeatedly talking about ‘Russia’s geopolitical interests’ or the ‘Eurasian space’ (Evraziiskoe prostranstvo) implying the territory of the former Soviet empire. With regard to the Jewish question, Zyuganov has tried to please his anti-Semitic, right-wing nationalist friends by concluding that the ‘Jewish diaspora which has traditionally controlled the financial life of the [European—TP] continent’, was becoming the ‘controlling shareholder’ in the entire Western economy (cf., Zyuganov 1995, 18). This train of thought had its precursor in 1990 with the anti-Semitic and semifascist Pamiat’ leader D.Vasil’ev who had declared that ‘80 per cent of the world’s capital is possessed by the Jews’ (cf., Parland 1991). The CPRF became quickly the largest and best organised of all the existing political parties in Russia. It claimed 550,000–580,000 members and 1.5 million sympathisers. In the 1993 parliamentary elections, notwithstanding the prevailing anti-communist atmosphere in society, it received 6.6 million votes (12.6 per cent) and 15.4 million (22 per cent) votes 2 years later. In the presidential elections in 1996, Zyuganov narrowly lost to Boris Yeltsin. In the run-off, he received about 30 million votes (40 per cent). The main reason why Yeltsin won was because Lebed had decided to support the incumbent President. In 1996–98, Zyuganov and his party, in the spirit of national pragmatism, lowered their profile in trying to influence the regime indirectly through negotiations and lobbying. In

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April 1998, Lebed’s great success in the gubernatorial election in Krasnoiarsk region made Zyuganov ready to cooperate with those in power. After the collapse of the rouble in August 1998, and the dismissal of S. Kirienko’s government as well as the appointment of Evgenii Primakov as a new Prime Minister, Zyuganov and his party got a dominating position in working out a new political course for Russia. Now the CPRF turned out to constitute a direct continuation of the parties in power. As an irony of history, this assessment of Zyuganov’s party had already been made in 1994 by the Stalinist paper Bolshevik that considered the party leader to be a supporter of the regime (Grachev 1994, 2). Later, at the turn of the millennium, the CPRF was accused of playing ‘the role of a second party of the regime’ by a right-wing nationalist like Igor Shafarevich (Shafarevich 2000, 171). Zyuganov’s efforts to transform his formally communist party into a national patriotic one forced him to look for new ideological allies. The fact that the party had established regular contacts with the more or less national socialist National Republican Party of Russia led by Beliaev has already been mentioned. Sometimes, even the RNE joined rallies organised by the CPRF and its sympathisers (cf. Sirotin 1994, 8). Furthermore, Zyuganov has at times been in touch with the Soiuz venedov (Union of the veneds), a cultural organisation in St Petersburg adhering to an ancient pagan belief. This organisation professes ideas very close to nazism (cf., Shenfield 2001, 249 f). Furthermore, it also acts as an intermediary in distributing German national socialist literature translated into Russian. Among the party papers, Pravda and Sovetskaia Rossiia (Soviet Russia) are the most important mouthpieces. The latter is leaning towards national bolshevism and known for publishing ‘ideological hot stuff.’ As a matter of fact, being a former Stalinist newspaper, it started to cooperate with the Moscow Patriarchate by producing the supplement Rus’ pravoslavnaia (Orthodox Russia) that appeared occasionally. This ‘ideological joint venture’ in the mid-1990s published numerous articles written by Metropolitan Ioann. At the same time the socialist and Marxist slogans in Sovetskaia Rossiia were more and more overshadowed by Orthodox and nationalist visions. Ioann’s nationalist and antiSemitic writings could be seen also in Zavtra, the extremist ‘red-brown’ weekly (cf., Allensworth 1998, 133). The party has gained influence in the broadest layers of society. Who, then, concretely, are Zyuganov’s supporters? Among the party members, the rank and file are overwhelmingly made up of elderly pensioners, veterans, disenfrachised civil employees, retired army officers and party bureaucrats. No wonder, that the CPRF is perceived by many to be ‘the party of pensioners.’ This being the case, the party’s future does not look rosy. On the other hand, young people’s indifference towards politics is a problem for almost all the political parties in Russia. The small fascist and national socialist elitist parties with their armed youngsters and young men are the exception to this rule. Zyuganov’s electorate in 1996 represented large sections of the population, in particular teachers, librarians, physicians, nurses and other categories of people being paid by the state. These state employees were victims of the notorious wage-arrears. The pensioners’ situation was analogous. Among other categories of dissatisfied people where Zyuganov had numerous supporters were representatives of the military industrial complex and the so-called

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national business sector. However, this part of Zyuganov’s electorate probably voted for Zhirinovsky in 1993, and in the gubernatorial elections in the Krasnoiarsk region in 1998, a large proportion voted for Lebed. They had supported the CPRF in 1995 and Zyuganov in 1996. In a word, these three nationalist parties were appealing more or less to the same categories of voters. The Communist Party of the Russian Federation is a pragmatic statist party with an eclectic ideology. Sometimes, its political line is coloured by quite different political ideologies such as national patriotism, including its statist and ethnocentric versions, Marxism-Leninism, social democracy and even some liberalism. However, in most cases nationalism seems to be, and remain, the dominating trait of CPRF. As a statist with imperial ambitions, Zyuganov has advocated a voluntary restoration of the Soviet empire as well as a return to Russia’s great power status. Russia should serve as a counter-force against the West’s hegemonistic aspirations. This geopolitical thinking is dealt with in Chapter 5. In the middle of the 1990s, however, Russia’s internal problems were of primary importance. Thus, in the field of foreign affairs, state activity should be brought to a minimum (Zyuganov 1995b, 105). This position coming close to a policy of isolationism, was based on the view according to which Russia represents a different civilisation. Russia should not become too dependent on trading and cooperating with the West. In domestic policy, Zyuganov called for a revision of Yeltsin’s privatisation programme, including deprivatisation when needed. He advocated a mixed economy. This idea is, in fact, social democratic: various forms of property ownership, including private, should be accepted. Yet, priority should be given the forms of ‘public ownership’ that take into account Russia’s ‘national character’. The state should own a controlling share in key sectors of the economy, including energy, transport, military industry, education, science, and banking. This would result in a state capitalism of sorts and would probably serve the interests of a budding Russian national bourgeoisie. Zyuganov’s negative attitude towards Western influences is coloured by ethnocentric and traditionalist nationalism. The Russian party leader advocates censorship of films, books, and advertisements imported from abroad. This view of harmful influences coming from the West has its parallel in Solzhenitsyn’s writings.60 In a way, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation is a modernised version of national bolzhevism. Being formally communist and leftist, its political essence is rightism moderated by pragmatic considerations. So far, it has adapted itself to the new political realities. Yet, it cannot but be considered a transitory political phenomenon in the ongoing struggle between Western-minded reformers and proponents of the Russian tradition, in the controversy between a ‘dirty’ development towards modernity and universalism on the one hand, and a ‘patriotic’ resistance against political, economic and social change, on the other. The party itself is torn between different factions, the most important being those of the ‘social democrats’ and the derzhavniki, i.e. the state patriots or statists. Sooner or later, these antipodes are likely to clash and in that situation the party is likely to split up. The first symptom of a fragmentation of party unity appeared in May 2002 when three prominent members were expelled. They were the Duma speaker Gennadii Seleznëv, economist Svetlana Goriacheva and the former Soviet Minister of culture Nikolai

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Gubenko. The main reason for that expulsion was that Zyuganov had urged Seleznëv to resign as a protest against the reorganisation of Duma committees that had put an end to the communists’ domination of these committees. Seleznëv refused and was supported by Goriacheva and Gubenko. One could view this confrontation as being between ‘radicals’ like Zyuganov and ‘pragmatics’ like the three expelled party members (cf., Globachev 2002, 12). As a possible future scenario, ‘social democrats’ like Seleznëv would become Westernised and more like their European allies, whereas the derzhavniki would move further to the right and come closer to national socialism.

Main common traits and dividing lines Notwithstanding the great diversity of nationalist parties and movements some common ideological factors unite all national patriots. First, there is the critical or, sometimes, even hostile attitude towards the West. Second, authoritarian rule, or even autocracy, is said to suit Russia better than any Western model. Third, as we already know, traditional nationalists have, generally, been yearning for a new tsar, whereas their modern allies prefer a secular strong leader in Russia. As we have seen, there are great ideological differences between ethnocentrists and statist nationalists. This can be seen in the aforementioned four most important conservative parties of the late 1999s. They are all united by one general Weltanschauung, but at the same time, divided by two other Weltanschauung, those of ethnic and statist nationalism. These ‘Third Way’ varieties are dealt with in the next chapters.

4 The ‘third way’ worldview in the Westernisation of Russia As has been noted before, the conservative alternative to both Marxism and liberalism is often called the ‘Third Way’, in particular in Russia. Yet, it should by no means be confused with ‘Blairism’ in the West as the latter represents an amalgam of social democratic and liberal ideas. The Western equivalent of Russian ‘Third Way’ thinking is profoundly conservative. Its proponents have always rejected universal Enlightenment theories of development and instead proclaimed adherence to national traditions. Originally, the ‘Third Way’ Weltanschauung was born as a set of traditionalist ideas justifying l’Ancien Régime, i.e. the monarchy in France before 1789. Later on, with the ongoing secularisation of power and public life, the Christian world outlook of a growing number of conservative-minded people was gradually replaced by other more secular conceptions, including pseudo-scientific theories. As is well known, this evolution culminated in fascism and national socialism in Europe. In contemporary Russia, a similar process has been taking place. The conservative national patriotic current of thought, generally referred to as the so-called ‘Russian idea’, has appeared in both traditional and ‘modern’ versions. The former dominated in the late 1980s, but was gradually overshadowed by the latter in the 1990s. When examining the ‘Third Way’ concept, we find it appropriate to focus mainly on the ‘modern’ tendency as it is a product of post-Soviet reality. In the 1990s, all of the main conservative movements of the 1990s—Barkashov’s RNE, Zhirinovsky’s LDPR, Zyuganov’s CPRF and Lebed’s party RNRP—appear to represent modern nationalism, whether extremist or moderate. In real life both strains of rightism, at least in Russia, coexist and influence each other. In the case of the four aforementioned movements, they declare their adherence to Orthodoxy, whether sincere or simulated. This testifies to a certain influence of traditionalism. Russian National Unity (RNE) proclaiming Orthodox national socialism is a case in point. At the same time, however, RNE is a typical antiintellectual movement of action that eulogises war and heroism. The predominant chsaracter of its activities—military training, patrolling streets and protecting entrepreneurs—is secular. This makes us consider RNE as a representative of modern rightism rather than traditionalism. On the other hand, there are traditionalists like Solzhenitsyn and Shafarevich who do not refrain from using quite secular or even scientific arguments in order to prove that the Western civilisation is pernicious. We can conclude that Russian traditionalist nationalism and its ‘modernist’ equivalent are not separate phenomena but parts of the same ‘Russian idea’. In fact, they complement each other. Thus, modern rightism is not only a product of Western influences but also, at least partly, a continuation of traditionalism in new circumstances. Consequently, it has to be analysed in the context of its traditional equivalent including its historical roots.

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The secularisation of attitudes (one of the preconditions of modernisation) has played a decisive role in emasculating traditionalist religious thought and in replacing it with secular ideas. In Russian history, however, the same process has been more protracted and it is, in fact, still going on. The powerful Orthodox Church has, de facto, become part of state authority after the collapse of the one-party Soviet regime. As a consequence, the impact of traditionalist thinking can still be sometimes seen in Russia’s policy, notwithstanding the accelerating Westernisation of society. The controversy between traditional and ‘modern’ Russian nationalists shows how the latter try to restore and save their empire and ethnic identity instead of yearning for Russia’s golden religious past. In other words, they have had to secularise and modernise their ideology.

Secularisation of Russian thought in the historical perspective In this chapter of modern versions of the Russian conservative Weltanschauung, we find it appropriate to start by taking a look at how Russian political thought has emancipated itself from traditional dogmas. Generally, secularisation could be defined as the transfer of authority from religious institutions to secular bodies: ‘…people experience the obligations, transactions and institutions of everyday life in terms that make no reference to the divine’ (Scruton 1982, 420). The aforementioned definition suits best those countries where state and church are separated. In the West, USA, France and Germany are a case in point. In Russia, the Orthodox Church is only formally separated from the state.61 Timehonoured traditions of spiritual life have survived in society notwithstanding 74 years of atheistic rule. At the same time, total secularisation of public life is about to materialise. In the late 1990s, the Orthodox Church’s powerful position was getting more and more symbolic, whereas real power was more and more concentrated in the hands of the President and his entourage—representatives of the economic elite, the oligarchs, as well as of the army and the security organs. The history of Russian political thought reveals that authority and power have undergone a long and protracted process of secularisation. As a matter of fact, this process can be depicted as follows in Figure 10. Russia before 1917—autocracy in the shape of Caesaro-Papism Prerevolutionary Russia includes two different eras: Muscovite Russia and the Petersburg period. The former embodied the purest form of traditional society, the latter a modernising imperial Russia that, however, could never totally extricate itself from the grips of its traditionalist past. Muscovite Russia existed in the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The rule was theocratic autocracy, as the Church identified itself with the state and the tsar was ‘the visible manifestation of the Divine Order’ (Szamuely 1974, 67). It should be remembered, that, contrary to the West, no line of demarcation existed in Russia between the spheres of ecclesiastical and temporal power. There was ‘the institution of the GodEmperor in its specific Byzantine Christian adaptation known as Caesaro-Papism,

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whereby the authority of the Pope and the Emperor are amalgamated in the person of the Tsar’ (Aspaturian 1963, 409). Muscovite Russia’s official ideology was that of royal absolutism that had been worked out by clergymen who felt that the interests of religion and church were best served by a monarchy with no limits to its power (Pipes 1974, 232). The almighty tsar had divine authority: in the exercise of his office, he was like God. In a word, this ideology was based on religious faith only. Russia’s secularisation begins with Peter the Great (1672–1725) and his sweeping reforms that made the traditional monarchy subject to secular influences from the Protestant part of Europe (cf., Treadgold 1973, 84). Among the tsar’s numerous achievements, the development of a secularised system of education was particularly important as it later on resulted in the birth of the famous Russian intelligentsia. On the whole, however, Russia remained traditional as Peter the Great’s reforms did not Religious power

Russia before 1917

Caesaro-Papist autocracy (Orthodox monarchy)

Quasi-religious power

The USSR 1917–1991

Ideocratic autocracy (Marxist-Leninist one-party state)

Secular bodies of power

Post-Soviet Russia 1992–

Secular authoritarian rule (formally multi-party democracy)

Figure 10 The gradual secularisation of Russian rule

affect the provincial and peripheral areas of the empire, which remained bulwarks of the traditional and conservative. Peter the Great’s reforms, including the subordination of church to state as well as all the subsequent attempts at modernising and Westernising tsarist Russia were important steps towards establishing a secular supreme rule in Russia. Yet, they were unsufficient to change the country’s traditionalist essence. Secular thought, it is true, had gained momentum in several spheres of practical public life, but had not yet influenced the religious character of the supreme rule, i.e. that of the deified tsar. A real secularisation of public life could not materialise as long as the tsar’s unlimited power was legitimised by religion, and not by law. On the other hand, under the pragmatic rule of Peter the Great the religious character of autocracy had been weakened and as such remained rather formal than real. In the nineteenth century, tsarist Russia proclaimed a new official ideology— Orthodoxy, autocracy and national character (pravoslavie, samoderzhavie, narodnost)— as an antidote to the Western political model including constitutional rule, parliamentary representation and political parties. The last catchword of the doctrine—national character—implied that unity and concord were characteristic of the Orthodox Russian people, whereas the West European countries were torn by inner discord, political strife, class struggle and revolutions. As a matter of fact, the official ideology signified a partial revival of traditionalist views in the court and government circles. Under the rule of Alexander III and Nikolai II, the present order was viewed as a continuation of the

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traditions of Muscovite Russia rather than the reforms of Peter the Great (cf., Utechin 1964, 73ff; Parland 1993, 45). As a result, the traditionalist character of the supreme rule was emphasised. Being outside the establishment, the Slavophiles represented a conservative opposition of sorts. They wanted to save the autocracy by presenting an alternative to the Western doctrine of separation of powers. Resorting to the idea of unity and concord they suggested a consultative system known as sobornost to regulate the relationship between the rulers and the ruled. Being defined as a spirit prompting freely offered agreement and expressing ‘unity in multiplicity’ (Solzhenitsyn 1991, 97), this concept, in fact, implied nothing but the unanimity or concensus principle. Excluding the possibility of a political opposition, sobornost was the prevalent principle of decision-making in tsarist Russia. The concept can be traced tack to Aleksei Khomiakov, one of the founders of Slavophilism. The Slavophiles wanted to restore the zemskii sobor, the national assembly of Muscovite Russia that had been dissolved by Peter the Great. They assumed that this assembly had of its own free will transferred all political power to the tsar in exchange for spiritual freedom. The latter implied that people had the right to use the zemskii sobor as a forum for views and opinions about public affairs, although the ruler was free to accept or dismiss this advice (cf., Parland, 1993, 46f). The Slavophile ideal was a popular monarchy of sorts. Officially, the tsar was described as a sovereign by the Grace of God, whereas, paradoxically, the Slavophile sobornost’ principle implied already a partial secularisation of power. As will be seen later, sobornost’ has survived in politics until our days, albeit disguised under other names. The Soviet era 1917–91: ideocratic autocracy Formally, the Bolshevik revolution signified a death-blow to Russia’s traditional institutions. State and Church were separated by decree, and war was declared on religion in general and Orthodoxy in particular. Atheism seemed to have triumphed for good. As is well known, it was only a temporary victory. A revival of religious thought occurred during World War II, and a similar phenomenon occurred in the wake of the mounting Russian national patriotic mood in society during the four last decades of the twentieth century. Yet the autocratic tradition survived, now in the shape of the omnipotent general secretary of the communist party. Moreover, the Bolshevik one-party rule did not result in a secular state, as Orthodoxy was replaced by a new absolute truth, that of MarxismLeninism. The new Soviet state was ideocratic, i.e. akin to a religion, as the only permitted ideology gradually became a quasi-religion. This metamorphosis was accomplished in the 1930s. Moreover, here and there the party ‘liturgy’ had an obvious resemblance with that of the Orthodox Church. The cult of Stalin led to a deification of the Soviet dictator who himself had deliberately contributed to this process. Lenin was deified in the same way, but the cult of his personality started only after his death. After Stalin, secularisation of power took a great step forwards. The cult of personality was condemned at the twentieth party congress in 1956. Yet, there was still the one-party state with its official ideology that was considered to represent the absolute truth. Within

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the communist party, however, the principle of sobornost’ had been introduced— disguised under the name of democratic centralism.62 This being the case, the Soviet Union’s quasi-religious essence continued to characterise public life. On the other hand, more and more people, in particular representatives of the younger generation—officially they paid lip-service to Marxism-Leninism—viewed in secret this metaphysical doctrine critically or even rejected it. Gorbachev’s rule in 1985–91, the last years of the Soviet Union, signified the end of ideocracy and the final deideologisation of state power. The policy of glasnost abolished censorship on mass media and provided for ideological pluralism. Political pluralism followed suit. This happened, first, in the shape of numerous so-called informal associations that had emerged spontaneously in the late 1980s, and later, through the formation of several political parties after March 1990 when the CPSU lost its monopoly on power. Political life had secularised definitely. One-party ideocracy was replaced by multi-party democracy, at least formally. Yeltsin’s post-Soviet New Russia: Anarchy and secular authoritarianism (formally multi-party democracy) After the democratic revolution in August 1991 and the subsequent break-up of the Soviet empire in December 1991, the Western-minded reformers formed the new power elite in the Russian Federation. At the beginning, it seemed, as if Russia would quickly transform into a Western-style country with democracy, the rule of law and a dynamic market economy. As is well known, something else happened. The disruption of the old party-state and of its system of values resulted in a social Darwinist anarchy of sorts. In post-Soviet Russia, the traditional prevalence of corruption in general and bribery in particular became even more pronounced than before. The general drive towards getting rich at any cost favoured those who occupied high posts in the state administration or had good connections within it, as well as those who belonged to influential criminal organisations. As a result, criminalisation of society and state became a reality with a deteriorating economy as a result. Russia became economically polarised, and politically even more divided than before, now between Yeltsin and the reformers in power, on the one hand, and the ‘red-brown’ opposition that dominated Parliament, on the other. Even the reformers were divided with Yavlinsky and his party Yabloko (Apple) remaining in opposition. Political and ideological pluralism, thus, materialised in a rather anarchic way. The state was weak, as all the regions tried to become as independent as possible from Moscow’s tutelage. Furthermore, organised crime directly or indirectly dominated the economy through the so-called oligarchs. Some of the latter belonged to Yeltsin’s entourage and could influence even the composition and political course of the cabinet. Yet the Russian tradition of autocracy survived and democracy could materialise only partly. With the 1993 Constitution, the rule, the position of the President became much stronger in Russia. In fact, the President became as all-powerful as the CPSU’s general secretary or the tsar before 1917. The bicameral Parliament had much less power. Its function was rather that of a debating forum, whereas the President could always resort to ruling by decrees. It has to

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be noted that this authoritarian rule as such seems to have been accepted by almost all the political parties or movements including Zyuganov’s communists. The latter wanted to abolish the presidency as long as Boris Yeltsin was on duty, but they did not reject authoritarian rule as such. On the other hand, the President was now perceived as a human being instead of being deified. For instance, Yeltsin’s weakness for alcohol could freely be discussed in the media, just as politicians are treated in the West. Secular authoritarianism had taken over. Official Russia had secularised and Westernised for good. Yet, facing the general alarming situation in Russia, people were yearning for a ruler strong and tough enough to restore order, eradicate corruption and suppress organised crime. This mood manifested itself in the presidential election in 2000 when Vladimir Putin with a KGB-background was elected in the first run-off.

Secularisation of the ‘Russian idea’ The first manifestations of a Russian conservative backlash against alien influences occurred even before Peter I, within the Orthodox Church. This happened in 1653, when Patriarch Nikon tried to reform the liturgy by making it comply with the Greek original. The so-called staroobriadtsy (Old Believers) who opposed this reform and proclaimed a purely Russian faith served in a way as precursors of the ‘Russian Idea’. From Peter the Great on, Western Enlightenment ideas have, paradoxically, played a crucial role in the history of Russian conservative thought. They have served as a deterrent for those who opposed rationalism and secular thought as leading to moral decay, to an emasculation of Russian Orthodox values. They viewed Russia as the embodiment of morality and true Christianity. The ‘Russian idea’ emerged in the nineteenth century as an ideological antidote to influences of Western liberal and socialist secular thought. As has already been noted, in the shape of original Slavophilism it served as an alternative to tsarist despotism, i.e. the legacy of Peter I, as well as to Western constitutional rule. The metamorphosis of Slavophilism from a peaceful and moralistic line of thought coloured by Orthodoxy to a chauvinistic and imperialist as well as anti-Semitic interpretation of the ‘Russian idea’ signifies the gradual secularisation of this traditionalist Weltanschauung. Yet, its Orthodox character did never totally disappear, but was only more and more overshadowed by non-religious theories of Western extraction. Pan-Slavism and geopolitics are good examples. This process of gradual secularisation is still going on as we have seen—in the fact of both traditionalism and ‘modern’ radical conservatism co-existing in contemporary Russian politics. Russia, thus, shows simultaneously different historical faces. As a result, there are different kinds of Third way’ worldviews competing with each other. Regarded as pure types, extreme traditionalism proclaims Orthodoxy, whereas the views of the modern Russian right are coloured by social Darwinism and racism, quite in accordance with the general secular climate in society. This can be seen in Figure 11. In the Russian context, messianism implies a belief in Russia’s divine mission in the world: As a God-chosen Orthodox nation, Russia will resuscitate mankind by resolving the moral problems that the West has

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Traditionalism Orthodoxy

Modern rightism Social Darwinism

Statist nationalism

Religious messianism

Russia’s geopolitical mission

Ethnocentrist Russianness

Traditional Russianness (Slavophilism) Confessional anti-Semitism

Racial Russianness Racial anti-Semitism Aryanism, ‘white-power’philosophy, eugenics

Figure 11 Two Third Way’ worldviews: Traditionalism and modern rightism

been unable to cope with. As time went on, this mission was interpreted as an Orthodoxisation of the world implying that Russia’s imperialist policy of military expansion could be justified with religious arguments. Russia’s geopolitical mission is but a secularised version of the aforementioned messianism: in a social-Darwinist world of clashing civilisations Russia’s survival requires that her former imperial status be restored. Dugin’s, Zyuganov’s and Zhirinovsky’s geopolitical doctrines mirror the Weltanschauung of statist (imperial) national patriots. The ethnic dimension of national patriotism—Russianness, whether traditional or racial—has always been connected with anti-Semitism. The need for preserving the empire’s security and stability as well as for finding someone to blame for Russia’s misfortunes and shortcomings has served as an excuse for persecuting the Jews. Originally, there was religious hostility to the Jews (confessional anti-Semitism), later, the biological characteristics of this ethnic group became a target (racial anti-Semitism). In contemporary Russia, modern rightist anti-Semitism has expanded to racism in general and to Aryanism and ‘white power’—philosophy in particular. These phenomena are dealt with in Chapter 6. As already noted, the ongoing secularisation of public life makes modern nationalism gradually gain the upper hand. This tendency can be seen in a growing influence of secular institutions of power. The impact of the army and the security organs on state policy is increasing, whereas that of the Orthodox Church is less conspicious, perhaps even declining. The wars in Chechnya are the most striking example of the power structures’ central role in political decision-making in Russia. This aspect is dealt with in the last chapter. All the nationalists without exception advocate autocratic rule of sorts. At the same time, the process of secularisation of political power in Russia has also influenced many Russian national patriots’ views. This being the case, there are both Orthodox monarchists and fascists, national socialists or other secular rightists. This can be seen in Figure 12. Traditionalism

Modern rightism

Monarchism - theocracy

Secular dictatorship - police state authoritarianism

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- corporatism

Figure 12 Different forms of autocratic rule

The concept sobornost’ has already been dealt with. In the Soviet one-party state, sobornost’ appeared under a new name—the so-called democratic centralism that implied ideological unity. Russian fascists and national socialists as well as other proponents of authoritarianism suggest a corporatism 63 of sorts instead. After the fall of the Soviet regime, there have been rather few national patriots supporting the idea of restoring Russian monarchy. Most Russian nationalists prefer secular authoritarian rule combined with the principle of corporatism that could be considered to represent a modern version of the aforementioned sobornost’ institution. The old Slavophile ideals of Unity and Harmony instead of division and discord in society can still be seen in national patriotic writings. At the same time, the very idea of strong authoritarian rule has attracted numerous liberals. They do not seem to believe in the possibility of democracy in Russia, at least for the time being. This view (another name for it is the Pinochet-syndrome) has been strengthened by all the shortcomings and failures of Yeltsin’s reforms in the 1990s. As a matter of fact, in 1998–99 most liberals and other democrats were more and more gravitating towards Russian nationalist viewpoints. On some issues, such as the enlargement of NATO in 1998, the NATO air strikes in Kosovo in 1999, and the military operations in Chechnya in 1999, a rapprochement of democrats and nationalists including Zyuganov’s nationalist-minded communists took place. V.Putin, then Prime Minister, now President of Russia, has served as the common denominator. Now there is no organised opposition strong enough to challenge him. He seems to embody secular authoritarian rule as well as a police state coming into being. This Weltanschauung, as we have seen, is de facto shared by all nationalist-minded Russians regardless of their political or other preferences. Geopolitics and racism are the two ‘Third Way’ worldviews that will be dealt with more thoroughly in the following chapters. In this study, however, we will start with the historically younger phenomenon geopolitics as it has directly influenced Russia’s foreign policy and partly domestic policy in the 1990s. The impact of racism in general and anti-Semitism in particular has been rather indirect and made itself felt more outside the establishment, in the provinces and at grass root level. This being the case, racism as a Weltanschauung will follow after geopolitics and its Russian versions.

5 Geopolitics as a conservative Weltanschauung—the clash of civilisations Western globalism implies the spreading of universal values such as liberal democracy, market economy and the rule of law. In the 1990s, geopolitics has emerged as a conservative counter-ideology not only in Russia but even in the West. In a way, Samuel Huntington’s theory is a good case in point (see Huntington 1993), even if it supports in principle all the Western liberal-democratic values as such. Yet, rejecting universalism, this conception proclaims a geographically determined civilisational pluralism. Today in the West, geopolitics is sometimes defined as a meta-theory that explains international politics from the point of view of geography’s crucial impact on political decision-making. Furthermore, it has been interpreted as a science that examines the adequacy of the resources of an area (mainly of a state) for political purposes on the one hand, and the use of political means for acquiring and utilising these resources on the other (cf., Visuri 1997, 163f). In contemporary Russia, a somewhat analogous strain of thought seems to manifest itself in A.Dugin’s definition of geopolitics as a science of ruling (Dugin 1997, 14). Yet, Dugin’s way of thinking is ambiguous as geopolitics is considered to be the secularised product of ‘sacral geography’ (sakral’naia geografiia).64 Contrary to the Western modern and somewhat instrumental approach to geopolitics there are also examples of a more classical interpretation of it. In the West, Scruton’s definition is a good case in point. He bases his definition on the ideas of two representatives of classical geopolitics: Rudolf J. Kjellen65 and Karl Haushofer:66 Geopolitics ‘conceives geographical location as an important and perhaps major determinant of political identity, political thought and political action, and…sees nations as organisms struggling with each other for the occupancy of space’ (cf., Scruton 1982, 187). In contemporary Russia, this view is prevailing. Like liberalism and Marxism, geopolitics is based on one sole main principle. The two first-mentioned doctrines focus on economy and, thus, do represent ‘economic reductionism’. Liberalism explains everything in terms of money, Marxism in terms of production relations. This being the case, both theories represent development and change in terms of economic progress. The ideologically conservative character of geopolitics can be seen in its main principle—geography and space—as it represents the stable and the unchangeable in life and history. From the geopolitical idea of place-bound identity we arrive at the conclusion that a geographical location is culture-bound, too. This being the case, the geopolitical Weltanschauung implies that there are different geographical locations with different political cultures or civilisations. Hence, there can be no universal civilisation, as the proponents of Westernisation claim. In the 1990s, this strain of thought implies various forms of struggle between different civilisations, mainly

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that between the expanding neoliberalist Western culture of political and economic reforms on the one hand, and the traditionalist non-Western cultures as well as the Western conservative counter-reform Weltanschauungs on the other. This phenomenon has attracted the attention of certain Western political scientists, such as Samuel Huntington. Furthermore, the same problems have been dealt with in pamphlets and articles by Russian neo-Eurasian thinkers such as A.Dugin and G.Zyuganov.

The origin of Russian geopolitical thinking During the last 500 years Russia has been a continuously expanding power due to a number of favourable geographical conditions like the absence of states in the north and in the east. Being an Orthodox theocracy, she began to consider her growing size and strength as serving a divine purpose. In Muscovite Russia of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, this idea appeared in the shape of the doctrine of Moscow as the Third Rome (Moskva—Tretii Rim), a messianic doctrine that was based on the legacy of the Byzantine Empire (the ‘Second Rome’). The latter had proclaimed itself as the future universal Christian empire with a divinely ordained mission to extend its Orthodox ‘truth’ to the entire world. After the fall of Constantinople to the Turks in 1453, this train of thought was adopted by the Grand principality of Moscowy who had claimed title to the spiritual heritage of the Byzantine Empire (cf., Struve 1963, 32). The Grand Princes of Moscow proclaimed themselves as successors of the tsars of Byzantium investing themselves with the title ‘Tsar, autocrat, chosen by God’ (cf. Aspaturian 1963, 409). Orthodoxy, the cornerstone of Russian nationalism later on in history, was often used as an argument against the secularised and superficial West. It was to represent pure and true Christianity in contrast to Catholicism, which was seen as the heir to Roman paganism, and to Protestantism, which it viewed as the gateway to barren individualism (cf., Parland 1993, 44). Needless to say, this train of thought implied that the rulers of Russia had the right to rule and protect all the Orthodox people in the world and, by implication, to bring them under Russian suzerainty (cf., Pipes 1974, 233). Moreover, as Orthodoxy was proclaimed the only true Christian faith, the rulers considered themselves universal Christian sovereigns, i.e. the rulers of all the Christians (ibid.). Thus, Russia’s imperialistic policy of geographical expansion during the sixteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries could be theologically justified. Solzhenitsyn’s explanation is characteristic: ‘In our view, we could not leave Christian peoples without help wherever they lived on the earth’ (Solzhenitsyn 1995, 144). Formally, until 1917, Russia’s foreign policy was coloured by this Orthodox messianism. Actually, the Russian tsars were realists and resorted more and more to a pragmatic policy of furthering Russia’s own imperial interests dictated by geography. Expansionism served the purpose of creating new and safer borders. This could be seen in the drive towards the north and the east where Russia got sea borders in the sixteenth century. Later, the need of warm-water ports became more and more pressing to meet strategic trade interests (cf., Puheloinen 1997, 11). This implied expansion to the west and the south. Peter I and Catherine II made Russia a Baltic and a Black Sea power in the

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eighteenth century. Russia waged numerous wars against Turkey in order to conquer Constantinople and get access to the Mediterranean. Russia failed to achieve this goal as Turkey was backed up by the European great powers France and England who did not want Russia growing too strong. However that may be, in Russia the germs of geopolitical thinking had been born behind the scenes of official religious messianism. During the second half of the nineteenth century, with the emergence of imperial statist nationalism, the real geopolitical motives for Russia’s continuing territorial expansionism were more or less openly admitted, as Danilevsky’s writings testify to (see p. 22). In a word, instead of serving as God’s instrument in history, Russia had to further its own imperial interests exclusively and accomplish her own geopolitical mission in a Darwinist world of struggle for survival. This new thinking resulted in two inter-related geopolitical doctrines—the Russian imperial idea and panslavism. The former emanating from the establishment proclaimed legitimism and traditional conservatism. In a way, this idea proclaimed already self-sufficiency, more or less. Panslavism for its part, was a movement among national-minded thinkers and publicists like Danilevsky who pleaded for a great Slavic empire headed by the Russian tsar. Under the Soviet regime 1917–91, these geopolitical considerations continued to serve as the basic principle in foreign policy. Stalin’s spectacular great power policy during and after World War II is a good case in point. In fact, his geopolitical orientation was a synthesis of the old imperial idea (autarchy) and panslavism (Zyuganov 1997, 127). The former manifested itself in Stalin’s policy of isolationalism, the latter in the incorporation of Eastern Europe into the Soviet bloc, the so-called socialist camp. In Soviet propaganda, however, expansionism was never called by its proper name—geopolitics was officially considered a reactionary bourgeois doctrine—but explained as being part of the international class struggle. Thereby Soviet power policy could be justified as promoting the cause of the international proletarian movement. As already noted, in the 1920s, geopolitical thinking manifested itself undisguised among Russian nationalist-minded émigrés in the shape of Eurasianism. It was influenced partly by late Slavophilism of the 1870s and 1880s, partly by German geopolitics in the shape of Carl Schmitt,67 K.Haushofer, and Ernst Niekisch.68 On the other hand, in the Soviet Union geopolitics had no chance to be permitted as a separate doctrine as even national bolshevism could exist only behind the facade of Marxism-Leninism. Geopolitics became officially accepted as a political theory only in post-totalitarian Russia. Its rapidly growing popularity was, probably, due to the new frustrating situation after the break-up of the Soviet empire. With 25 million Russians living beyond the frontiers of the Russian Federation, the idea of restoring the empire and the former Soviet Union’s status of a superpower was harboured by considerably large quarters of society. Geopolitics became the new ideological panacea for Russian-minded statist national patriots who quite often called themselves Eurasians (evraziitsy) or neo-Eurasians (neoevraziitsy). As has been noted, this category of nationalists can be found within the Establishment in general, and within the army and other power structures in particular. Neo-Eurasianism includes aspects of both traditionalist and ‘modernist’ thinking. Imperial thinking and orientation belong mainly to the first category, whereas the latter is characterised by urbanism and industrial, technological, and military-industrial projects

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(cf., Dugin 1994, 134).

General ideological conceptions of neo-eurasianism Emerging in the early 1990s, Russia’s new statist (imperial) nationalism represented several different currents of thought including different versions of anti-communist nationalism (Zhirinovsky, Lebed) and of the ‘red-brown’ ideology (Dugin, Zyuganov). At the same time, however, the neo-Eurasians showed certain common traits such as a very critical if not hostile attitude towards the West and its universalist ideas. This common ideological orientation was strengthened by the humiliating break-up of the Soviet empire in 1991. In post-Soviet Russia, hardliners among nationalists and nationalist-minded communists considered Yeltsin’s government with its neoliberal reform policy to represent alien non-Russian interests. The view of a declining West Having deep historical roots, the aforementioned anti-Western attitude implies that Russia should not let herself be influenced by pernicious Western ideas. This argument for its part implies that the West is a decayed civilisation that is coming to an end. Similar views were voiced in Russia in the 1870s and the 1880s, mainly in the writings of Danilevsky (1822–85), the chief theoretician of Panslavism and the precursor of Russian geopolitics. In Danilevsky’s view, European civilisation was in a state of organic dissolution (Parland 1993, 50). The Russians and the other Slavic peoples had the makings of an entirely new kind of civilisation. In order to materialise, this civilisation should not be contaminated by foreign unhealthy influences. In a word, Russia should isolate itself from the contagious West. This strain of thought was to appear again in Solzhenitsyn’s view of the world in the early 1970s: The Soviet Union’s enormous prestige and influence on all international politics was due not to its own strength but to the weakness of the West (Solzhenitsyn 1974, 11). The dissident Russian writer mentions the legacy of the Renaissance as well as that of the Enlightenment as having caused the protracted spiritual crisis that the West has been undergoing during the last centuries (ibid., 11). The West was considered to be weak as it had been focusing on material progress solely. In his startling speech at Harvard University in 1978, Solzhenitsyn accused the Western modern secular culture of having lost its Christian heritage. The result could be only a spiritual decay. Freedom and unchecked materialism made man a slave of his own material interests (cf., Parland 1993, 142). This traditionalist view emphasises the spiritual strength of a nation as being much more important than material well-being. The idea of a weakening and declining West, however, has European roots, too. Originally, it was linked with the European conservative Weltanschauung of the nineteenth century that condemned the legacy of Enlightenment in general, and the liberal and the socialist doctrines of human nature in particular. However, very soon backlash conservatism began to emancipate itself from traditional Christianity in favour of a nationalism cherishing Nature as well as local and cultural identity in terms of

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ancient pagan beliefs, occultism, and even of biased interpretations of sciences such as history and biology. In a way, European nationalism began to ‘secularise’ and ‘modernise’. The emergence of the Völkisch Weltanschauung in Germany of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century serves as a good example. This period was marked by the ideas of Friedrich Nietzsche and Oswald Spengler, two thinkers who predicted that the artificial and degenerated intellectualised West European present was coming to an end and would be replaced by a new culture of a strong fighting spirit and will-power. The strength of human spirit and of that of a nation had earlier been explained in terms of Christian belief (the ‘Christian state’). The evolution of Völkisch thought, however, resulted in a totally different argumentation that was coloured partly by ancient pagan mythology as well as by occultism, partly by secular pseudo-scientific ideas derived from biology and geography (cf., Mosse 1966, 71f, 88). To the latter belonged social Darwinism and race research as well as geopolitics. In a word, elements of secular thought began to overshadow traditional canonised beliefs. Nietzsche’s prophecy was that of an Übermensch (a superman—TP), whereas Spengler expected the West to be replaced by a new, young and vigorous civilisation. As is well known from history, these thoughts were to serve as precursors of Italian fascism and German national socialism. In European political debates of the 1920s and the 1930s, the rightist movements distinguished between ‘healthy’ and ‘sick’ nations. The first were considered ‘organic,’ the latter ‘mechanistic’ or ‘artificial’ states. It should be noted that these epithets have been very common in the political vocabulary of contemporary Russian national patriots such as Igor Shafarevich and Aleksandr Barkashov. In Europe of the early twentieth century, fascism and national socialism along with other modern rightist anti-intellectual ideologies rejected the legacy and spirit of 1789 (and of 1776 as well). Being perceived as an artificial and arbitrary creation of human mind, the West European democracies were equated with corruption, greediness, permissiveness, cowardice, humanism, moral relativism and powerlessness. In plain language, democracy was considered a sickness and doomed to die. This anti-intellectual mood was prevailing in most parts of Europe of the 1920s and 1930s and influenced indirectly even the Soviet Union’s policy that was more and more coloured by national bolshevism. In the Soviet Union before and after World War II, the view of a declining West was used by the communist party as an ideological argument to deter people from considering Western liberalism as an alternative to the existing regime. Yet, along with this manipulative attitude, Soviet propaganda, as it seems, contained certain racist implications. The way Russian and Soviet history was taught in schools is a good case in point. The Russians were viewed as being superior to other nations—this was especially the case in Stalin’s Soviet Union after World War II. This being the case, we can conclude that there were at that time some common traits between Soviet socialism and German national socialism. In Europe of the 1920s and 1930s, the view of the old, exhausted West being challenged by younger and dynamic nations of the East was characteristic both of classical émigré Eurasianism and of the German extreme right (cf., Laqueur 1993, 174). The argumentation was secular, and it was presented mainly in terms of biology and

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geopolitics. In a way, neo-Eurasianism of the 1990s represented a continuation of its classical precursor in the new post-Soviet situation. At the same time, some of its main postulates including that of the decrepit West had been underpinned with new would-be scientific argumentation. Russian scholar and thinker Lev Gumilev’s theory on ethnogenesis is typical. He served as a bridge between classical Eurasianism and its contemporary equivalent neo-Eurasianism. Some of his works which could not be published before 1987 have greatly contributed to the latter Weltanschauung. Gumilev presents a Spenglerian train of thought by saying that mankind consists of different civilisations that are like living organisms: they are born, they flourish and they collapse. Yet, in Gumilev’s theory they emerge not simultaneously but at different times in history. As the average lifespan of a civilisation is 1,200–1,500 years, the present Eurasian civilisation or superethnos is about 500 years younger than the Western RomanGermanic civilisation! (cf., Pursiainen 1998, 15–18; Gumilev 1989, 169–216, 250–288; Gumilev 1990, 33–44). Thus, the West is already approaching its final end but Russia will still have plenty of time to continue its existence. The striking point in Gumilev’s thinking was his ambition to make his theory a new science, the synthesis of geography, history and the natural sciences (ibid., 10). His influence can be seen in the contemporary currents of neo-Eurasian thought. The idea of the declining West is underpinned by an analogous secular argumentation. Zyuganov’s ‘communism’—national bolshevism would be a more appropriate name— is a good case in point: the party leader rejects the Western consumption society by referring to the well-known deteriorating and downright alarming ecological situation in the world. The Western ideology of progress and growth is blamed for resulting in a destructive environmental policy (cf., Zyuganov 1995, 59–61). As an irony of history, these ideas were anticipitated in 1973 by Alexander Solzhenitsyn who in this case, notwithstanding his traditionalist views, chose to resort to documented facts, not to religious argumentation (cf., Solzhenitsyn 1974). A more or less isolationist attitude towards the West is characteristic of almost all Russian nationalists. The expected coming collapse of the West is considered to be very dangerous for the rest of mankind. In Zyuganov’s view, Russia can protect itself against the total chaos and global disturbance (smuta) that will follow in such a situation, only by strengthening its own statehood as well as its ideological, political, economic and military self-sufficiency (samodostatochnost’) (Zyuganov 1995, 61). This train of thought has much in common with an article published a long time ago, in the samizdat publication Veche in the early 1970s. The author was Mikhail Antonov, a reader of Veche, who declared that the peoples and states of the West had outlived their time and were dying. The ‘false Jewish-Puritanical world-view’ of the West, however, threatened to draw the Russian people to the edge of the abyss as well (cf. Parland 1993, 63). This argumentation reveals a certain dose of anti-Semitism, even if racism, generally speaking, plays a rather modest role in Russian statist nationalism. In this concrete case, the Jews with their cosmopolitan ideas were considered a subversive force within society. The conspiracy theory Even if the West has been considered decrepit, it has also always been perceived as a

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threat. In plain language, it has been viewed as a hotbed of evil forces conspiring against Russia. In this case we are dealing with the Russian version of the conspiracy theory of history according to which there is a central plot behind all the world’s evils. This doctrine has served as a weapon against modern civilisation in general, and liberalism and Marxism in particular. It should be noted, however, that the idea of a global conspiracy serves as a common denominator for practically all the Russian nationalists. At the same time, the Eurasians’ geopolitical implications seem to be less irrational than the ethnocentrist national patriots’ racist Weltanschauung. The latter will be dealt with later on. By 1880, the belief in a global conspiracy by Freemasons to subvert all cherished values such as Christianity, monarchy, patriotism, internal peace, etc. had gained ground in France, Germany and Russia (Laqueur 1993, 34 f, 38). With the emergence of the Zionist movement at the turn of century, the Jews became perceived as the main partners of the Masons in the alleged conspiracy (cf., ibid., 38). In Russia, the idea of a MasonicJewish plot (zhidomasonskii zagovor) was widespread in the shape of the infamous Protocols of the Elders of Zion. This happened, as is well known, at the beginning of the twentieth century. All the disasters that had struck Russia could now be explained as having been engineered by the West which was dominated by Jews and Masons. This strain of thought has, de facto, survived all the dramatic changes in Russia of the twentieth century including the Soviet era, and manifests itself even in post-Soviet Russia. It should be remembered, however, that the idea of a world conspiracy has attracted numerous people even in the West, earlier as well as nowadays. In the United States, for example, certain societies and groupings within the conservative movement have harboured the view that the talks about a New World Order are an international plot against America: the UN would start ruling the world (cf., Durham 2000, 115–25). Generally, the conspiracy theory implies that there is a ‘hidden history’ behind the general Western version of history. The latter is said to represent distorted, institutionalised knowledge, serving the interests of the Machiavellian ruling elites in modern society. The former is supposed to tell us what really happened or happens. People are manipulated and brainwashed to believe in the official version of history. When applied to Russia, the conspiracy theory appears in the shape of national patriotic references to the ‘zhidomasonskii zagovor’, and modern history is explained as follows: Whatever has happened has been ‘a seamless conspiracy against religion, authority, national values’ (Laqueur 1993, 41). This conspiracy began with the French Revolution and continued with the revolutions of 1830 and 1848. In the nineteenth century, the wars Russia had to wage were anti-Russian Masonic intrigues, as was World War I at the beginning of the twentieth century (ibid.). According to this interpretation of history, the revolutions of 1917 and the fall of the Soviet regime as well as the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 were engineered by Russia’s enemies in the West, i.e. the Jews and the Masons whose influence is very strong in the USA and in Great Britain. The Russian conspiracy theory, however, differs from its German equivalent that emerged in the 1920s. The German doctrine represented a more or less secular view of history and society, notwithstanding its strong elements of occultism. In Russia, however, medieval religious superstition and secular anti-Semitism often co-exist in the same propaganda material. This could be seen in leaflets and other

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publications distributed by Pamiat’ in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Pamiat’ leader Vasil’ev’s interpretation of what happened in 1917 is typical: on the one hand, the revolutions in 1917 were interpreted as the work of the devil, on the other, they were said to have been engineered by the Jews and the Masons. Yet there have been more or less totally secularised versions of the Russian conspiracy theory, too. Viktor Ivanov’s spy novel Day of Judgment (Sudnyi den’), which was published by the nationalist periodical Nash sovremennik in 1988, is a good case in point. The novel testifies to a crude antiSemitism without the slightest trace of Christian heritage. The central idea of the novel is that the Freemasons, generally called the ‘secret forces’, plan to subdue Russia as the last obstacle in their strivings to achieve worldwide hegemony. The twentieth century is described as the scene of a ‘gigantic experiment’ in which Russia in the shape of the Soviet Union is being attacked by an invisible enemy specialised in subversive activities within the country. In the novel, this new secret war is described as follows: The mass media are infiltrated by foreign agents or by their assistants among the population. The export of oil, gas and other raw materials in the 1960s, 1970s and the 1980s was the byproduct of a manipulation of the public opinion. The author of Sudnyi den’ goes to great lengths to persuade the reader that the Soviet Union was plagued by a ‘fifth column’ from the very beginning (cf., Parland 1993, 201). All the economic problems in the country, consequently, were created by these evil forces whose primary purpose was to destroy Russia. In 1991, this view was more or less repeated by Mikhail Antonov: ‘… the socialism of the Soviet Union is an economic and political system that has turned the country into a colony of the West, into a supplier of raw materials and energy and into a market for the products of multinational companies’ (Antonov 1991, 132). If we substitute the words ‘the socialism of the Soviet Union’ for ‘the capitalism of Russia’, the statement is virtually identical with the views of our contemporary ‘red-brown’ neo-Eurasians, in particular as regards Zyuganov! Anticommunist V.Zirinovsky for his part has blamed the West for all the tragedies that have afflicted Russia during the twentieth century. The West has been accused of having tried to undermine Russia from within through communism, nationalism, and cosmopolitanism as well as through alien religions, alien ideas and alien life-style (cf., Zhirinovsky 1993, 117 f). In post-Soviet Russia, the neo-Eurasians’ view of a Western cosmopolitan conspiracy is, in fact, quite secular. Theoretically, A. Dugin, the proponent of a ‘leftist’ national socialism of sorts (cf., Dugin 1994, 23) or ‘red-brown’ philosophy, considers the eternal civilisational and geopolitical conflict between Atlanticism and Eurasianism (see below) to be the real reason behind all the Western conspiracies against Russia. In practical politics, the ongoing economic, political and cultural globalisation process in the world is interpreted as being administered by a small cosmopolitan elite. Russia’s degradation from super power to a regional great power, along with its deep and protracted political and economic crisis, is explained as having been engineered by the cosmopolitan West and its ‘fifth column’ (the democrats in general, and the Jews in particular—TP) within Russia. During the years of perestroika and later, the leading reformers were labelled ‘agents of influence’ (agenty vliianiia)69 by their ideological and political adversaries. Alexander

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Iakovlev, the architect of glasnost’ and Mikhail Gorbachev’s right hand, is a good case in point. He was de facto accused of having collaborated with Western intelligence services with the purpose to destabilise the Soviet Union. Yeltsin’s cabinets headed by Yegor Gaidar and Viktor Chernomyrdin (1992–98), as well as by Sergei Kirienko in 1998, were nicknamed an ‘occupational government’ by the ‘red-brown’ opposition. The regime was also called anti-Russian with the implication that it acts in collusion with the West at the expense of Russia’s national interests.

Neo-Eurasianism: Dugin, Zyuganov, Zhirinovsky As a geopolitical theory, neo-Eurasianism appears in several versions. Politically, Dugin’s hard-line ‘red-brown’ doctrine seems to be the most important: It was gaining more and more devotees in Russia over the last years of the 1990s. It is a well-known fact that Alexander Dugin, as well as his former comrade-in-arms, Alexander Prokhanov, are the most prominent ideologists of neo-Eurasianism. This doctrine serves as an umbrella philosophy for other geopolitical theories including those of Zyuganov and Zhirinovsky. Dugin’s ‘red-brown’ meta-ideology In the late 1990s, A. Dugin had become very influential within the establishment, serving as an adviser to Gennadii Seleznëv, the communist speaker of the Russian Duma. Furthermore, his book The Basics of Geopolitics: Russia’s Geopolitical Future (Osnovy geopolitiki: Geopoliticheskoe budushchee Rossii) that appeared in 1997, and reappeared in an enlarged edition in 1999, was written with the help of Russian Military Academy of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of RF (cf., Clover 1999, 11). As a matter of fact, this work was a continuation of sorts of Dugin’s earlier geopolitical writings. Dugin’s theory, general characteristics There are at least three classical geopoliticians—Sir Halford Mackinder, Karl Haushofer and Carl Schmitt—who have influenced Dugin. In this chapter, however, we will mainly focus on the ideas of the first-mentioned as constituting the essential background to neoEurasianism. The central idea of Mackinder’s theory is geopolitical dualism, i.e. the eternal antagonism between the sphere of land and that of sea, between continental and maritime powers. In the twentieth century, the former were represented by Russia and Germany, the latter by the USA and Great Britain. Imperial Russia as well as the Soviet Union constituted the Eurasian ‘heartland’—the repository for global landpower. Whoever controls the Eurasian land mass will dominate the world, was Mackinder’s conclusion. No wonder that Russian neo-Eurasians have found his theory attractive! In Dugin’s view, during the cold war the aforementioned geopolitical confrontation was disguised by ideological quarrels between liberalism and Marxism-Leninism, two Western anti-traditional theories. Dugin’s conception as presented in Osnovy geopolitiki (The Basics of Geopolitics) takes this geopolitical antagonism further by asserting that the

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two sides are not just divided because of competing geostrategic interests, but are culturally incompatible. The Russian Eurasian thinker views the civilisational conflict between ‘Atlanticism’ and ‘continentalism’ (Eurasianism) as the main antagonism in the world. Then, how does Dugin view this cultural confrontation? Two time-honoured opposite spheres of life—trade and warfare—are confronting each other. The Atlanticist civilisation of merchants is challenging the continental or Eurasianist civilisation of heroes. The former civilisation implies commercialisation of life, whereas its continental counterpart has manifested itself in militarisation of life—Dugin calls this civilisation military-authoritarian (voenno-avtoritarnaia tsivilizatsiia) (Dugin 1997, 472). Dugin traces this confrontation back to ancient history, to the Peloponnesian war between maritime Athens and land-based Sparta, as well as to the Punic wars between Carthage and Rome. Both Athens and Carthage continued the Phoenician tradition of seafaring, trading, and colonising coastal areas. During the twentieth century, Great Britain and the USA represented the maritime ‘Atlanticist’ civilisation that emphasised the primacy of economics. Dugin calls the USA the ‘new Carthage’. On the other hand, Russia/the USSR (‘the New Rome’), as well as Germany before its surrender in 1945, embodied the alternative continental military-authoritarian idea, Eurasianism (cf., Dugin 1997, 19). In these countries, economics were subordinated to politics. In such a culture, politics usually implies the use of force. As regards the Soviet Union, Dugin seems to accept it as representing incomplete Eurasianism. The struggle between ‘Atlanticist’ and Eurasianist thinking never ceased after 1917 but continued behind the scenes within the Soviet establishment. As a matter of fact, Dugin is here referring to the well-known general conflict between ‘Westernisers’ (zapadniki) and national patriots. In Soviet history, Lenin, Stalin and Brezhnev were Eurasians or close to this Weltanschauung, whereas Trotsky and Khrushchev were typical ‘Atlanticists’ (cf. Dugin 1992, 99, 103, 111–13). Dugin points out that Eurasianism was popular within the army in general and in the army’s intelligence service GRU in particular. On the other hand, ‘Atlanticist’ thinking was to be found within the security forces like NKVD and KGB (cf., Dugin 1992, 100– 102). Significantly enough, in 1992 Dugin explained the unpopular war in Afghanistan as a plot engineered by the ‘Atlanticist’ KGB who wanted to compromise the ‘Eurasian’ GRU and the army (ibid., 116 f). The other main differences between Atlanticism and Eurasianism, as Dugin views them, are individualism vs collectivism, plutocracy vs ideocracy, democracy vs authoritarianism. Along with others, these contrasting concepts can be presented graphically in Figure 13. It should be noted that all the figures or models in this study are theoretical abstractions in which the opposite principles and values are Sea power (maritime societies=Atlanticism)

Land power (land-based continental societies=Eurasianism)

Change (technological progress)

Permanency (rigid social traditions)

Individualism

Collectivism

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Tolerance

Absolute value systems

Commercial civilisation

Military-authoritarian civilisation

The merchants (the virtue of getting rich)

The heroes (the virtue of being a brave soldier)

The Law of Money

The Law of the Idea and the Law of Force

Plutocracy

Ideocracy

Democracy

Authoritarian rule

Egalitarianism

Hierarchical order

(cf., Dugin 1997, 15,472) Figure 13 Atlanticism versus Eurasianism

absolute. In reality, no society has existed without trade nor without warfare in history. Dugin just focuses on the predominating principles in a given civilisation. On the whole, the foregoing model reflects the typical differences between developmental optimism and historical pessimism that have been dealt with in Chapter 1. The model requires some comments: Change versus permanency. The former being typical of maritime societies implies dynamism and technological development. The ‘idea of progress’ (see p. 17) serves as a guiding principle. Seafaring, trading and individualism are characteristics of this kind of civilisation. As a consequence, ethical and legal norms become mobile and changeable, i.e. liberal, as Dugin sees it (Dugin 1997, 15 f). Today, the Atlanticist Anglo-Saxon West is the centre of material and technological development. Ideologically, it represents liberal democracy and a humanistic Weltanschauung including the conception of human rights. Land-based societies in the geopolitical East are static and represent permanency. They are attracted to absolute value systems and tradition. This being the case, they resist abrupt changes in society and manifest genuine conservatism. Among different manifestations of this anti-Western civilisation Dugin mentions the USSR, Communist China, Japan before 1945 and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s Iran (ibid., 473). The law of Money vs the law of the Idea and the law of Force. In modern society representing a commercial civilisation, money has generally replaced the use of force and other means of coercion. This being the case, the law of money has established itself as the ruling principle in the geopolitical West. This makes Dugin equate the geopolitical West with plutocracy (ibid., 215). On the other hand, a state belonging to the geopolitical East, i.e. a militaryauthoritarian civilisation, generally resorts to ‘moral’ or purely physical coercion (the Law of the Idea and the Law of Force). Hence, this anti-Western civilisation gravitates towards totalitarianism, authoritarianism and some form of socialism. Ideocracy (ideokratiia). Originally, this concept was introduced by the Russian Eurasians Nikolai Trubetskoi and Petr Savitskii. Ideocracy (the power of ideas, ideals) is opposed to

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‘the power of matter’, ‘the market system’ and ‘the commercial order’. In an ideocratic state the hierarchical order as well as incentives for work are based on non-economic principles (ibid., 583). On the whole, Dugin’s Eurasian alternative to Atlanticism seems to be traditionalist as including historical pessimism and an organic view of society. Yet, facing the realities of the ongoing irresistible development, Dugin tries to combine a preservationist policy towards traditions with a selective modernisation of society without Westernisation. This ‘modernist’ attitude he shares with numerous leaders of non-Western countries of the ‘Third World’ (cf., Huntington 1996, 35). It should be remembered that Mussolini and Hitler favoured modernisation and industrialisation of their countries even if they rejected liberal democracy. Dugin’s geopolitical strategy for Russia The Eurasians were defeated in August and December 1991. The fall of the Soviet ideocratic regime and the break-up of the Soviet empire signified the end of a bipolar world, Dugin concludes. In the new geopolitical situation, sea power, i.e. the maritime West (the ‘new Carthage’), was taking over and establishing global hegemony. The view that the world was becoming multipolar was misleading as far as all the new expanding geopolitical centres, such as China, the Islamic world and the Pacific region, constituted only territorial versions of the Atlanticist system of values (cf., Dugin 1997, 161). In plain language, Dugin views the contemporary world as unipolar and dominated by the USA. This is a Russian Eurasian’s geopolitical assessment of the world of the 1990s, contrary to his own preferences. On the other hand, he previews that a new Eurasian Empire will emerge sooner or later as ‘a potential geopolitical inevitability’. Land power tendencies and continental impulses cannot be abolished unilaterally (cf., ibid., 215). The struggle between sea power and land power is irreconcilable and eternal. Dugin concludes that the post-cold war unipolar world is temporary. In Dugin’s view, Russia without being an empire is inconceivable. Russian nationalism is more related to space and soil than to ethnic Russianness. Russia can survive only as a multinational empire, not as an ethnic state. In this respect Dugin, a typical statist, disagrees with all the ethnocentric nationalists who consider the fate of the Russian ethnos to be of primary importance and proclaim the idea of a Russian nation state (ÉtatNation). Some of the extreme ethnocentric nationalists advocate even the creation of a monoethnic state that would imply ethnic cleansings. Yeltsin’s Russian Federation resembles a national state, as about 80 per cent of the population are Russians. Here we, probably, see one important reason why most Russian nationalist ethnocentrist movements including the extreme right supported President Yeltsin’s re-election in 1996. These national patriots are most worried about how to fight Russia’s ‘inner enemies’—the aliens (inorodtsy) in general and the Jews in particular— who are considered guilty of all the country’s shortcomings and tragedies. This train of thought leads directly to racism and anti-Semitism. In Dugin’s view, the national state (État-Nation) is a product of Western political thought that contradicts Russia’s imperial traditions. That is why Dugin calls the post-Soviet Russian Federation a transitional

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formation in the ongoing global geopolitical process (ibid., 183). Russia is a broader concept and represents all the Russians living in the Eurasian space, i.e. in all the parts of the former Soviet empire. In the constellation of liberal reformers versus conservative nationalists, Dugin calls the former ‘leftist’, the latter ‘rightist’. As both the reformers and the conservatives are internally divided on the issue of Russia’s future, the Eurasian ideologist presents six different geopolitical projects concerning the country’s statehood. They can be seen in Figure 14. Some comments: Regionalism as a geopolitical concept is equivalent with the separatist tendencies within the Russian Federation (the RF). The idea of creating a Siberian republic is a good case in point. Yet, this project has never materialised, as has been the case with other analogous ideas. According to Dugin, some extreme liberals openly advocate the dissolution of the Russian Federation hoping that its geopolitical status could be reduced to that of Russia of the fourteenth century. These ‘leftist’ ideas are paralleled by the theory of a ‘monoethnic Russian republic’ founded on the principles of racial purity and ethnic isolationalism. This project has been proclaimed by some movements belonging to the extreme right including the ROD (see page 79). In Dugin’s view, the ethnocentric nationalists play into the hands of the West by exaggerating the danger of ‘inner enemies’ and preferring isolationism to empire building. Russian centralism is equivalent with the idea of a national state (État-Nation) and represents statist thinking. It has materialised more or less in Yeltsin’s Russian Federation that is interpreted differently by its ‘leftist’ Russian regionalism

Russian centralism (État-nation)

Eurasianism, Grossraum (The great space)

A. The Russian ‘left’—the liberal reformers

1 . Separatism: the ethnic republics

2. ‘Yeltsinism’ Liberal reforms+ authoritarian central rule

3. ‘Leftist mondiali ‘One democratic space’ ‘A common Europe home’ (Gorbachev)

B. The Russian ‘right’—the conservative patriots

4. A monoethnic ‘Russian republic’ (the goal of ROD)

5. ‘Rightist Yeltsinism’ State patriotism of the Russian Federation

6. Eurasianism, the restoration of the empire

(Dugin 1997,414) Figure 14 Six geopolitical projects concerning Russia’s future

and ‘rightist’ supporters. The former, i.e. the statist liberal reformers, such as M.Gorbachev and G.Yavlinsky, prefer centralist methods of ruling as the most efficient way of carrying out Western-style reforms. In their view, local self-government is too

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risky in a country with no democratic traditions. This being the case, authoritarian rule is considered necessary for making Russia safe for democracy and market economy. This policy was pursued in Russia in 1992–93. As regards the ‘rightist Yeltsinists’, they usually were statist national patriots who had accepted the dissolution of the Soviet Union as a fait accompli (cf., ibid., 417). Instead they advocated the creation of a strong centralised Russian state, ‘one and indivisible Russia’ (edinaia i nedelimaia Rossiia). Typical representatives of this thinking were the former Prime Ministers Sergei Stepashin and Vladimir Putin. The ‘rightist Yeltsinists’ rejected separatism as splitting up the Russian Federation and depriving the Russians of their territories. The war in Chechnya 1994–96 seems to have been a logical consequence of this thinking. Yeltsin and his entourage changed the direction of domestic and foreign policy and adopted ‘rightist’ statism at this time. On the other hand, ‘rightist Yeltsinism’ opposed imperial expansionism as well. There were at least two reasons for this thinking. First, expansionism would imply the incorporation of new territories and new non-Russian peoples into Russia, which would weaken the position of the Russians as the dominating nation (cf., Dugin 1997, 417). Second, more and more nationalist-minded Russians began to realise that Russia’s imperial time was over. Solzhenitsyn arrived at this conclusion in his Manifesto Rebuilding Russia (Kak nam obustroit’ Rossiiu) of 1990: ‘We don’t have the strength for sustaining an empire—and it is just as well. Let this burden fall from our shoulders: it is crushing us, sapping our energy, and hastening our demise’ (Solzhenitsyn 1991, 14). ‘Grossraum’ (the great space) is a concept introduced by Carl Schmitt and implies supranational integration, i.e. a strategic alliance of several powers. In the Atlanticist West, there is the ‘mondialist’ project presupposing the creation of a neoliberal Brave New World without traditional states. In a word, there will be a planetary civilisational field with one ruling centre (the so-called ‘world government'). In Dugin’s view, this is the most threatening perspective for mankind in general, and for the continental Eurasian civilisation in particular. According to Dugin, among those theoreticians who want to restore the Empire, there are two opposite categories: the ‘leftist Russian mondialists’ and the ‘rightist Russian neo-Eurasians’. The first-mentioned advocate the creation of ‘one democratic space’ on the territory of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) (Sodruzhestvo Nezavisimykh Gosudarstv, SNG) as well as on the territory of the ‘Eurasian space’. Gorbachev’s suggestion to create a ‘common European house’ (Obshcheevropeiskii dom) is a good case in point. The views of the ‘rightist’ neo-Eurasians are to be found in the political programmes and other pamphlets of the intransigent ‘red-brown’ opposition, i.e., the ‘national communists’ (we would call them national Bolsheviks) and the ‘traditional imperialists’ (traditsional-imperialisty). Zyuganov and his party belong to the former, Dugin and Prokhanov to the latter category. The dividing line between national bolshevism and ‘traditional imperialism’, however, is blurred. The weekly Den’ (Day) and its successor Zavtra (Tomorrow) have been the most popular mouthpieces of ‘redbrown’ neo-Eurasianism. Proceeding from the idea of Russia’s imperial mission in history, rightist neoEurasianism proclaimed the restoration of the dissolved empire as its primary task. Yet,

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this would not imply a new Soviet regime under the banners of Marxism-Leninism. Instead, there should emerge a totally new empire with a more flexible and pragmatic political system than the Bolshevik one. In the sphere of international politics, it should become an independent autarchic ‘continent’ that requires some geopolitical arrangements, as will be seen below. (1) The new empire Dugin has outlined a very ambitious geopolitical project for Russia’s return to greatness. Its imperial rebirth is supposed to materialise through the emergence of a Eurasian empire constituting a broad anti-Western continental bloc of several ‘sub-empires’. The new imperial Russia will serve as the centre of this bloc called The Grossraum Confederation’ (Konfederatsiia Prostranstv). The bloc of different antiliberal civilisations can be described as shown in Figure 15. The aforementioned geopolitical bloc of different civilisations is based upon one sole uniting principle: the rejection of Atlanticism, of US hegemony in the world, as well as of the values of liberal market economy. The Confederation of Grossraums The European empire

The Russian empire

The Central Asian empire

The Pacific empire

(Central Europe, Germany in particular)

(Around Russia)

(Around Iran)

(Around Japan

Secondary empires as possible India allies: The pan-Arabic world The pan-African Union Figure 15 The new Eurasian bloc

It is presented as an alternative to the ongoing Western-style globalisation of the world. Instead of increasing world trade and international cooperation there would be autarchy and isolationalism vis-à-vis the Anglo-Saxon West. In a word, in the geopolitical cultural confrontation with the Anglo-Saxon West in general, and the USA in particular, the rest of the world is supposed to unite under Russian leadership or, at least, to refrain from supporting the Atlantists. This would lead to the birth of the aforementioned Confederation of Grossraums, an ideocratic meta-empire consisting of four great powers such as Germany, Russia, Iran and Japan representing four different civilisations. This new empire will combine centralised and decentralised power. The four leading member states as well as the smaller states belonging to their respective spheres of interest, will preserve their own civilisation and sovereignty on one condition: all the national interests will be subordinated to the over-all geopolitical strategy of the confederation. Dugin is not very explicit about how this very optimistic project will be carried out. He seems to exclude the use of force and to believe in the possibility of persuading other states to join a strategic geopolitical bloc against the Atlanticists’ aspirations of world

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hegemony. Yet, if we try to remain impartial in assessing the non-Western world, we cannot but conclude that it itself is torn by a multitude of cultural, ethnic, confessional and political conflicts. How would this motley universe be able to integrate in accordance with Dugin’s plans? Be that as it may, in ‘gathering’ its own empire, i.e. restoring the former Russian/Soviet empire, Russia, according to Dugin, will combine maximum strategic centralism with regional pluralism of ethnic and confessional differences. In plain language, the empire’s authoritarian rule and strongly centralised military power will be balanced up with a great number of ethnic and religious autonomous regions throughout the territory of the former Soviet Union. It goes without saying that Dugin’s main strategic goal is to put an end to the present confrontation between Islam and Orthodoxy in the Caucasus and Central Asia and instead fuse Eurasia’s Orthodox and Muslim population into one. Yet, in view of Russia’s wars in Chechnya 1994–96 and 1999, this project seems to be nothing but wishful thinking. Dugin rejects both the Soviet model of an excessively centralised economy and Yeltsin’s Russia with its ‘super-liberalism’ (sverkhliberalizm, Dugin 1999, 280). His choice is the so-called Third Way’ economy that combines elements of both market economy and planning. Instead of globalisation and free trade, Dugin proclaims independence, autarchy and protectionism. Moreover, his ‘Third Way’ economy supposes ‘neither luxury nor misery, but a reasonable minimum’ for people (ibid., 285). In history, this ascetic philosophy can, in fact, be traced back to the ancient Sparta. In Soviet time, the first celebrity to voice a similar opinion was A. Solzhenitsyn in his famous Letter to the Soviet leaders (cf., Solzhenitsyn 1974). Furthermore, in Dugin’s new empire, total economic liberalism is allowed at regional level, but at higher levels of the economical hierarchy collective interests are dominating. In the last resort, the state’s strategic interests are given primacy over all other interests. On the whole, there are some similarities with Mussolini’s corporative system of society. Even if Dugin rejects the idea of a Russian national state, he, nevertheless, declares that the Russians as a nation should be attributed a central role in the future multinational Russian empire, as well as in the future Confederation of empires, in particular as regards strategic issues (Dugin 1999, 253). As a matter of fact, the Russian ethnos is also considered primus inter pares among all the nationalities of the Russian Federation. This racist attitude is due to the strong influence of Russian ethnocentrist national patriots on the general opinion. The neo-Eurasianists view Russia as constituting the Eurasian ‘heartland’ due to its geographical position. This being the case, the Russians as a nation are considered responsible for creating an imperial continental counter-force against the Atlanticists’ challenge. The USA and their allies are viewed as trying to establish their economic, political and ideological world hegemony and as threatening all the other countries’ national independence and sovereignty as well as their cultures. This being the case, the neo-Eurasians view Russia’s geopolitical mission in saving mankind from Atlanticism. As has already been noted, the neo-Eurasians notwithstanding their focusing on the imperial idea are also to some degree influenced by the racist aspects of ethnocentric national patriotism. On the other hand, the demographic situation in Russia is too alarming for Dugin to ignore the Russian ethnos. The declining birthrate among Russians

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on the one hand, and the demographic explosion in the former Soviet Central Asian republics on the other, are ominous tendencies that would be very difficult for Dugin to cope with. (2) New geopolitical allies The most striking and astounding aspect of Dugin’s Eurasian project is his concrete plan of getting new strategic partners in fighting Atlanticism, as can be seen in Figure 9. During World War II, Germany and Japan were the Soviet Union’s adversaries, and today they are pro-Western. Iran is, of course, anti-Western, but its attitude toward Russia has not been very friendly either. Russia’s alliances with these major powers within the aforementioned future Confederation of empires are nothing but military blocs. Dugin sees Russia’s planetary geopolitical mission in playing the role of driving force of Eurasia’s strategic reunification (Dugin 1999, 218). The idea behind this project is that Russia with these new allies would for the first time in history get safe strategic borders also in the west and in the south. In plain language, it would, albeit indirectly, extend its geopolitical control over the whole Eurasian continent. In fact, Dugin is suggesting what probably many representatives of Russia’s military-industrial complex are tacitly dreaming of. He himself, however, declares freely that Russia’s geopolitical purpose is to oppose, and in the long run to defeat the Atlanticist powers spearheaded by the USA. This would become possible if the aforementioned Confederation came into being. The question arises, how Dugin can imagine that Germany and Japan would side with Russia against the USA (and Great Britain). And why would the fundamentalist Iran suddenly take a liking to the Russians who have made war against Islamic Afghanistan and Chechnya? However that may be, Dugin finds psychological as well as geopolitical and civilisational reasons for establishing these strategic alliances. Psychologically, Dugin sees his chance in the fact that the USA, the sole economic and military superpower in the post-cold war world, is being more and more disliked by the rest. As there is no more any ‘Soviet threat’, numerous non-communist states including allies refuse to cooperate with the United States on many important issues such as Cuba, Libya, Iran, nuclear proliferation etc. At a 1997 Harvard conference, it was reported that the elites of countries comprising at least two-thirds of the world’s people—Chinese, Russians, Indians, Arabs, Muslims and Africans—saw the United States as the single greatest external threat to their societies (Huntington 1999, 42f). Furthermore, the Japanese public in 1997 considered the USA as a threat to Japan second only to North Korea (ibid., 43). Thus, Western unity begins to crack. Yet, this growing international resentment with the USA policy is not enough. Dugin hopes that the USA’s overwhelming military and economic superiority in the world will make most land-based regional major powers realise that they have to unite in defending their continentalist values against the encroachments of Atlanticism. To a certain extent, he has been right. The formation of the European Union, the fundamentalist Iran’s strong religious influence in Central Asia, and Japan’s protracted commercial war with the USA, are all signs of a growing antihegemonic opposition within the international community. As can be seen in Figure 9, Dugin’s geopolitical project envisages military-

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authoritarian empires to be established in Central Europe around Germany, in Central Asia around Iran and in the East Asian and Pacific region around Japan. This implies that Russia, the heartland for Eurasia, will establish three strategic axises in order to make the continental bloc or confederation work: the Western axis Moscow-Berlin, the southern axis Moscow-Teheran, and the eastern axis Moscow-Tokyo. (3) The Western axis: Berlin-Moscow—Finlandisation of Europe Dugin sees the West as consisting of two parts—the West as America (Russia’s geopolitical Atlanticist foe) and the West as Europe (Russia’s potential future continentalist ally). Europe is now undergoing a process of emancipation from American Atlanticist tutelage as the ongoing European integration testifies to. Geopolitically, Mitteleuropa (Central Europe) with Germany as its driving force is playing a key role in this development. In Dugin’s view, this implies that Berlin is going to be the geopolitical centre of Europe’s future strategic unification under the banners of continentalism and anti-Atlanticism. Yet, this would be impossible without the support and assistance of Russia. In Europe, the maximum goal is finlandisation of the whole continent. How would Russia make Germany abstain from its political Atlanticist course? Dugin suggests that Russia should try all ways to deepen its cooperation and other contacts with its neighbour who is ‘a political dwarf but an economic giant’. As Russia is the other way around—a political great power but an economic dwarf—the two states would well complement each other. As time goes on, the Germans would more and more be convinced of the advantages of choosing Eurasian Russia as a strategic partner instead of the Atlanticist powers. In plain language, they would return to their old continentalist geopolitical orientation that had been natural before 1945. Dugin implies that Europe’s future geopolitical transformation will be an affair between Germany and Russia. Notwithstanding its contemporary pro-Western orientation, France could under certain circumstances make a volte-face and join Mitteleuropa spearheaded by Germany. Dugin points out, that in French history an alternative geopolitical orientation has manifested itself from time to time. In this respect, Napoleon’s Continental system, de Gaulle’s European policy, and Mitterand’s FrancoGerman projects deserve to be mentioned (Dugin 1999, 221 f). In view of history, however, Dugin’s vision of France as voluntarily submitting to Germany’s geopolitical leadership is unrealistic. Russia and Germany have a common interest in promoting Germanophilia and Russophilia in Europe, as Dugin sees it. This would promote the common cause of resisting US hegemony. As a matter of fact, Dugin seems to dream about the good old days of the 1920s when the spirit of Rapallo signified a good partnership and cooperation in numerous fields between Germany and the Soviet Union. The neo-Eurasian ideologist suggests a much more flexible foreign policy than the Soviet leaders could imagine. When time is ripe, East Prussia (Kaliningrad) could be returned to Germany in exchange for certain geopolitical rearrangements in Eastern Europe to the benefit of Russia (cf., Dugin 1999, 228 f). In this area between Mitteleuropa and Russia, there are numerous new state formations such as the Baltic States, Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine, Czech Republic and Slovakia. In addition, there are

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‘old’ states that have converted to Atlanticism such as Poland, Hungary and Romania. Dugin considers all the East European states to be artificial and ‘bankrupt’ (nesostoiatel’nye), ethnically and confessionally contradictory. Here a geopolitical reorganisation could be needed: 1 Russia and Belarus’ should unite—as is well known, both states have already reached a principal agreement on this project; 2 Ukraine, Moscow’s biggest geopolitical problem, should be partitioned into several zones in accordance with the ethnocultural realities, as described in figure 16. On the whole, the geopolitical transformation of all the East European states will materialise under Germany’s direct control. This is necessary, as the Russians are disliked in the area; 3 In Northern Europe, a Baltic ethno-confessional federation has to be formed. It would include Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Estonia, Finland-Carelia, and possibly, Holland. The Baltic area has to be transformed into a demilitarised zone. Withdrawal from NATO is a sine qua non for states that belong to the Western military alliance. Part of Ukraine

New status

Eastern Ukraine Union with Russia (the Orthodox Church, Great Russian inhabitants) Crimea (the Orthodox Church and Islam, Russian, Ukrainian and Tatar inhabitants)

A special status of a very great autonomy, but integrated with Russia’s geopolitical system

Central Ukraine (the Orthodox Church, Ukrainian inhabitants)

Independent state but integrated with Russia’s Eurasian geopolitical system

Western Ukraine (the Uniate Church, the Catholic Church, the Orthodox Church)

A West Ukrainian federation based on ethno-cultural criteria. T region should be politically neutralised by withdrawing it from Atlanticist geopolitical control. Instead it will be under German strategic control

Ukrainian, Great Russian, Rumanian and Moldovan inhabitants Figure 16 The partitioning of Ukraine

Yet, Dugin specifies his argumentation by implying that Finland could be given special treatment. Carelia could be returned to Finland in exchange for stationing Eurasian troops at the borders between Finland and Sweden, as well as between Finland and Norway (Dugin 1999, 318). This being the case, Finland would not be demilitarised as the rest of the Baltic area but serve as a Eurasian launching point in Northern Europe. Dugin’s ambitious project does presuppose a total change of the prevailing mood in the

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countries of the aforementioned area: Western Atlanticism will become more and more disliked, whereas pro-Eurasian continentalism will gain momentum. Politically, this would imply that the ruling parties in these countries have turned anti-American or that rightist movements of fascist or national socialist orientation have taken over. In a foreseeable future, this scenario is unrealistic, even if there will be more and more natural reasons for tension and even conflicts between the USA and the European Union in the years and decades to come. (4) The eastern axis Moscow-Tokyo: a Pan-Asian project In Asia, Russia has to make its choice between two geopolitical realities—continental communist China or insular capitalist Japan. Dugin’s paradoxical preference for Japan is based on the assumption that this country’s geopolitical orientation, in essence, is antiWestern and antiliberal (Dugin 1999, 231). This, probably, was true before Japan’s surrender in 1945, but today the country is officially pro-Western and liberal. On the other hand, the Japanese public seems to harbour strong anti-American feelings that testify to a striving for greater independence vis-à-vis the USA. Yet, this does not guarantee that Russia would be considered a better geopolitical alternative. Dugin views China, a combination of political totalitarianism and liberal economism, as a future threat to Russia. The contemporary rapprochement of the two great powers is solely a tactical move dictated by their desire to restrict the single super power’s influence in the world. Yet, China is undergoing Western-style liberalisation and increasing its economic contacts with the USA and other Atlanticist countries. The ruling party oligarchy has privatised the country’s national industry and natural resources. According to Dugin, this ruling stratum has already coalesced with the international cosmopolitan elite representing the Commercial Order, i.e. the Atlanticist West (cf., Dugin 1999, 232 f). These arguments sometimes resemble the Soviet propaganda of the late 1970s and early 1980s. The great neighbour in Asia is seen as becoming more and more dependent on the West. This being the case, China, as Dugin interprets it, will probably join the Atlanticists in a future confrontation with Eurasia. Dugin’s arguments are debatable. Today, the West in general and the USA in particular take pains to have good relations with China as it is viewed as a new soaring economic great power with an immense market. This means, that the Chinese hardly will be pressed by the West to introduce democracy and the rule of law. On the contrary, they will have freedom of action. As regards China’s future international orientation, imitating and joining the West would be out of the question for an old self-assured civilisation like the Confucian one. In Huntington’s geopolitical model of global confrontation (‘the West and the Rest’), there are several non-Western civilisations including China that attempt to ‘balance’ the West by developing economic and military power. In short, they are willing to modernise but not to Westernise (cf., Huntington 1993, 41). China’s expanding foreign trade with the West and improved political relations with Russia seem to serve the principle divide et impera. On the other hand, China’s immense population—1.3 billion—fuels the growing need for Lebensraum in future. Vast Siberia in the north, with no more than about 31.5

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millions of inhabitants, offers enticing perspectives. In this respect, China really constitutes a very serious threat to Russia in the near future. In this respect, Dugin’s warning is not groundless. However that may be, Dugin is convinced that Japan will be a much better geopolitical choice for Russia. In his view, this dynamic economic great power will sooner or later break with the USA politically and continue to realise its panAsian project, that was left off in 1945. In plain language, this would imply taking over the Pacific region south of Japan. This, however, Dugin considers possible only if Japan enters into a geopolitical strategic alliance with Russia. As a consequence, the axis Moscow-Tokyo would become the Eastern dimension of Dugin’s New Empire. As a step towards building such an alliance Dugin suggests turning over the disputed Kuril Islands to Japan. As a matter of fact, this unsolved territorial dispute remains the main obstacle to a normalisation and a warming-up of the relations between Russia and Japan. In this concrete situation today, Dugin’s ideas have begun to influence Russia’s foreign policy. For instance, in 1998 the option of returning the Kuril Islands was preliminary mooted during the ongoing discussions between Russia and Japan (cf., Clover 1999, 11). In Dugin’s view, Japan and Russia would complement each other: the first-mentioned being a financial and high-tech giant, the latter having enormous natural resources unexploited. Yet, building a strategic alliance would require that anti-Atlanticist political forces take over in both countries. So far, this has not been the case, and the only realistic scenario in the near future seems to be a growing economic cooperation between Russia and Japan. It should be noted, that these projects are but reviving an old geopolitical programme—that of Karl Haushofer who in the 1920s and 1930s evoked the vision of a strategic alliance between Germany, the Soviet Union, and Japan, the so-called ‘continental bloc’ (Kontinentalblock) ‘Mitteleuropa-Eurasia-Japan’ (cf., Dugin 1999, 71). At that time, the main geopolitical adversaries were the maritime powers France and Great Britain, whereas the USA represented a future threat. In the new geopolitical constellation of the 1990s, however, Dugin’s projects ‘Moscow-Berlin’ and ‘Moscow-Tokyo’ constitute a counter-strategy against the Trilateral Commission in which the USA plays the leading role, the EU and Japan being minor actors. Instead of being encircled from both sides by the USA’s geopolitical partners—the European zone (the EU) and the Pacific zone (Japan)—Russia has to reverse this constellation, and isolate America from the Eurasian continent. (5) The southern axis Moscow-Teheran: A Central Asiatic Empire In order to accomplish its new empire building, Russia, however, still has to extend its geopolitical influence to the South, the zone of Islamic civilisation. This argumentation of Dugin has deep historical roots as well as contemporary strategic implications. Historically, in the course of several centuries Russia has tried to gain access to warmwater seas. As a consequence, it waged numerous wars in the south against Turkey that was the main obstacle to secure a route to the Mediterranean. Today, as Dugin sees it, the Islamic world is a potential ally against the West in general and the USA in particular. Yet, there are different geopolitical tendencies within the pan-Islamic movement as such—‘pan-Turkism’ (Turkey, Atlanticism), ‘wahabism’ (Saudi Arabia, Atlanticism),

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and ‘fundamentalism’ (Iran, anti-Atlanticism). Some of the countries implied are considered to be too dependent on the West. In Dugin’s view, Russia should focus on Iran as the most consistent anti-Western country, and establish the geopolitical axis Moscow-Teheran. This geopolitical alliance with Iran would give Russia access to the Indian Ocean, and thwart the Atlanticist powers’ attempts to surround Russia. At the same time, Iran’s expansionist fundamentalism would be oriented towards creating a Central Asiatic empire, a Pax Persica, on the basis of federalism. As a consequence, the Atlanticists’ efforts to destabilise the situation through Turkey and Saudi Arabia would be warded off. In the perspective, this empire headed by Iran would consist of Pakistan, Afghanistan and remnants of Turkey or Turkey after a pro-Iran revolution’ (cf., ibid., 246). Yet, as Iranian fundamentalism is rejected by numerous Arab states, such a geopolitical reorganisation of Central Asia needs to be complemented by a separate pan-Arabian project that would include Northern Africa and part of the Middle East. This new anti-Atlanticist bloc would be dominated by Iraq, Libya, the liberated Palestine, and, on certain conditions, by Syria. The idea of uniting the Arab world against the West resembles Khrushchev’s and Brezhnev’s pro-Arab policy in the 1960s and 1970s. However, in Dugin’s view, this mission should not be given to Russia but to Europe, or, to be more exact, to the future European Empire with its heartland Mitteleuropa headed by Germany. This is congruent with Dugin’s general geopolitical conception according to which northern states should dominate their southern neighbours. Psychologically, Dugin’s project is based on wishful thinking, as the Islamic world taken as a whole is torn by internal conflicts and confessional controversies. Its integration into one anti-Atlanticist alliance would be extremely difficult, if not impossible. Furthermore, even if Iran’s attitude towards the USA is hostile, it does not mean that Russia is considered to be much better, particularly as Russia has not just once used Armed Forces to suppress separatist Islamic activities in Chechnya, and other Islamic regions. On the other hand, it is true, for quite pragmatic reasons there have so far been normal and considerably good relations between Russia and Iran. In theory, the foregoing militant Eurasianism with its global implications is fraught with the danger of a third world war. In real international politics, however, Dugin’s aggressive geopolitical project is too abstract and unrealistic to be taken seriously as a guide in Russia’s foreign policy in general, and in its military planning in particular. On the other hand, Dugin, nevertheless, seems to mirror certain attitudes within the military establishment. In this sense, some of his ideas can be said to have influenced to some degree certain aspects of Russia’s foreign policy of the late 1990s. This has been noticed by leading analysts in the USA as can be seen in the prestigious periodical Foreign Affairs (March/April 1999). In an article on Russian Eurasianism, Yeltsin’s calls for a MoscowBerlin-Paris axis were viewed as foreshadowed by Dugin (cf., Clover 1999, 11). The correlation between Dugin’s ideas and those of the Russian establishment is too stark to be ignored’ (ibid.). In order to be on the safe side, the Americans look, even at details of Dugin’s theory, through a magnifying glass. Zyuganov’s national bolshevism

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Dugin’s immense influence on Russian geopolitics can be seen in other thinkers’ pamphlet writings. ‘Communist’ party leader Zyuganov is a good case in point. His book Geografiia pobedy (The Geography of Victory) which was published in 1997 does not at all resemble a traditional communist doctrine. Zyuganov’s new panacea is geopolitics. History is seen as a process of interaction and rivalry between different civilisations, as well as of the replacement of one civilisation by another (cf., Zyuganov 1995, 9). In plain language, Zyuganov has jettisoned the Marxist doctrine of class struggle as the driving force of development. ‘From a geopolitical point of view, Russia is the core and the main buttress of the Eurasian continental bloc, whose interests are in conflict with the hegemonic interests of the “ocean power”, the USA, and of the Atlantic “great space” (GrossraumTP)’ (Zyuganov 1995a, 18). In a word, Zyuganov is paraphrasing Dugin’s geopolitical view of the world as a confrontation between ‘Atlanticism’ and ‘Eurasianism’, between the maritime Anglo-Saxon West and continental Russia. In principle, both geopoliticians delineate the same contrasting value systems of two antagonistic civilisations. Yet, contrary to Dugin’s extremely theoretical and abstract approach, Zyuganov focuses on concrete problems that have become current in the 1990s. At the same time, Zyuganov’s conception is more articulated and diversified than Dugin’s one-sided theory of power politics. Moreover, many of his ideas are not just wishful thinking but often, at least partly, related to realities in Russia’s past and present. It should be noted that Dugin is more influenced by European antiliberal rightism in general and German national socialism in particular, whereas Zyuganov’s ideas are coloured by Russian conservative thought (Nikolai Danilevsky, Ivan Il’in, Ivan Solonevich, Gumilev) and eclectically combined with part of Stalin’s legacy as well as with elements of Western thought (Arnold J.Toynbee, Samuel Huntington, i.a.). Dugin is obsessed by occultism, whereas Zyuganov is rather an eclectic thinker and pragmatic politician. Then, what are the distinguishing features of Zyuganov’s theory? They could be presented as premises of sorts, as follows: (1) A multipolar world Zyuganov is less pessimistic than Dugin in assessing the global geopolitical situation. In the latter’s view, after the collapse of the Soviet empire in 1991, the world has become de facto unipolar with the USA as the sole superpower establishing its world hegemony (cf., Zyuganov 1997, 108). Zyuganov for his part, without questioning American global ambitions, maintains that ‘the contemporary world system is becoming a multipolar reality’ (Zyuganov 1997, 241). When the bipolar model of world order collapsed there was no striving for a single centre but, on the contrary, for ‘a return to one’s own civilisational roots’ (ibid.). In plain language, a civilisational pluralism of sorts is gaining ground in the world. This argumentation has its parallels in the West. Samuel Huntington emphasises that the image of an emerging homogeneous, universally Western world is ‘misguided, arrogant, false, and dangerous’ (Huntington 1996, 28). In his view, there is no causal connection between modernisation and Westernisation. Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, Saudi Arabia, and Iran have become modern societies without becoming Western. As

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Huntington points out, leaders of most non-Western societies have pursued modernisation but rejected Westernisation (cf., ibid., 35). In this world, universalism cannot be created without imperialism, and today that is something that exceeds the possibilities of the West. This being the case, ‘the time has come for the West to abandon the illusion of universality’ (ibid.) and to face the fact of a world of several civilisations. Significantly enough, Huntington and Zyuganov arrive at the same conclusion notwithstanding the fact that the former wants to save the West, whereas the latter hopes that Eurasia will survive its Atlanticist adversary. (2) The cultural dimension: the Weltanschauung and its crucial role Contrary to Dugin who views history and international politics foremost in terms of military confrontation and power politics, Zyuganov is focusing on the cultural and ideological aspect of clashes of civilisations. Without ignoring the West’s superior military and economic strength, the Russian geopolitician hopes that Russia will be saved by its own Eurasian culture. In plain language, he views ideas, whether religious or secular, as the driving force of history. For the same reason, however, he considers Western liberalism to constitute a mortal threat to Russia. In his view, the dissolution of the Soviet empire in December 1991 was to a great extent a consequence of the pernicious influence of liberal democratic ideas (cf., Zyuganov 1997, 155). Western liberalism is rejected as favouring only part of the people. Its archetype is found in ancient Athens where society was divided into citizens and slaves. Democracy was a privilege of the free citizens (the minority), whereas the slaves (the majority) had no right to participate in politics. Zyuganov interprets even contemporary Western democracy as being ‘for those chosen’, i.e. an elite in society. This can be seen in his presentation of today’s Western world-view: the ‘Golden Billion’ (zolotoi mil’iard) of the world’s inhabitants living in the West ‘are free from obligation towards the rest of humanity, and the remainder usefully and justly play their role of resource-supplying appendages, reservoirs of toxic waste, and spaces for placing ecologically harmful production’ (Zyuganov 1997, 156 f). This privileged one-fifth of the world population—the ‘golden Billion’—serves as Zyuganov’s main argument against neoliberalism. Being an aggressive and expanding civilisation, the West tries to impose its liberal values and models of development on countries belonging to other civilisations. As Zyuganov points out, by weakening or even reducing the independence of other countries and nations, the West, led by a cosmopolitan elite of international capital, is striving towards getting hold of and exploiting their resources. For this reason, the USA and its wealthiest partners want to establish world hegemony or global dictatorship, paraphrased as the New World Order. Yeltsin’s Western-style reforms aiming at Russia’s subordination to the will of the West are part of this project, the argument goes. Zyuganov’s criticism of Western liberalism is still partly based on Soviet-time clichés: capitalism is said to have reached the maximum of its possibilities which can be seen in an unrestrained cult of consumerism as well as in a growing soullessness and immorality (ibid., 211). His conclusion about a certain demoralisation of contemporary Western

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society is not groundless but it does not yet reveal the new character of capitalism in the era of globalisation. Global and unbridled capitalism has been broadly discussed in the writings of Western thinkers in the 1990s. George Soros is a good case in point. He criticises neoliberalism, i.e. contemporary global capitalism or ‘market fundamentalism’, as being self-destructive because it would lead to social Darwinism and threaten the open democratic society with instability and chaos. Furthermore, Soros sees a real danger in the fact that ‘market fundamentalism’ is aiming at establishing the supremacy of the market values over all the other values in society (cf., Soros 1998, 27). This cannot but result in a devaluation of the latter, in particular of moral values, such as courage, faith, unselfishness, charity, honour, etc. Significantly enough, even unconsciously, Zyuganov is speaking about global neoliberalist capitalism when he arrives at the same conclusion about the moral values being threatened in Western society (Zyuganov 1997, 158). Among other pamphlets written in the West against globalisation and neoliberalism, HP.Martin’s and H.Schumann’s Die Globalisieringsfalle (The Global Trap) deserves to be mentioned. The authors focus on the ongoing polarisation of society on a global scale. In the light of a multitude of statistical data they show how neoliberal globalisation will result in the one-fifth society: during the first century of the third millennium 20 per cent of the population will suffice to keep the world economy going (Martin-Schumann 1997, 3). The rest will become social destitutes and live in misery. In a word, in depicting the ugly aspects of neoliberalism Martin and Schumann have exceeded even Zyuganov. As a typical nationalist, the latter has focused only on the distinction between the rich West (the ‘golden Billion’) and the poor Rest. Zyuganov suggests his antidote against liberalism: an ideology that is ‘national, peculiar and Patriotic’ and based on four ideas: • The idea of a Great Power implying the creation of a strong state that would restore order in Russia and, at the same time, her international prestige. • The national idea implying that the original Russian civilisation should be saved from ruin. The Russian people should resurrect as the backbone of Russian statehood. • The idea of social equity that became more and more topical in Yeltsin’s Russia of the late 1990s, where the property differentiation had been going on very fast. This train of thought is a remnant of old Marxian thinking in the broad sense of the word including even part of social democracy. On the other hand, as a catchword, social equity can also have a religious connotation in Russia. This can be seen in Russian classical literature, notably in Dostoevsky’s works. It should not be forgotten that even conservative paternalism proclaims social justice of sorts. • The democratic idea. Zyuganov makes a distinction between Western individualism and Russian sobornost’. The former has led to Western parliamentary democracy, the latter implies nothing but unanimity in decision-making which is related to ancient Russian local self-govern-ment. In history, Zyuganov finds examples of this primitive ‘direct democracy’ of small areas like the Veche assembly. Consisting of representatives of the estates it functioned in the republic of Novgorod in the twelth to fourteenth centuries. Another example is the Cossack communities that were at the height of their power in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (Zyuganov 1997, 164; Sovremennaia 1995, 35 f; Solzhenitsyn 1991, 97). Here Zyuganov is close to

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Solzhenitsyn’s political preferences (see Solzhenitsyn 1991, 97). Judging from Zyuganov’s writings, his ‘patriotic’ ideology is often but a continuation of Stalin’s efforts in 1948–53 to bring about an ‘ideological perestroika’. This could mean, that Zyuganov’s real intention behind all the aforementioned rhetoric is to create a nationalist authoritarian police state. (3) The ecological issue In his criticism of Western society and its excessive technocracy, Zyuganov can refer to quite a broad opinion in Russia as well as in the West. In his view, modern Western society is one-sided in focusing on material development and man’s material needs. Moreover, as the Western society of consumption is based on an endless striving for quantitative growth of production, man’s natural environment will not survive in the long run. On the other hand, Western civilisation is unable to relinquish its expansionist character and adopt a policy of self-restriction (samoogra-nichenie) (Zyuganov 1997, 150). The so-called ‘Green-house effect’ is a consequence of the Americans’ excessive consumption, the argument goes. Zyuganov sees the alternative in the well-known ‘conception of sustainable development’, a principle that has been adopted by the United Nations since 1992. This requires a changed life-style and a re-evaluation of social values and priorities of economic growth in the industrial countries spearheaded by the USA. The West should make an example of self-restriction and reduced consumption. The idea, however, was presented already in 1973 by Solzhenitsyn (see Solzhenitsyn 1974). Zyuganov points out that the West in general and the USA in particular resort to a ‘double moral standard’ in their environmental policy trying to preserve their privileged status: the Americans welcome reducing consumption in other countries, but not in the USA. Moreover, the West has responded to the global ecological challenge by transferring polluting industries to other, i.e. non-Western countries. The latter have also served as cemeteries for waste (Zyuganov 1997, 153). Referring to the above problems, as well as to the fact that the West is utilising the natural resources of other countries for its own purposes, Zyuganov concludes that Russia’s security requires strict control of its resources and of its ecological situation (ibid., 154). In plain language, this would imply that Russia has to switch over to a protectionist policy vis-à-vis foreign capital interests. It goes without saying that this policy would also serve another purpose: putting an end to the capital flight, as well as to the policy of exhausting Russia’s natural resources. Zyuganov rejects modern Western society as destructive for the environment. His alternative is the so-called ‘post-industrial type of technology’, implying that labour should now become the foundation for the preservation of the environment (ibid., 223). Actually, he is looking for a’a model of sustainable development which is not an exclusively technical problem but constitutes an organic unity of inter-related socioeconomic, political, cultural and psychological as well as technological aspects’ (Zyuganov 1995a, 88). In Zyuganov’s view, this would require mixed economy with a dominating public sector instead of pure capitalism. Furthermore, Russia should protect its culture from

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harmful Western influences. This would imply that Russia’s dependence on trading and cooperating with the West in general were minimised. In particular, Russia should resist integrating with the Western system of international economic organisations. Zyuganov’s conclusion comes close to a policy of isolationism and autarchy (cf., Zyuganov 1995b, 105; Zyuganov 1995a, 19; Parland 1997a, 215). (4) Russia’s geopolitical status and mission Contrary to Dugin’s global strategic aspirations, Zyuganov tries to find an adequate role for Russia in a world of multipolar tendencies. In his view, the future is fraught with serious international turmoil and numerous dangerous conflicts in different parts of the world as the West in general and the USA in particular want to preserve their economic privileges. Yet, their policy aiming at establishing world hegemony runs counter to the interests of the rest of the world and threatens the ecological balance. Zyuganov suggests two strategic tasks for Russia to undertake in order to survive as a geopolitical power. First, the mutilated country should restore its geopolitical status. Second, Russia should struggle for the potential multipolar world to come into being. In this context, Russia should find its own role as a ‘power-centre’ preserving global geopolitical balance (cf., Parland 1997a, 215). The first task, that of restoring Russia’s geopolitical status, will materialise in three phases: internal consolidation, reunification of Ukraine and Belarus with Russia, and the creation of a confederation, federation or union of almost all the former Soviet republics. • Internal political consolidation of society will be achieved on the basis of the ideology of the popular-patriotic forces of Russia, i.e. Zyuganov’s communist party and other ideologically related organisations. Zyuganov finds in contemporary history two promising examples of unity and concord in Russia: the expansion of NATO has been condemned by all the main Russian political parties; and, not only the opposition but also the government (in 1997—TP) seems to have supported the conception of sustainable development (cf., Zyuganov 1997, 247) aiming at saving mankind from an ecological disaster. • Later developments have corroborated Zyuganov’s view of national unity and concord. In 1999, all the political forces united under the banners of anti-Western Russian nationalism, first, during the Kosovo crisis when NATO conducted air strikes against Yugoslavia, then, Putin’s large-scale military operation in Chechnya was applauded by all the main political movements—the communists, the nationalists and the liberals. • The reunification of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Zyuganov’s vision was not just wishful thinking, as a union between Russia and Belarus had already been formally agreed upon. Yet, getting Ukraine back will be much more difficult as a great part of its population resists any alliance with Russia. Zyuganov, however, pinned his faith on East Ukraine where the people are pro-Russian. Moreover, he counted on the Ukrainian military where only 12 per cent of the officers advocated NATO membership for Ukraine. Yet, at best, reunification seems to be possible only if applied to the Eastern half of Ukraine. As has already been noted, this is also Dugin’s conclusion (cf., Zyuganov 1997, 253). • The third phase will materialise in restoring Russia’s ‘natural’ geopolitical status

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through the creation of a confederation, a federation or a union of almost all the former Soviet republics. This process of reunification of ‘heartland’ will take a long time as military force will not be used. The non-Russian former Soviet republics are supposed to voluntarily rejoin Russia sooner or later, in order to gain real geopolitical safety. As we well know, so far the only state willing to unite with Russia has been Belarus. The second main task for Russia, as Zyuganov sees it, will be to strengthen the emerging multipolar structure of the world and resist the USA’s and NATO’s unipolar ambitions. Russia’s geopolitical mission will be to play the role of a geopolitical equaliser in a turbulent world of clashing civilisations. However, before Russia can resolve all its geopolitical problems, it has to change its regime. Viewing Yeltin’s Russia as a modern equivalent to Carthage, a state of merchants and seafarers, i.e. a precursor of Atlanticism, Zyuganov refers to Marcus Porcius Cato Major’s well-known dictum ‘Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam’. He emphasises that his country has to remove from power its ‘corrupt mafioso regime of denationalised radical reformers’ (ibid., 260). It is a moot question, whether this problem disappeared de facto when Yeltsin resigned and V. Putin took over as acting president on 31 December 1999. Proclaiming a strong, paternalistic state, and criticising the postSoviet reformers, Putin seems to represent some ideas not too far from those of the ‘redbrown’ opposition. In his Victory of Geography of 1997, Zyuganov suggests that Russia looked for geopolitical allies, strategic as well as tactical, in order to counter-balance the atlantists’ superior force. True to his Eurasian Weltanschauung, he advocates strategic alliances with Russia’s Asian neighbours, especially its Islamic ones. Moreover, Zyuganov has to take into consideration the fact that Islam has many believers in the southern part of Russia. ‘Russia and the Islamic world are just doomed to be strategic allies’, concludes Zyuganov (ibid., 199) as both civilisations oppose Western hegemonism, Western individualism and Western democracy. Furthermore, both Islam and Orthodoxy represent an organic view of the state as a protector of justice and peace (ibid., 200 f). This theoretical argumentation, however, leaves out of account the fact that Russia’s military campaigns in Chechnya have resulted in a growing anti-Russian mood in the Islamic world. Even if radical Islam is strongly anti-Western, it will hardly be ready for a strategic alliance with Russia, at least for the time being. Zyuganov is more realistic in suggesting that Russia should support Germany’s, France’s, Japan’s and other countries’ striving to free themselves from American tutelage. In practical politics, this can already be seen in Russia’s strengthened contacts with Germany and France. In Kosovo, the French position of defending civilian Serbs against Albanian reprisals was welcomed in Russian media. In 2003, the war in Iraq started by the USA and a number of other states without the consent of the UN was severely criticised by France, Germany and Russia. As regards China, Zyuganov does not share Dugin’s negative view. On the contrary, he emphasises the tradition of good neighbourhood between the two countries for many hundreds of years. In view of the political rapprochement of Russia and China that manifested itself during the second half of the 1990s, Zyuganov seems to believe in a future strategic partnership. However, being a realist he emphasises that Russia has to be strong if she wants to enter an alliance based on equality (of rights) and mutual benefit

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(ibid., 181). Whether and how soon Russia will recover and rise again remains to be seen. On the other hand, the expansion of NATO as well as the Kosovo crisis in 1999 has enhanced the willingness of both Russia and China to cooperate in resisting American foreign policy ambitions. The same tendency could be seen in 2003 during the war in Iraq when China joined Russia, France and Germany in condemning the military option. On the whole, Zyuganov’s strategic views are coloured by his pragmatic and eclectic approach towards the changing reality. His Eurasianism implies both reviving good relations with old Soviet time allies and establishing closer contacts with new growing major powers like that of China. Zhirinovsky’s geopolitical project: A repartition of the world As has already been noted, the writings of A.Dugin and G.Zyuganov can be said to represent modern nationalism even if they include some elements of Orthodox traditionalism. As for V.Zhirinovsky, he is a totally secularised nationalist who at the utmost pays lipservice to the Orthodox Church. On the other hand, the common trait of the aforementioned three geopoliticians is that they voice attitudes and ideas prevailing within the military establishment. Zhirinovsky’s geopolitical doctrine includes a minimum programme and a long-term geopolitical scheme. The first-mentioned implies restoration of the Russian empire, whereas the latter is but a strategic plan of the new (and final) repartitioning of the world. As a matter of fact, the structure of this geopolitical project has partly carried over into both Dugin’s and Zyuganov’s strategic programmes, even if the latter are theoretically much more sophisticated. (1) Restoration of the empire Zhirinovsky has, in fact, not recognised the borders of the Soviet Union as legitimate. Instead he declared in 1992 that Russia should be restored to its historical borders, including the Baltics, Poland, Finland and Alaska (Solov’ev-Klepikova 1995, 117). Later, he dropped Alaska—the Americans dismissed his territorial demand as a bad joke—and proclaimed restoring Russia’s borders of 1913 as a way of saving the country’s national pride. Zhirinovsky’s statements about how this goal should be achieved have been coloured by aggressive great power chauvinism. As a matter of fact, he has often voiced views that others have been harbouring privately. Being rather sceptical about the separated republics’ readiness to rejoin Russia, Zhirinovsky suggested in 1992–93 a simple recipe: with the help of an economic blockade the republics will be forced to come back to Russia. As to neighbouring Baltic states, already in 1991 he had promised to poison them with radioactive wastes (cf., Solovyov-Klepikova 1995, 16). These ideas, very likely, were representative of the most frustrated and aggressive part of the military establishment. Yet the restored Russian empire would not be like the Soviet Union. The administrative partitioning of the country would be based on administrative rather than

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national or ethnic principles. The pre-revolutionary administrative units called gubernii would be restored to serve as components of the new administrative system. Gubernii would indicate not an ethnic or national affiliation but a territorial one (ibid., 155; Zhirinovsky 1993a, 64 f). This system would be like that of the United States even in contributing to the birth of a ‘melting pot’ of different nationalities. In Zhirinovsky’s notion, this would guarantee political stability, territorial integrity and stave off separatism in the future Russian empire. Zhirinovsky’s ‘modernist’ statism is striking. His idea that the Russian language would remain a lingva franca in Russia does not represent ethnic nationalism but serves exclusively the instrumental purpose of uniting and unifying the empire. The strategic purpose of restoring Russia’s super-power status implies remilitarisation of the country. A militarily strong Russia would be feared and respected by the West. This would help Russia in trading with other countries on Russian terms. In accordance with Zhirinovsky’s geopolitical programme, the conversion of military factories should be reversed. The chairman of the LDPR said this in 1993, during the election campaign. At the same time, he found a solution to Russia’s economic problems: the country should resume the sale of arms to other countries (Solov’ev-Klepikova 1995, 151). This has partially become true. With the foreign policy change in 1994–95 the idea of returning at least to some extent to this old Soviet practice was slowly gaining momentum. After coming to power Putin has intensified the programme of foreign arms sale (cf., Sakwa 2002, 403). In foreign policy, Zhirinovsky advocated de facto a re-orientation. Instead of becoming too dependent on the USA, Russia should focus on Europe in general, and on Germany in particular. Germanophilia is a trait Zhirinovsky shares with other Russian nationalists (Solov’ev-Klepikova 1995, 120). Yet, this train of thought gained little by little momentum even within Yeltsin’s establishment. Today, Yeltsin’s successor V.Putin could be considered even more ‘Germanised’ than Zhirinovsky. This is highlighted by the fact that the President’s two daughters go to a German school. On the whole, Zhirinovsky’s vision of the new Russian state is strongly influenced by Western thought. He endorses the idea of a Rechtstaat, of a multiparty system and of a system of representative democracy. On the other hand, he advocates a strong presidential regime that allows democratic pluralism but also a repressive policy in certain situations (cf., Zhirinovsky 1993, 81). This reservation implies the possibility of combining formal democracy with a de facto police state. Zhirinovsky’s political preferences are blurred and elusive: sometimes he openly proclaims national socialism, even if he criticises Hitler for having gone too far to the right (ibid., 88); sometimes he seems to favour a limited democracy. (2) The final repartitioning of the world In 1993, on the eve of the parliamentary elections, Zhirinovsky presented his geopolitical doctrine in a book with the title Poslednii brosok na iug (The Last Push to the South). Being based on Russia’s need for safe borders, the main message of the book is the idea of a new and final repartitioning of the world, according to the model in figure 17. This was, in fact, a Russian version of the Monroe doctrine. The world should be

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divided into spheres of influence by the principle of north-south. The direction should always remain the same: the northern countries should dominate their southern neighbours and counterparts. This would guarantee international peace as well as regional cooperation within the aforementioned geopolitical regions, i.e. Grossraum. In plain language, universalism was denied in favour of a multipolar world that consisted of at least four autarchic Grossraums. Barbing at the USA, Zhirinovsky preferred divisions into spheres of influence and regional cooperation to pursuing world domination. ‘If we cross paths again, we will once again get in each other’s way…let there be such a world agreement, that we divide the whole world, with spheres of economic influence…’ (Zhirinovsky 1993a, 71). A system based on such a geopolitical formula would be very favourable for all of mankind. As regards Russia, Zhirinovsky saw the only opportunity for the survival of his nation in renewing and expanding its realm (cf., Solov’ev-Klepikova 1995, 159). The ‘last push to the south’ implies extending Russia’s borders to the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean through a blitzkrieg: ‘…it has to be done in a state of shock therapy, suddenly, quickly, and effectively’ (Zhirinovsky 1993a, 64). Historically, Zhirinovsky’s idea of a military Drang nach Süden was, in fact, an old Russian dream of creating sea borders in the south. This dream, however, has never become reality in history, notwithstanding the numerous wars that have been waged between Russia and Turkey. North America

Europe Russia

Receiving Latin + America as its sphere Africa

China/Japan

+ + Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan South-East Asia, the Philippines and other countries Malaysia, Indonesia, Australia

Figure 17 The repartition of the world

Zhirinovsky’s arguments in favour of such a military operation were as follows: • All the misfortunes of Russia have come, and still are coming, from the south (Zhirinovsky 1993a, 69). The ‘last push’ would at once resolve all problems, and Russia would obtain eternal peace. This operation would pacify the explosive situation of ethnic and religious conflicts in the region and, finally, rule out a third world war. • Russia would have secure borders in all directions, meaning ‘sea borders’: ‘We will acquire a four-sided platform. When we will abut the Arctic Ocean on the north, the Pacific Ocean on the east, the Atlantic via the Black Sea, the Mediterranean Sea and the Baltic Sea, and finally, in the south, we will wash up against the shore of the Indian Ocean like a huge pillar; then we will acquire peaceful neighbours as well’ (ibid., 64). • The ‘push’ would serve the task of national salvation of Russia, through a revived Russian army: ‘New Armed Forces can be reborn only as a result of a combat operation’ (ibid., 70). ‘How I dream that Russian soldiers would wash their boots in the warm waters of the Indian Ocean…. That would be a cleansing for all of us’ (ibid., 66, 75). This glorification of war has a striking resemblance with Hitler’s rhetoric

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before and during World War II. • The Muslim danger should be excluded (ibid., 74). The majority of mankind would benefit from a split Muslim world that would follow after Russia’s military operation. By conquering Turkey, Iran and Afghanistan, Russia would put an end to the existing plans of creating a great Turkey from Istanbul to Altai. • Economically, the operation would provide a stimulus for development: Russia should concentrate its economic ties on its southern sphere of interest, in particular on its closest southern neighbours Afghanistan, Iran and Turkey until these countries become part of the northern empire. A united economy along with a united judicial and political space would promote progress in all the spheres of human activity (cf., ibid., 72). In view of the lost war in Afghanistan in 1979–88, Zhirinovsky’s bold project seems to be based on extremely wishful thinking. The failure in Afghanistan, however, is explained as a consequence of a wrong ideology—Marxism-Leninism—that at that time served as the official state doctrine: ‘Had there been a tsarist foreign policy, all the issues would have long since been resolved’ (Zhirinovsky 1993, 126). As regards the West and its possible reactions against conquering Turkey, Iran and Afghanistan, Zhirinovsky declared several times in 1993–94 that he would resort to nuclear intimidation, keeping his finger on the firing button (cf., Solovyov-Klepikova 1995, 154). He was convinced that the West would make any geopolitical concessions under the threat of mutual destruction. Yet this warlike rhetoric could be taken seriously only as long as Zhirinovsky had a high rating and was expected to win the next presidential election. He lost his chance in the parliamentary elections of 1995 when he and his party got only about 50 per cent of those who had voted for LDPR in 1993. Yet, Zhirinovsky’s geopolitical thinking was shared by numerous representatives of the military establishment. Judging from all, even Yeltsin and his entourage seem to have been to some extent influenced by analogous ideas. The war in Chechnya in 1994–96 was a smaller manifestation of the same idea that was presented in The Last Push to the South: The explosive situation in the region should be pacified. The new military operation started by then Prime Minister V.Putin in 1999 and still continuing serves the same purpose.

Geopolitics and racism As we have seen, geopolitics has served, and keeps serving, as an ideological justification of Russian statist hardliners’ endeavours and plans to restore the empire. This objective, however, is hardly likely to be accomplished as in history no former empire so far has been resurrected. To make matters worse, the Russian population is diminishing year by year due to a very low birthrate. At the same time, China with its huge population is gaining more and more economic strength and political influence in the world. For how long will Russia be able to keep its vast but very sparsely populated territories in Asia under control? Moreover, the so-called regionalisation process, i.e. the regions’ striving for independence vis-à-vis Moscow, threatens to result in a further fragmentation of Russia.

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In the long run, this process is irreversible. Putin’s attempt to stop it through administrative reorganisation signifies de facto only a temporary time-out in history. In a word, the Russian imperialists are fighting a lost cause. On the other hand, the Russian ethnic nationalists seem to have a better chance of survival. In the era of globalisation with all its contradictions, racism is gaining momentum almost everywhere in the world. In Russia, as in numerous Western countries, economic problems and other shortcomings in life make ‘the man in the street’ view ‘aliens’ like Jews, Caucasians, etc. as the cause of all evil. The world view of organised ethnic Russian nationalists is the topic of the next chapter.

6 Russian racism as a conservative Weltanschauung The dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 was to a great extent the consequence of a long lasting conflict between the Great Russians—the ‘core nation’ of the empire—on the one hand, and the dominant ethnic groups of the other fourteen national Soviet republics, on the other hand. The latter viewed the Union as an instrument in the hands of the Great Russians to oppress and exploit other nations, whereas Russian-minded people like A.Solzhenitsyn claimed that the Russians had suffered more than any other nation under the Soviet regime (cf., Solzhenitsyn 1974, 117). The latter viewpoint implies that the Soviet Union was a non-Russian creation. In Chapter 5, we analysed the Russian statist nationalists’ Weltanschauung. In this chapter, we dwell upon Russian ethnocentrism, i.e. nationalism in its ethnic form that, in fact, constitutes a national antipode to both Marxist internationalism and Western global liberalism. In an ethnic nationalist’s view, the basic units in society are neither classes nor individuals but nations (and, in the last resort, races). In extreme cases, this current of thought—Laqueur calls it nationalism pur sang (Laqueur 1993, x)—has later on manifested itself as Russian fascism and racism in general, and morbid anti-Semitism in particular. The two-foldness of Russian nationalism—statism versus ethnocentrism—has been noted several times in this study. Those who adhere to the first-mentioned current of thought and profess neo-Eurasianism give priority to the state, or rather to the Russian multi-national empire, whereas the ethnocentrists (the so-called ‘Slavophiles’, ‘Orthodox Monarchists’, ‘pochvenniki’ or ‘fascists’) proclaim Russianness. The latter find their identity in being ethnic Russians and adhering to exclusively Russian values.70 Contrary to the Eurasian geopolitical view of a world of clashing civilisations, the Russian ethnic nationalists focus on the ethnic situation within their own country. The Russian nation that constituted the backbone of the tsarist empire as well as of the Soviet Union is considered to have sacrificed itself for the benefit of others. This argument has been used to explain why, for instance, the living standard was higher in the Baltic Soviet republics than in the Russian Soviet Federal Socialist Republic. In 1990, in his famous manifesto Rebuilding Russia (Kak nam obustroit’ Rossiiu), Solzhenitsyn commenting upon the ethnically explosive situation in the Soviet Union considered the empire to be the main reason why the Russians’ national survival was at stake (cf., Solzhenitsyn 1991, 15). Russia should separate off twelve republics (the Ukrainians and Belorussians were supposed to remain together with the Great Russians): …Russia will in fact free itself for a precious inner development, at long last turning diligent attention towards itself

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In Solzhenitsyn’s view, the time had come for a choice between the empire and the salvation of the Russian ethnos and its unique characteristics: …if it is true that Russia has for decades been giving its life blood to the republics, then the separation will not produce economic losses for us, but will instead allow us to conserve physical strength (ibid., 17) Solzhenitsyn’s moderate ethnocentrism reveals a drive towards isolationism and rejection of a multinational Russia. Here we can see a slight glimpse of racist thinking. Yet, in the late 1980s as well as in the 1990s, other ethnocentric thinkers with extreme views, such as Dimitrii Vasil’ev, Igor Shafarevich, Iurii Begunov and Aleksandr Barkashov, did not stop at blaming the Soviet empire as such for Russia’s misfortunes but resorted to the wellknown idea of a Judeo-Masonic conspiracy. According to this racist theory, a secret war was waged against the Russian people in the twentieth century. Acting in collusion with the West, Russia’s alleged ‘inner enemies’, i.e. the Jews and their Masonic henchmen, wanted to eliminate the Russian people. The different versions of this scapegoat scenario will be dealt with later on. In any case, anti-Semitism, whether disguised or outspoken, plays a crucial role in Russian ethnocentrist thinking.

A parallel with the German Völkisch ideas The exchanges of Western, mainly German, and Russian conservative ideas in history have already been dealt with in this study, in general outlines. Yet, after 1917 this interaction could materialise mainly only in Germany, between nationalist-minded Russian émigrés and German national socialists. Russian ethnic nationalism had to be reborn in its homeland, first on the eve of and during World War II, as caused by the instinct of national self-preservation, then, spontaneously, in the 1960s as a reaction against the ongoing soulless ‘construction of communism’ (stroitel’stvo kommunizma), i.e. the unRussian Soviet project. In practical policy, this construction implied nothing but industrialisation and urbanisation with ingredients of Western city culture. As already noted, the movement of ‘pochvenniki’ (the soil-bound) or ethnocentrists including ‘village writers’ and people advocating the preservation of historical and cultural monuments as well as of the environment in general gravitated in the 1970s and 1980s towards the extreme right. This ideological evolution leading to the first manifestations of Russian fascism and national socialism, had in some respects a striking resemblance with the Völkisch movement’s history in Germany before and after World War II. As is well known, Völkisch thought served as the precursor of German national socialism, the culmination of racism. In view of the foregoing, we find it appropriate to subject to analysis this ideological parallelism. The similarities between Völkisch thought and Russian post-Stalin ethnocentrism are as follows:

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1 In both cases, there is a conservative backlash against modernisation, a yearning for a bygone past. This can be seen in Figure 18 below. Germany before and after WWI The cult of das VOLK (the peasants)

Post-Stalin Soviet Union/ post-Soviet Rus The cult of NAROD (the peasants)

The German people (das Volk) as well as the Russian people (narod) embody ancient genuin ethical and spiritual values based on historical tradition. Peasantry is the most typical representative of das Volk and of the narod respectively. Nature, the countryside

Rural Russia

Man’s symbiosis with nature, with the soil, represents natural, healthy organic life. National traditions

Russian traditions

Modernity with its artificial institutions and values deprives man of his identity, i.e., of his belonging to a natural community or communities based on tradition. Rootedness

The ‘pochvenniki’ (the soil-bound)

According to Völkisch thought man was fated to merge and become rooted in nature and the V (cf., Mosse 1966, 15). The proponents of post-Stalin Russianness, such as the so-called village writers (A.Solzhenits V.Rasputin, V.Belov, etc.) were called pochvenniki (the soil-bound) as advocating a back-to-t roots policy. In this sense, their original precursor was writer F.Dostoevsky. The rejection of urbanism and industrialism

The rejection of urban life of big industry

Figure 18 German Völkisch thought versus Russian post-Stalin ethnocentrism

Urbanism implies ‘uprootedness’ (the Völkisch argument) or alienation (otchuzhdenie) as a Russian national patriot would call it. The Völkisch argument against industrialism was that it fostered materialism instead of spiritual values. The Russian post-Stalin ethnocentrists alias ‘pochvenniki’ for their part, added still the ecological aspect to the arguments against industrialisation. Yet, this argumentation, whether spiritual or green, prevented neither the German national socialists in power in 1933–45, nor their Russian allies of today from advocating further development of war industry and military technology. 2 Germany before 1933 was preoccupied with a search for its national identity. The same can be said of the post-Stalin Soviet Union as well as of Yeltsin’s and Putin’s postSoviet Russia. In the Völkisch movement there was a call for ‘a revolution of the soul’, for ‘a truly German revolution’ (Mosse 1966, 7) whereas Alexander Solzhenitsyn and other moderate Russian ethnocentrists advocated a ‘spiritual rebirth’ of Russia. In both cases, the national spirit and national consciousness were considered to be of primary importance. The Völkisch movement as well as the Russian ethnocentrists pointed out the contradiction between lofty ideals and base interests, between

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asceticism and hedonism (consumerism is a more frequently used word nowadays). The old Slavophile idea of a separate path of development for Russia as distinct from the Western model of modernisation can be seen in Solzhenitsyn’s writings. The Völkisch conception for its part, implied that the German nation rejected modernity and returned to its ancient traditions. The Völkisch cult of heroes struggling for ideals as opposed to commercial people engaged in material pursuits (making money and building up cities) reappeared in principle in Solzhenitsyns famous speech at Harvard University in 1978 in which the Russians were considered to be stronger than Western people: Through deep suffering, people in our country have now achieved a spiritual development of such intensity that the Western system in its present state of spiritual exhaustion does not look attractive. A fact that cannot be disputed is the weakening of human personality in the West while in the East it has become firmer and stronger. Six decades for our people and three decades for the people of Eastern Europe; during that time we have been through a spiritual training far in advance of Western experience. The complex and deadly crush of life has produced stronger, deeper, and more interesting personalities than those generated by standardised Western well-being (Besancon 1980, 332) Solzhenitsyn underlines the fundamental difference between two life-styles— Western consumerism and Russian asceticism. In the first case, there are spiritually weak people, whereas hardships and sufferings in Russian life produce spiritually strong individuals. This argumentation is not too far away from the viewpoint that some nations or races are healthier (and more valuable) than others. Being a moderate ethnocentrist Solzhenitsyn can be called neither a fascist nor a national socialist. On the other hand, his conservative argumentation does not rule out different interpretations and conclusions including semi-fascist ones. 3 The Jewish question Anti-Semitism is the great common denominator in both movements. Hatred of the Jews has been a very important ingredient in the history of Völkisch thought as well as in that of Russianness in the Soviet society, in particular, after World War II. In the latter case, however, Judophobia appeared as disguised. Code words like ‘Zionism’, ‘cosmopolitanism’, ‘aliens’ (inorodtsy), ‘Russophobia’, etc. were resorted to for attacks on Jews and Judaism. Anti-Semitic thoughts and slogans could openly be propagated only in the samizdat literature. The situation changed in 1986 with the introduction of glasnost. Paradoxically, anti-Semitism that used to be officially banned was now legalised de facto. In Völkisch thought, the Jews incarnated the evils of modern society including materialism, dishonesty and egoism. These values were considered to be alien to the German faith. Thus, the Jews were declared the eternal enemy of the German people. Völkisch thought displayed a dichotomic general view of life: a mortal struggle is going on between the healthy Germanic (Aryan) people and the depraved Jews.

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In German history, the Jews served as scapegoats for all the shortcomings and maladjustments that had afflicted the country in its thorny path to modernity. The same happened also in tsarist Russia in the late nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries. The image of the Jews as le mal absolu persisted under the Soviet regime in certain layers of the establishment, even if opinions of this kind had to be disguised. In Brezhnev’s post-Stalin society, the mounting Russian ethnic nationalism displayed an attitude towards the Jews that was almost identical with that of the Völkisch thinkers almost hundred years ago. The only difference was the aforementioned Soviet practice of calling Jews ‘cosmopolitans’, ‘Zionists’ or ‘aliens’ (inorodtsy). The periodical Molodaia gvardia (Young Guard) that mirrored the views of the military establishment was a very typical mouthpiece of this slightly disguised anti-Semitism. In the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s, the ‘antiZionist’ tendency in literature was very strong. The Jews were depicted as chauvinist aggressors, mass murderers, as parasites and reckless villains with a thirst for money and power. In the early 1980s, extreme Russian nationalists began to resort to emotional rhetoric about the alleged extinction of the Russian people and the degradation of their traditions and culture. The old idea of a Jewish conspiracy against the Russians was reviving. Generally speaking, this trend repeated what had happened in Germany about 100 years before: anti-Semitism had become the main characteristic feature of the Völkisch Weltanschauung. Accordingly, the transformation of Völkisch thought into national socialism in Germany after World War I had its equivalent in the fascistisation of part of the Russian ethnocentrists in the 1980s and the 1990s. From traditional to modern anti-Semitism In history, anti-Semitism came to Russia with the adoption of Orthodox Christianity in 988 CE, i.e. long before the Russian national idea was born. The first pogrom took place only 30 years later, in 1018 CE, in Kiev (Pinkus 1988, 4). From the outset the Orthodox Church, with its anti-Jewish Byzantine heritage, has waged campaigns against the Jews through preaching and in writings (cf., Pinkus 1988, 4 f). Originally, anti-Semitism in Europe as well as in Russia was a matter of confessional disagreements between the Jews and the Christians. The former were condemned because their faith was considered erroneous—they were called ‘executioners of Christ’. Furthermore, they were identified with ‘the powers of evil’ (cf., Anti-Semitism 1974, 11). To mention one example, in medieval Europe from time to time, there circulated rumours about Jews poisoning wells (ibid., 20 f). On the other hand, great efforts were made to convert them to Christianity. Generally speaking, this policy was quite successful in Western Europe, but not in Russia. The messianic aspirations and theocratic nature of the Russian state created additional problems for the Jews living in the empire. Russia represented Orthodox Christianity on a worldwide basis, where the Jews and their deviant religion simply did not fit in (cf., Parland 1993, 87). Even if some of the Russian tsars wanted to improve the lot of the Jews and integrate them into Russian society by way of assimilation—Alexander I, and

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Alexander II are good cases in point—the Russian and East European Jews stubbornly clung to their traditional way of life, to their own religion. They did not want to convert to Orthodox Christianity and give up their separate identity. As a result, they were treated as aliens and isolated from the rest of the community, i.e. restricted to certain localities and to certain occupations (ibid., 88). Traditional anti-Semitism based on Christian religious prejudice remained alive and virulent in politically and economically retarded Russia throughout the nineteenth century and even in the early twentieth century before 1917. Under Nicholas II (Nikolai II), for example, the practice of accusing Jews of ritual murder in law courts (the so-called blood-libel cases) began to play an important part in Russian anti-Semitic ideology (cf., Pinkus 1988, 30). The Beilis trial in Kiev, which lasted 2 years, from 1911 to 1913, is a good case in point. The full weight of government power had been put behind this prosecution that, nevertheless, ended with the acquittal of the accused Jewish tailor Mendel Beilis (ibid.). As already noted, Russian nationalism continued to influence the public opinion under the Soviet regime and so did anti-Semitism, albeit in disguised form. With the bankruptcy of Marxism-Leninism and the restoration of the Orthodox Church as a moral authority in society of the late 1980s, even traditional anti-Semitism could revive although not without elements of modern secular thought. In European and Russian history, the emergence of a new secular kind of anti-Semitism is closely connected with modernisation in general. As a matter of fact, the Jews have played an extremely important role in the political and economic development of Europe and Russia.71 At the same time, the process of modernisation was accompanied and supported by the gradual political and economic emancipation of the Jews. Generally speaking, modern European anti-Semitism was evoked by the aforementioned emancipation process in the nineteenth century that made Jews equal citizens before the law. This phenomenon was due to the contradictory character of the rising bourgeoisie, the driving force of modernisation. The idea of the national state as the bourgeois nationalist ideology implying ethnically and historically defined states provided a rationale for the many states that emerged in Europe between the French Revolution and the end of World War I. German modern anti-Semitism In countries with a weak bourgeoisie dependent on traditional power structures—the reunited Germany towards the end of the nineteenth century is a case in point—the political and social development was protracted and painful. In such a context, the success of Jews in economic and cultural life as well as in many scientific fields let alone the Jewish activity on the liberal and left-wing side of German politics tended to be interpreted as a threat to the nation (cf., Parland 1993, 83). The new ideological confrontation was between cosmopolitanism and nationalism, between universally defined human rights, once the slogan of the liberal bourgeoisie, and the interests of the increasingly conservative national right (ibid., 84). The Jew having always been viewed as an alien element within human society was now depicted in a multitude of new negative roles. In Western and Central Europe of the late nineteenth and

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early twentieth century before 1933, the new anti-Semitism was gradually evolving towards racial biology. The new roles of the European Jews were as follows: • The image of the Jews as the enemies of the national state. The dispersion of the Jews throughout the world earned them the reputation of belonging to an ‘international’. They were considered homeless and rootless and, therefore, inherently unable to have any patriotic feelings towards any country. • The image of Jews as spies and traitors. This was a commonly held view during and after the Napoleonic wars. In Austria and some of the other European powers that had been under French occupation, there was the suspicion that some of the local Jews had served as partisans of Napoleon (cf., Anti-Semitism 1974, 30). Another example is the well-known Dreyfus affair in France in 1894–1906. Captain Alfred Dreyfus, the only Jew belonging to the General Staff of the French army, was accused of spying for Germany. Eventually, he was found not guilty. • The image of the Jews as the ideological architects of Germany’s defeat in World War I. There was a myth circulating in Germany after 1918 according to which the victorious German army had received a ‘stab in the back’ from revolutionaries, pacifists, and intellectuals that were under the influence of the ‘cowardly Jewish spirit’ (cf., Anti-Semitism 1974, 45). The supposedly heroic and creative ‘German spirit’ had been undermined by alien ideas and values. • The image of the Jews as usurers and swindlers. This view has its roots in the Middle Ages, when the Jews had been pushed into the few occupations that legal discrimination left open to them—small-scale trading, wholesale trading and, finally, usury. As is well known, these occupations were to become the most dynamic ones in modern Europe of the twentieth century. In Germany at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, anti-Semitism coalesced into ‘the image of the successful, nonnational, unproductive foreigner, whose power resided in money and in his mastery of the legerdemain of modern manipulation’ (ibid., 33). The breakthrough of modern speculative capitalism based on large-scale production and characterised by a great number of very successful Jewish bankers and businessmen was perceived as a threat against the innumerable craftsmen and small-scale entrepreneurs, i.e. the representatives of the lower middle class. The Jews became identified with international unproductive ‘robber’ capital (raffendes Kapital) as distinguished from national productive capital (schaffendes Kapital). In the 1920s and, in particular, during the Great Depression in 1929, German national socialists made sweeping references to Jewish world capital and its alleged diabolic influence. • The image of the Jews as a subversive political force. When the working-class movement had turned into a political force to reckon with, the lower middle class found itself ‘between the anvil of the bourgeoisie and the hammer of the working class’ (Valentin 1935, 53). Socialism in general and communism in particular was, paradoxically, declared to be as Jewish as was the aforementioned international modern capitalism. • The image of the Jews as plotters planning to establish a worldwide hegemony. In Germany, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion was the most striking example of these supposed intentions. As we have already seen, these ‘Protocols’ had been ‘imported’

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from Russia after 1917. • The image of the Jews as an inferior race. Viewing the Jew as a parasite, Völkisch racial thinkers defined him as a fossil that lacked the strength or roots to nourish himself. Consequently, the Jew was considered to be something less than a human being. The dehumanisation of the Jew is perhaps one of the most significant single developments in the evolution of Völkisch ideology’ (Mosse 1966, 140). Concretely, the idea that the Jews belonged to a race with various negative characteristics like calculation, shrewdness, hypocrisy and lies was cultivated by the German philosopher Eugen Dühring (1833–1921). He linked Jewish depravity in culture, morals and manners to inherent racial traits possessed by all Jews (Mosse 1964, 131). Arthur de Gobineau (1816–82), ‘the father of the glorification of the German race’ (Briem 1940, 22), for his part, introduced the concept of a distinction between ‘culture-bearing’ and ‘culture-destroying’ races. Elaborating on these thoughts, the Germanised Englishman Houston Stewart Chamberlain (1855–1927) came to the conclusion that intercourse with Jews might produce a race of inferior quality (ibid.). Völkisch anti-Semitism culminated in national socialism, in which the decisive element was a pseudo-scientific racial theory based on the ideas of the aforementioned Dühring, de Gobineau and Chamberlain. The superiority of the Aryan race and the inevitability of a race war as well as of an anti-Jewish revolution were proclaimed. The key concept used by the national socialists was that of racial purity implying that the decay of any nation was always the result of race mixture. Yet, the national socialist Weltanschauung included different approaches to the Jewish question. There was the so-called ‘popular anti-Semitism’ or ‘street-corner anti-Semitism’ that was based on prejudices, envy and superstition and appealed to common people in general and the petty bourgeoisie, i.e. the lower middle class in particular. This mood was susceptible to the conspiracy theory that appeared in the shape of the aforementioned Protocols of the Elders of Zion. These ‘Protocols’ served as a means of stirring up an antiintellectual pogrom mentality. They represented vulgar and irrational anti-Semitism that turned out to be somewhat of a secularised belief in the devil. The demonised Jew was described as undermining the resistance of state and society against spiritual corruption. The Weimar republic (1918–33) was referred to as the ‘Jewish Republic’, which supposedly accounted for its atheism, promiscuity, social and political discord, cosmopolitanism, defaitism, pacifism and cultural Bolshevism (cf., Parland 1993, 86). More generally, all Germany’s misfortunes and shortcomings in history were explained as Jewish plots. The philosophy of ‘street-corner anti-Semitism’ manifested itself in the use of physical force against Jews by the SA Stormtroopers (SA=Sturmabteilung; Storm Detachment). As is well known, the SA served as the early private army of the German national socialist labour party. Germany’s Army command called the SA a motley bunch of street brawlers, thugs and hooligans who understood nothing of Army traditions.72 Paradoxically, the so-called Final Solution (Die Endlösung der Judenfrage)73 as the culmination of modern racial anti-Semitism was to ripen in a totally different environment—the command of the SS74 that was supposed to represent the national elite, the ‘better bourgeoisie’ (cf., Mosse 1964, 143). It should be noted that academic circles had become a breeding ground of modern racial anti-Semitism.

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The Russian paradox: co-existing religious and secular anti-Semitism As repeatedly noted, Russian nationalism in general and its ethnic version in particular has been, and still is, coloured by Orthodox Christianity. Only a few groupings representing the Russian extreme right do oppose Christianity in principle and, as the national socialists did in their time, propagate occultism or some pagan religion instead. The Union of veneds (Soiuz venedov) that has cooperated from time to time with the CPRF serves as a typical example. As a matter of fact, the process of secularisation of religious anti-Semitism is not yet totally accomplished in Russia, even if secular and pragmatic considerations prevail in political life. True, the slightly disguised anti-Semitism that from time to time manifested itself under the atheist Soviet regime, naturally, appeared as secular. However that may have been, the samizdat literature of that time revealed that both forms of anti-Semitism existed among Russians. This unofficial truth was something that could no more remain disguised after the introduction of glasnost in 1986. As noted before, traditional nationalism and its ‘modernist’ equivalent influence each other in Russia. The same can be said of religious and modern anti-Semitism. In real life, there are movements proclaiming traditionalism with elements of secular thinking like Pamiat’, as well as proponents of modern rightism who nevertheless call themselves Orthodox national socialists (the combatants of the RNE). Confessional and modern racial anti-Semitism are intermingled accordingly. The situation within the Russian Orthodox Church is very illuminating. Individual believers and priests who adhere to the so-called fundamentalist wing do not qualify as fascists or national socialists. On the other hand, there are many of them who do cooperate with and even actively support fascist and national socialist organisations, especially the Russian National Unity (cf., Shenfield 2001, 69). As Stephen D.Shenfield concludes, there is a common ground for Orthodox fundamentalists and fascists. ‘Both reject the Enlightenment and democracy, both believe in a world Jewish conspiracy’ (ibid.). At the same time, there is an obvious slow but sure tendency of growing secular and pragmatic thinking among Russian radical nationalists pur sang. The most striking example of this development can be seen in the evolution of the traditionalist Pamiat movement and its ideology. Its leader D. Vasil’ev proclaimed Orthodoxy and monarchism. In 1990, the most radical members spearheaded by Barkashov left Pamiat’ and founded the RNE, as has been noted earlier in this study. In the literature of the new organisation called Russian National Unity, religion no longer occupied the central place. Pamiat’ is merely traditionalist (or reactionary as Shenfield would call it—TP), whereas RNE already represents modern extremism—national socialism. In their attitude to the Jewish question, the Russian extreme nationalists pur sang do resemble their German confreres of the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s in many respects. This has already been seen in the aforementioned ideological comparison of Völkisch thought and Russian post-Stalin ethnocentrism. There is, however, an important difference that has to be noted. Notwithstanding all preaching about a Jewish conspiracy, the German national socialists, nevertheless, represented above all a more sophisticated, a more

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‘advanced’ racism mainly based on pseudo-scientific biological argumentation. Being classified as belonging to an inferior race, the Jews were viewed as a great genetic threat: the Aryan race could be corrupted through intermarriage. The German nazis proclaimed racial purity as their main principle. Contemporary Russian extreme ethnocentrists, such as D.Vasil’ev (Pamiat’), A.Barkashov (RNE), academician I.Shafarevich, editor Viktor Korchagin and academician Iurii Begunov, for their part, are much more obsessed by the aforementioned conspiracy theory than by eugenics. This difference is presented in Figure 19. It should, however, be noted, that this comparison is simplified in order to emphasise the main difference. Racial biology and the conspiracy theory do not exclude but rather complement each other in German national socialism and Russian extreme nationalism. It is a well-known fact that the German national socialists referred also to the conspiracy theory in their propaganda, in particular, in explaining Germany’s defeat Pseudo-scientific racist anti-Semitism German national socialism

Racist anti-Semitism coloured by occultism The Russian extreme right pur sang

The Jews are an inferior race, biologically A worldwide Jewish conspiracy, aiming at reducin the gentiles to slavery or exterminating them. threatening the racial purity of Aryan Genocide of the Russians since 1917 people A theory of sick and healthy races

A theory of the occult power of the Jews. Belief in Satanism or in the existence of an all-powerful hidden hand

Figure 19 Pseudo-scientific anti-Semitism vs anti-Semitism coloured by occultism

in World War I (see p. 142). Accordingly, their Russian post-Stalin allies, notwithstanding their pronounced belief in conspiracies and occult forces, never forget to point out that the Russians are Aryans by origin. This brings us to the racist theory of Ariosophy that was one of the sources of early German national socialism (cf. Shenfield 2001, 240). Another word for this concept is Aryanism, the notion of white racial supremacy. This theory gained a strong position in the intellectual discussions in Central Europe (Mitteleuropa) of the late nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century. Its proponents argued that the ancient Aryans, once racially pure and ‘Nordic’, had become corrupted through mixed marriages with inferior non-Aryans. In Germany of the 1920s and 1930s, the national socialists viewed the Jews as occupying an inter-mediary position between Nordic man and the animal world (cf., Mosse 1964, 143). Russian Ariosophy serves as a common denominator in most ethnocentric movements and organisations that belong to the extreme right. Generally, they are secular, semisecular or pagan, but there are even a few formally Orthodox movements. The RNE is a good case in point. The pagan-like Society of Nav that was founded in 1996 is one of the latest organisations belonging to the extreme right and preaching Ariosophy. Its worldview is typical: an eternal struggle is going on between Nav, the rightful

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supreme God, and Jehovah, the malicious angel. Nav created a race of people, the Aryans or whites, but these degenerated morally as a consequence of racial mixing and spiritual decline. Judeo-Christianity is declared a dangerous plague and the Aryans are urged to return to the faith of their anchestors, to the Nordic cult of Ariosophy (cf., Shenfield 2001, 251). As regards eugenics in Russia, it has played a less visible role than it did in Hitler’s Germany. Nevertheless, there are the same ingredients of racial thinking in almost all Russian national patriotic literature. In the late 1980s, some local Pamiat’ organisations reportedly adopted statutes that exclude everyone but Russians from membership. Only those whose families had not been contaminated by foreign blood over the past four generations were eligible (Parland 1993, 184; Soifer 1987, 102). The principle of preserving genetic purity of the Russian nation can be seen in Barkashov’s pamphlet Azbuka russkogo natsionalista (ABC of a Russian Nationalist) (Barkashov 1994). Zhirinovsky for his part, has contributed to the discussion on the racial issue. In his book The Last Push to the South, the author expresses his preoccupation with the survival of the white race, which has a declining birthrate while there is a population boom of coloured people in the world (cf., Zhirinovsky 1993a, 139). As in the West, among Russians advocating eugenics, there are some who consider all the existing races, even the white one, to have fallen prey to moral degeneration and to be unfit for the future of mankind. Thus, they advocate breeding a new human species with a higher intellect. In Russia, the nationalist periodical Nasledie predkov (The Heritage of Ancestors) published in 1997 an article in which the author suggests the introduction of ‘genetic socialism’ that would result in a ‘eugenic state’ (evgenicheskoe gosudarstvo) coming into being. The genetic background of man would be improved with the help of cloning. As a result, a new human genotype, i.e. a new race of energetic superhuman beings without deficiencies would be bred (cf., Avdeev 1997, 9–15). Russophobia—the scapegoat scenario Notwithstanding all the manifestations of thinking in terms of Aryanism and eugenics, nationalist-minded Russians seem to be much more concerned about who is to blame for all the disasters that struck Russia in the twentieth century: the fall of monarchy, the Bolsheviks’ terror regime with disastrous social experiments, the humiliating break-up of the Soviet Union (the historical continuation of the Russian empire), etc. Yeltsin’s postSoviet Russia was a new tragedy as the country was now criminalised by the oligarchs and at the same time getting more and more dependent on and integrated with the West. Numerous Russian-minded quarters, including the extreme national Bolsheviks, viewed Russia as being ruled by a non-Russian ‘occupational government’ that serves the interests of the West. The question ‘Kto vinovat?’ (Who is to blame) has been all the more frustrating as the national patriots pur sang perceive themselves and their fellow countrymen as superior to Western people in terms of courage and moral purity. So what had they done to deserve a fate more cruel than that of any other nation? As national soul searching is completely unthinkable for a Russian nationalist,75 the search for culprits must be directed elsewhere. The conspiracy theory has been mentioned several times in this study. There are different

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versions of its prototype—the Protocols of the Elders of Zion—but the idea of evil forces plotting against Russia and native Russians serves as the common denominator. Some of the versions have historical parallels in Germany before and after Hitler’s seizure of power in 1933.76 As we have already seen, the statist Eurasians consider the greatest danger to come from the West supposedly dominated by the Jews and the Masons. The extreme national patriots pur sang for their part, focus on the so-called ‘inner enemies’, i.e. the Russian Jews in particular, that are considered to be the most dangerous enemies of the Russian ethnos. The fact that these ‘inner enemies’ are accused of acting in collusion with the West or, rather, with the cosmopolitan forces dominating the West does not change the matter. As a consequence, whatever has happened to Russia in the twentieth century, it can be explained as caused by insidious ‘Russophobes’ living within the country (‘Russophobe’, as we know, is a code-word for ‘Jew’). Even if the conspiracy theory in itself manifests a rather modern than traditionalist approach to the Jewish question, there are some Russian versions of it in which the traditionalist aspects are more conspicuous than the modern ones. Above all, this can be seen in the views of the so-called ‘Orthodox fundamentalists’, i.e. the extreme Russian nationalists within the Orthodox Church as well as among Orthodox sectarians like the Old believers (staroobryadtsy). Pamiat’ leader D.Vasil’ev, a typical Orthodox sectarian, interprets the Protocols of the Elders of Zion as a struggle between God and Satan. Yet, the emphasis is on Satan. There are few, if any, references to God, but a number of references to the devil and his work, i.e. to the Jews and their role in Russia’s post-revolutionary history (cf., Parland 1993, 199). As Shenfield concludes, there is ‘a medieval quality in much of the religiosity of contemporary Russian Orthodoxy’ (Shenfield 2001, 63). What he finds alarming is the revival of the medieval belief that Jews commit ritual murders (ibid.). Yet, apart from these more or less religious interpretations of what the Russian Jews supposedly have been doing in history, there are secularised versions of the scapegoat scenario as well. Among them, some are coloured by anti-intellectual popular anti-Semitism, others are more sophisticated. This can be seen in Figure 20. Molodaia gvardiia is a non-religious periodical that has been said to represent the ‘purest national bolshevism possible’ (cf., Latynina 1990, 5). It contains articles and statements coloured by secular anti-Semitism. The conspiracy theory is not only referred to but even provided with a prehistory. As an example, in January 1990, the periodical published an article about Jewish slave traders from Venice, the Crimea and the area around the Sea of Azov, who were in the market for white slaves—mainly Turks and Russians—at the time of the Tatar rule in Russia from 1240 to 1480 (cf., Malyshev 1990, 137). The author regarded the famous battle of Populist versions

Sophisticated versions

- magazine Molodaia gvardiia - J.K.Begunov’s pamphlet Secret Forces in Russian History (1996) - V.I.Korchagin’s volume

- I.Shafarevich’s pamphlet Rusofobiia (1989)

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The Jewish Occupation of Russia (1998) - A.Barkashov’s ABC of a Russian Nationalist (1994) Figure 20 Populist and sophisticated versions of the conspiracy theory

Kulikovo in 1380, when the Russians managed to defeat one of the Tatar armies, as part of the ‘struggle by the Russian people against a worldwide cosmopolitan aggression’ (Kozhinov 1990, 240 f). The anti-intellectual populist strain of Molodaia gvardiia is conspicuous. Another article also published in January 1990 alleged that L.I.Brezhnev had paved the way for the unfair practice of Jewish domination of the press and other key sectors of Soviet political life during his many years of absolute power (Sotnikov 1990, 243). This argument ties in well with the thrust of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Contrary to the national Bolsheviks who distinguish between good patriotic communists and bad cosmopolitan ones, Shafarevich, Begunov, Korchagin and Barkashov are not only anti-liberals but also dedicated anticommunists. As already noted, Barkashov is a Russian national socialist being influenced by some of Hitler’s ideas. Begunov and Korchagin for their part, come close to a more Russian version of fascism and racism. Shafarevich represents a much more sophisticated extreme rightism. The fact that we present academician Igor Shafarevich as a secular rather than religious antiSemite is due to his common-sense argumentation. Furthermore, his approach is formally more or less scientific. The monograph Russophobia is an attempt to find out who was guilty of having forced bolshevism upon Russia. In plain language, it is nothing but a sophisticated new version of the conspiracy theory. In a Russian context, the problem of guilt has traditionally been resolved through a personification of Evil instead of an objective analysis of what has gone wrong. The question whether Russia itself has been responsible for its misfortunes has been evaded in favour of the image of an enemy of the Russian people. The Stalinist era is another good case in point, when all domestic shortcomings and problems were explained as having been caused by enemies of the Soviet state (cf. Parland 1993, 213). Shafarevich has greatly influenced the ongoing political debate in society concerning the Jewish question as well as Russia’s future. Elements of his argumentation can be seen even in the writings of the aforementioned two other nationalists Begunov and Korchagin.

Racism: I.Shafarevich, K.Begunov and A.Barkashov In the years of glasnost, the history of Russia and the Soviet Union became a highly explosive topic in the ongoing social and political debate. The Western- and the Russianminded party members as well as the dissidents became more divided than ever on the issue of interpreting the Bolshevik revolution and the Soviet brand of socialism. Were they (or were they not) phenomena with deep roots in Russian history? (Parland 1993,

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206). For more information on how national patriots view the Soviet period (see Kozhinov (1999), Rossiia Vek (1901–39) and Kozhinov (1999), Rossiia Vek xx-i (1939– 64)). The national patriots rejected flatly the view that the negative aspects of the Soviet era could be explained in terms of the historical heritage of tsarist Russia. As a rule, all parallels between Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great and Josef Stalin were dismissed as expressions of Russophobia. In the 1970s and early 1980s, this issue had already divided the Soviet dissident movement at home and abroad. Solzhenitsyn represented the dream of a national and religious revival, while academician A. Sakharov symbolised the struggle for democratic freedoms and human rights in the USSR (ibid.). In this chapter, three anti-Semitic worldviews will be presented and dealt with. The first one belongs to a highbrow thinker, academician Igor Shafarevich. The two other theories are marked by their authors’ unsophisticated anti-Semitism. Nevertheless, they deserve to be dealt with as mirroring attitudes in certain layers of society, in particular the quarters of the military establishment and the repressive state organs. Shafarevich and his theory of the ‘malyi narod’ The ideological confrontation between Russian-minded and Western-minded dissidents was connected with the so-called third wave of emigration from the Soviet Union, which took place in the 1970s. A large number of Soviet scientists, writers, literary critics, art critics, and publicists left the USSR for the West. Many of them—the vast majority were Jews or of Jewish extraction—were subsequently to go public with a book, articles or lectures about the Soviet Union and its history. These new emigrants had a rather critical view of Russia, before as well as after 1917, as did many of the samizdat writers who had remained in the Soviet Union. This dissident literature provoked Igor Shafarevich into drafting his Russophobia (Rusofobiia) as an ideological rejoinder, written at the beginning of the 1980s and published in 1989 by the nationalist periodical Nash sovremennik. The author considered the dissident literature to be no more or less than anti-Russian propaganda. It conveyed the image of the Russian people as a people of slaves, who worship cruelty, favour despotism and totalitarianism, who hate all things foreign, including culture (cf., Shafarevich 1989, 173). The message Shafarevich and other national patriotic publicists brought to the reader remained the same: the Russian post-revolutionary drama was without historical precedent. Socialism was an all-out Western import product (cf., Shafarevich 1989,171; Solzhenitsyn 1974, 17). This, however, does raise the question which un-Russian forces were responsible for having forced socialism upon Russia. Shafarevich provides the answer by referring to the so-called ‘malyi narod’ (the small people). Originally, the pamphlet Russophobia had served as a warning against Westernminded Soviet dissidents. When it eventually appeared in print, Soviet society had changed profoundly thanks to glasnost and a certain political pluralism. In this new situation, Shafarevich’s ideological message was to play a much greater role in influencing the ongoing political and cultural debate than if it had remained an underground polemic pamphlet. The concept of ‘Malyi narod’ carries broader connotations than the Jews. It refers to a thin layer, to a religiously, politically or

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nationally defined political elite of the kind that has been known to dominate the ‘silent majorities’ of the West European countries. In Shafarevich’s view, the ‘malyi narod’ has always thought of itself as a selected few, as a social and political elite with the mission to change the world. It is isolated and alienated from the ‘religious and spiritual traditions of the vast majority of the Russians’ and it plays a ‘purely destructive cultural role’ (cf., Shafarevich 1989, 190). In Shafarevich’s view, the ‘malyi narod’ stands out as a dangerous force, which dealt the final and decisive blow to the traditional European society. It stands as a catchword for the Puritans, the Huguenots and the Jews, all of whom played an important role in the development towards a modern society with capitalism, social equality and political democracy in Western Europe. Shafarevich, however, views this process as having been ‘artificial’. The ‘malyi narod’ destroyed the traditional economy and made everything, including man and nature, into an object of commercial activity. Moreover, the French Revolution 1789–94 was also brought about by the ‘malyi narod’, which appearing under Girondist and Jacobin cover forced the Enlightenment philosophy upon the vast majority. It was a product of Freemasons’ chapters, philosophical academies, societies and clubs. What was right and what was wrong was determined by this esoteric and artificial world, not by the historical experience of the vast majority. Shafarevich concluded, that ‘when referring to the people and when making declarations about human rights, it was itself and its own rights that the “malyi narod” had in mind’ (Shafarevich 1989, 180). As regards Russian history of the latter part of the nineteenth century, there were radical intellectuals under the influence of Western culture, particularly the ‘destructive German left-wing Hegelianism’ of the 1830s and 1840s, who developed a philosophy of hatred, a genuine Russophobia. As Shafarevich puts it, ‘…a new kind of mentality was emerging. A young man might proudly describe himself as a “renegade” (otshchepenets)’ (Shafarevich 1989b, 172). Such a philosophy based on hatred of Russia combined with a breaking with the past, the traditional culture and the traditional authorities made these young radicals inclined to do everything and, eventually, opt for revolutionary terrorism. In the terrorist movement, there were many young Russian Jews with no ties to the Russian people and its culture (Shafarevich 1989b, 172). The commitment of young Jews to the revolutionary movement coincided with the crisis within the Jewish congregations at the turn of the century. A young generation of Russian Jews was in the process of breaking out of two thousand years of isolation in order to establish contacts with the outside world77 (cf., Parland 1993, 209). Shafarevich’s main point is that the Russian Jews were mobilised for political action at the turn of the century, when Russia was going through its most severe crisis ever. In Russia, the ‘malyi narod’ had a Jewish core. With the exception of the Bolsheviks, all the prerevolutionary parties were led by Jews (ibid., 166). With the Bolshevik takeover, a large number of potential Jewish leaders joined Lenin’s party. As a result, many Jews advanced to very high positions in state and society. Iakov Sverdlov as head of state, Leon (Bronstein) as war commissar, Grigorii Zinov’ev (Apfelbaum) as leader of Petrograd, and Lev Kamenev (Rosenfeld) as that of Moscow serve as good examples. In his report on the social experiment of the Bolsheviks in the 1920s and 1930s, Shafarevich makes a point of the large number of Jews within the Cheka and other

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security organs, particularly at the time of the destructive collectivisation of Soviet agriculture. Moreover, among the camp chiefs of the GULAG archipelago, there was an exceptionally large number of Jews. Shafarevich refers to names like Berman and Frenckell. Furthermore, two Jews—Leon and Emel’ian Jaroslavskii (Gubelmann)—are made responsible for the Bolshevik efforts to destroy the Russian Orthodox Church in the 1920s and 1930s. As Shafarevich views it, the hatred of Russia and the lust for its destruction was behind the socialist experiment. It turns out, that the ‘malyi narod’ within the Russian context de facto coincides with the Jews. Shafarevich attributes their subversive activities in Russia to what he calls a ‘pathological national complex’. This phenomenon was caused by the self-imposed isolation of the Jews during two thousand years of Diaspora. The outside world was perceived as a source of contagious disease and sin (Shafarevich 1989b, 79). When the Jewish youth in Russia broke out of its previous isolation and joined the terrorist revolutionary movement, it was ready to destroy the old world. Yet Shafarevich attributes also the subversive activities of the Jews to their religion as such. This part of his analysis has been clearly influenced by the traditional clerical roots of Russian anti-Semitism, primarily the notion of the Jews as the ‘chosen people’ (Izbrannyi Narod) with the mission to ‘rule the world’ (ibid., 169). In plain language, however, this harangue is, in fact, not more than a rehash of the ancient conspiracy theory telling that the Jews are seeking to dominate the world. Verbally, Shafarevich is far too intelligent to declare the Jews responsible for the revolution and the Soviet experiment. On the other hand, by keeping listing names and numbers of Jews who took part in the revolutionary turbulence he, nevertheless, conveys the impression that the Jews did play a decisive role in the violent social experiment of the Bolsheviks. This view seems to be more or less shared by numerous Russian-minded intellectuals including even moderate national patriots like A. Solzhenitsyn who concluded that the Jews had served as a vanguard in destroying the monarchy as well as the bourgeois order that had been established by them before (Solzhenitsyn 2001, 252). At the end of the 1990s, Shafarevich was even more explicit in his argumentation: During the twentieth century, Russia had been dissolved twice, and twice its survival had been at stake—first, after 1917, second, at present. In both cases, the ‘Jewish minority’ had played a tremendous role (cf. Shafarevich 2000, 295). The perestroika signified the ‘malyi narod’s’ victory, and ‘Russophobia became now the dominating policy and ideology of the mass media that had been seised by the “malyi narod”’ (ibid., 299). I.M.Bickerman’s article Rossiia i russkoe evreistvo (Russia and the Russian Jewry) originally written in Berlin in 1923 and introduced in 1990 in Nash sovremennik, serves as another example of sophisticated anti-Semitism. The author who happens to be a Jew himself takes the alleged similarities between Zionism and Bolshevism as a justification for an all-out attack on the October revolution and its aftermath. Bickerman finds several common traits in Zionism and Bolshevism to criticise. Both theories condemn the old world and promise the creation of an ideal society. The Jews were not the only ones to suffer during the civil war when the entire country was plagued by death and destruction during those chaotic years. Bickerman says that the Jews had taken an active part in revolutionary violence and ought to face up to the consequences. ‘We bring about storms and hurricanes, but expect to be caressed by mild

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winds’ (Bickerman 1990, 176). The author concludes that the Jews made a mistake by becoming involved in the revolutionary movement. The publicist Aleksandr Kazintsev, who had introduced Bickerman in Nash sovremennik, interpreted this statement as a call on the Jews to shoulder the responsibility for the cruelties committed by the new rulers of Russia (Kazintsev 1990, 163). K.Begunov’s conspiracy theory The volume Tainye sily v istorii Rossii (The secret forces in Russian history) was published in 1996. The author Y.K.Begunov is a publicist and academician from St Petersburg who specialises in ‘conspiracies in history’. His writings are clearly influenced by Shafarevich. In his volume there are several references to the ‘malyi narod’ for example. Another concept frequently referred to is ‘Russophobia’. At the same time, the author prefers for some reason to focus even more on other concepts like ‘Freemasonry/ Masonry’, ‘Freemasons/Masons’, ‘Zionism’ and ‘Zionists’. However that may be, all these concepts are in the last run codewords for ‘Jewry’ and ‘Jews’. Begunov sets the task to describe what happened to Russia during the last 150 years. In his conspiracy theory, history is influenced by two forces opposing each other: • the ‘dark forces’ (tëmnye sily) or ‘secret forces’ (tainye sily)—political Zionism, Masonry, Bolshevism and mondialism78—manipulating and distorting the ‘natural’ course of history. The purpose of the aforementioned forces is to destroy all the national cultures in general, and the Russian civilisation in particular, and to establish a world Ziono-Masonic hegemony. ‘Artificial’ universal values will replace the ‘natural’ national ones. • the ethno-national forces opposing the aforementioned drive and trying to preserve the ethno-national identity and traditions. This is possible by adhering to the so-called ‘ethnocultural chain’ (etno-kul’turnaia tsep’)79 and with the help of a national idea, in our case the ‘Russian idea’ (Russkaia ideia). This train of thought can be found already in national socialist Barkashov’s pamphlet Azbuka Russkogo Natsionalista (ABC of a Russian nationalist) that was printed in 1994 The aforementioned confrontation is, in fact, that between traditional society and modernity. If we substitute the ‘dark’ or the ‘secret forces’ for the ‘malyi narod’ we see that Shafarevich has used the same historical dichotomy as a guideline. Politically, Begunov sees contemporary Russia ruled by the ‘dark forces’ with the ‘patriots’ in opposition. The last-mentioned represent the ethno-national forces. When Shafarevich refers to the ‘malyi narod’, including the Russian Jews, as a dangerous international force, Begunov resorts to a much more concrete language. Instead of the ‘malyi narod’, there are the Masons who ideologically can be traced back to Judaism (Begunov 1996, 48). On the other hand, Begunov does not make any clear distinction between a Mason, a Zionist or a Jew. The three concepts seem to be almost inter-changeable. Today’s ‘dangerous international force’ is called the Secret World Government with primary structures like the UN, the NATO, the Trilateral Commission, the Bilderberg

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Club, IMF, etc. The ‘secret international cosmopolitan forces’ (Masonic-Zionist-Jewish) are to be found in the West in general and in the USA in particular, where they are supposed to dominate political and economic life. This view is by no means new. In 1990, Vadim Kozhinov, a national patriotic writer and publicist, presented an analogous train of thought. He distinguished between national Zionism in Israel and international Zionism that draws on Diaspora. With its ethnic strongholds throughout the world the latter has tremendous economic and political clout (Kozhinov 1990, 140–5). International Zionism has its epicenter in the United States, where traditional Jewry has been overtaken by a rejuvenated Jewish religion with elements of liberalism and Protestant Christianity. In principle, Begunov differs from Kozhinov only in being more specific and in presenting more detailed information (historical events, names, etc.). His preference to use the concepts ‘Mason’ or ‘Masonry’ has been noted earlier. In Begunov’s philosophy of history, Masonry has served as a cradle of all the conspiracies and revolutions that have occurred during the last 300 years. Lenin, was ‘the first Masonic Bolshevik’ (ibid., 277), he ‘hated Russia and the Russian people’ (ibid., 236). Begunov views the socialist experiment as aiming at destroying Russia. With their ‘policy of genocide’ the Bolsheviks ‘over-fulfilled the sinister plans of the world Masonry and Zionism’ (ibid., 279). It should be noted that Begunov repeatedly emphasises that the Protocols of the Elders of Zion are corroborated by Russia’s dramatic history. In the twentieth century, Begunov finds three different gangs of Masonic Russophobes that have tried to destroy Russia: First, in 1917, the Zionist Bolsheviks, Trotsky, Zinov’ev, Kamenev and Dzerzhinsky (the founder of the Cheka, as the Soviet security police originally was called—TP). Second, in 1941–45, a semi-Masonic Mafia consisting of Adolf Hitler, Hermann Göring, Heinrich Himmler and Joseph Göbbels. And third, after 1985, the mondialist ‘agents of influence’ M.Gorbachev, A.Iakovlev and Eduard Shevardnadze (cf., ibid., 368). The last-mentioned served as Soviet Foreign Minister in 1985–90. Begunov being both anti-Bolshevik, antiliberal and anti-Semitic could well be classified as a Russian national socialist had it not been for his rejection of Hitler. Yet, his argumentation against the German Führer is paradoxical: ‘As a disciple of the Protocols, Hitler, following their commandments, exterminated the poor part of the Jews to please the rest, i.e. the rich Jews’ (ibid., 262). In other words, Hitler is portrayed as manipulated by those whom he persecuted! Such a view, however, is by no means new. In the 1960s and 1970s, a new kind of ‘anti-Zionist’ literature came into being in the Soviet Union. Earlier, attacks had been aimed at the world Zionist movement or at the state of Israel. Now, the Jews, in a slightly disguised form, were blamed for planning to establish world hegemony through deceit, corruption and mass murder. The message, almost undisguised, of this literature was, briefly, well interpreted by Walter Laqueur, as follows: • The idea of Judaism is the idea of world fascism; • The Jews have always been chauvinist leaders and mass murderers; • They have always sought to destroy or subjugate other peoples, and in particular the Russians; • Hitler and the other Nazi leaders were mere puppets in the hands of the Jews; they incited Hitler to make war against the Soviet Union in 1941 (cf., Laqueur 1993, 107).

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From the aforementioned we can conclude that the essence of Russian racial antiSemitism does not change, even if the political regime does: the Jews are viewed as le mal absolu, as the main enemy of Russia. Under the Soviet regime, they were blamed for being anti-Soviet and anti-communist. In the years of glasnost these accusations suddenly changed: now the Jews were condemned for having been involved in the Bolshevik party before, during, and after the revolution and, thus, having brought great disasters and tragedies on the Russian people. Needless to say, these opposite anti-Semitic arguments have been based rather on considerations of political expediency and opportunism than on conviction. Even diehard representatives of the Russian extreme right prefer not to identify themselves with fascists or with Hitler’s allies because these words evoke too negative feelings and associations among the Russians in general. Another noteworthy point is that Begunov at least partly pays tribute to Stalin, who is praised for his struggle against Masonry and Zionism before and after World War II. It is an undeniable fact that this Soviet ruler despite his terror regime is still popular and more or less accepted by numerous Russianminded citizens. In analysing the Soviet era under as well as after Stalin, Begunov, in fact, continues Shafarevich’s train of thought by providing complementary material. He presents long lists of alleged Jews occupying high posts in the state administration of the USSR as well as of post-Soviet Russia. The key posts within the Soviet secret police were always occupied by Jews, declares the author. Iurii Andropov (Uriia Liebermann), first chief of the KGB and later Brezhnev’s successor as General secretary of the communist party (1982–84), is a case in point. He is characterised as a ‘typical representative of Jewish gangsterism’ (Begunov 1996, 292). On the whole, the reader gets the impression that the Soviet Union was ruled not by Russians but by ‘alien people’ like Jews. The mondialist threat The most interesting part of Begunov’s book deals with Gorbachev’s reforms and Yeltsin’s Russia. Generally, the view of several writing national patriots including Igor Shafarevich is repeated: With the failure of the Bolshevik experiment—Begunov calls the experimenters Zionist Bolsheviks—another political force took over in 1991: a strong Masonic movement connected with the Russian comprador bourgeoisie80 as well as with transnational monopolies is now building neoliberal capitalism in Russia. In this process of transformation, a key role has been played by the so-called ‘agents of influence’ (agenty vliianiia), i.e. the reformers in general and M.Gorbachev, A.Iakovlev and B.Yeltsin in particular. Begunov arrives at a conclusion that in most cases coincides with that of the Eurasians. Russia is ruled by an occupation government that acts in collusion with the West (dominated by the ‘secret mondialist forces’). There is a small elite of very rich people (the comprador bourgeoisie) robbing the country and transferring its profits to bank accounts in the West. At the same time the great majority of Russians are living in hardship and misery. The difference between Begunov’s ethnocentrist Weltanschauung and the Eurasians’ geopolitical conception is that between a race war and a confrontation of maritime and continental civilisations.

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Gorbachev’s perestroika and Yeltsin’s post-perestroika are characterised as an undeclared Third World War against the Russian people. The alleged purpose of the international ‘dark forces’ is to weaken Russia and bring it on its knees in a sophisticated way, almost without using force. The reformers, i.e. the ‘agents of influence’, were given the task to dismantle the Soviet regime, dissolve the Soviet empire, destroy the country’s industry through inflation, encourage the separatist tendencies within the Russian Federation, and make Russia more and more dependent on the West by integrating the country’s economy with Western international economic organisations, etc. A very important role in the aforementioned subversive activity is said to be played by the CIA. Furthermore, George Soros has been considered to be extremely dangerous with his business undertakings in general and his educational projects in particular in Russia (cf., Begunov 1996, 297) The latter are said to be aiming at eliminating Russian selfconsciousness, state patriotism and national education. This would result in the creation of ‘biorobots’ as very suitable for the so-called New World Order (a supposed codeword for the Masonic system of ruling). Begunov refers to certain alleged secret documents in the safes of the central committee of the Soviet communist party in 1985. According to them, there existed a plan to transform the Soviet Union (Russia) into a semicolony of the West. This was said to be the final purpose of the perestroika and the post-perestroika. In Western countries (dominated by the ‘secret forces’), there was a threat of a future shortage of energy and raw materials. Furthermore, the deteriorating ecological situation in the world required that new areas were found for ‘dirty’ industries run by transnational corporations. Russia’s natural resources and vast territories would be a solution to this problem, if the country could be made weak enough and totally dependent on the West. Russia would be forced to focus only on exporting raw materials and energy, and importing everything else. As a result of a deliberate policy of the ‘reformers’, i.e. the ‘fifth column’ of the ‘secret mondialist forces’, Russia would gradually be disarmed and deprived of its resources. Year by year, anarchy, criminalisation of state and society, impoverishment of the great majority of the population, a deteriorating health situation together with a mounting death rate would finally reduce the Russian ethnos to about 30 millions (cf., Begunov 1996, 330). Russia would cease to be a great power. After Russia’s demise, the ‘secret forces’ would establish an official World Government, according to the plan (cf., Begunov 1996, 329). Significantly enough, these visions are by no means new but repeat a certain pattern of thought closely connected with the conspiracy theory in general. This pattern includes the alleged plans to destroy Russia as well as the vision of Russia (or the Soviet Union) as a colony of the West. In this study, there have been illuminating examples: Viktor Ivanov’s spy novel Sudnyi den’ (Day of Judgment, 1988) as well as the statement given by M.Antonov (1991, 132). There is no shortage of analogous writings published earlier in Russia. Furthermore, when dealing with Barkashov’s ideas at the end of this chapter we will see that even the Russian national socialists interpreted the West in general and the USA and the ‘international Jewish financial oligarchy’ in particular as aiming at Russia’s dissolution in order to get a hold on its raw materials.

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Will Russia survive? The aforementioned argumentation does not seem to leave much hope for the Russians. Nevertheless, Begunov believes that ‘Russia, eventually, will defeat the “dark forces” owing to the unusual features of the Russian national character and the purity and strength of the Russian idea’. The mounting Russian national patriotism of the 1990s has encouraged Begunov to expect a renaissance for Russia. Like other Russian ethnocentrists and racists, Begunov proclaims certain principles to serve as a starting point for a new Russian national policy. Some of them deserve to be mentioned. They are: • Russia can only serve as a state of the Russian nation. • Genetically and from the point of view of mentality, the Russian nation consists of the Great Russians, the Ukrainians and the Belorussians. • Political power belongs to the united Russian people—The Russian state has to be built in accordance with the Russian Idea (cf. Begunov 1996, 397). On the whole, Begunov’s Russia is monoethnic implying that other nationalities will be russified or urged to emigrate. Begunov does not, however, explain how the aforementioned principles would be put into effect. In other words, he has no plan of concrete actions to offer. Korchagin’s white-brown activism Contrary to ‘theoretician’ K.Begunov, another nationalist publicist, Viktor Korchagin, proclaims action. The volume Evreiskaia okkupatsiia Rossii (The Jewish Occupation of Russia) that he published in 1998 in Moscow contains less theoretical reflections and much more calls for action against the alleged enemies. In a way, this book starts where Begunov’s writing ends. When Begunov answering the classical Russian question ‘Kto vinovat?’ (Who is to blame?) provides a detailed account, Korchagin takes the Jews’ guilt for granted and does not explain too much why they are to blame. The anti-Semitic language used is coarse and resembles that of Pamiat’. The volume contains different writings—articles, protests, appeals and resolutions—of publicists, public and military officers as well as of some organisations. As a striking common trait, almost all the authors, including the editor V.Korchagin, voice openly their trust in the Army and its officers, in particular the non-commissioned ones. We can conclude that this volume ideologically is close to writings of the military-industrial complex. As regards the ideological content of the book, the all-pervading characteristic of it is its ideological reductionism. Instead of the old political confrontation of the political left and the political right including all the intermediary options, Korchagin and his confreres point out the alleged life and death struggle between the Russian people and the Jews. This train of thought can be traced back to the Union of Russian people and the Black Hundreds that existed before 1917. The statement by well-known American car producer Henry Ford I that ‘Bolshevism constitutes the international program of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion’ (Korchagin

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1998, 7, 68) is quoted a couple of times in the volume. It could well serve as the ideological motto of the book. Russia is supposed to have been occupied by the Jews since 1917. Today, during the period of ‘economic reforms’, the country is recklessly robbed by a Jewish mafia, the argument goes. In all the different anti-Semitic statements, appeals and resolutions, published in Korchagin’s volume, there are some more or less common ideas of what should be done. They are as follows: • Russia has to choose between three paths of development: 1 the communist path implying that the international party apparatus would own the property of the nation. The Russians would serve as slaves; 2 the capitalist path of development implies that the Jewish mafia and its accomplices would own the national property and the Russians would be made slaves; 3 the Russian path implying a Russian economy. The Russian national property seized by the Jewish mafia in 1917 and kept by it the following 75 years has to be returned to the Russians. That would make the Russians proprietors (Korchagin 1998, 163). • Every nation should have it own house, its own state. Accordingly, the NorthCaucasian republics should be separated from Russia. This train of thought seems to advocate a Russian monoethnic state. • A Russian National Army has to be created for waging a national liberation war against the occupiers. • The ‘Jewish mafia’ should be brought to trial and prosecuted for all the sufferings it has brought upon the Russians since 1917. As a result, moreover, all that the Jews have robbed should be returned to the Russian people. • The Jews have to be deported as an indespensable and primary precondition for a normalisation of the economy. • A state of emergency should be declared in Russia. Power should be handed over to the General staff. These statements need some explanation: first, the creation of a Russian national army implies that the existing Army should be cleansed of ‘aliens’; second, the idea of bringing the Jews to a Nuremberg trial of sorts has had its precursors. In 1990, among several organisations belonging to the Pamiat’ movement there was the Orthodox patriotic front Pamiat’, that appeared with analogous demands (cf., Parland 1993, 183); third, the direct orientation on the Army shows, that Korchagin and his comrades-in-arms do not trust enough the existing nationalist movements. A.Barkashov’s national socialism As already noted, the paramilitary movement RNE (Russkoe Natsional’noe Edinstvo) came into being in 1990, when Alexander Barkashov together with numerous comradesin-arms left Dimitri Vasil’ev’s Pamiat and decided to create an organisation of their own. Alluding to a natural secularisation process taking place even within the traditionalist Pamiat, Shenfield characterises this political split as a ‘transition to fascism proper’ (Shenfleld 2001, 119). In our view, this assessment is quite correct even if we would prefer to use the concept ‘national socialism’ instead of ‘fascism’ that is rather

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related to the Italian version of the extreme right. Barkashov’s pamphlet Azbuka Russkogo Natsionalista serves as an excellent guide in outlining the ideology and the Weltanschauung of the RNE. It is noteworthy that Barkashov makes a fundamental distinction between ‘nationalism’ and ‘patriotism’ in favour of the first-mentioned. For a true nationalist it is the interests of the Russian nation that are supreme. Russia as a state is to be placed at the service of these interests and, eventually, turn into an ethnic Russian ‘national state’. Barkashov rejects patriotism on the ground that a ‘patriot’ worships Russia primarily as a state. In plain language, he views the patriot as a statist (gosudarstvennik) who considers the state to embody the supreme value (Barkashov 1994, 72). A true Russian nationalist cannot be a patriot worshipping the state after 1917. The Soviet state was built for genocide of the Russians, and Yeltsin’s Russian state continues to be anti-Russian and anti-national (cf., ibid., 73). Patriotism is de facto directed against the Russians as it provides all citizens with the same political and economic rights irrespectively of their nationality (ibid., 74). This interpretation makes Barkashov reject the concept ‘national patriotism’ and conclude that a Russian can only be a nationalist. Going at length with this argumentation, he arrives at national socialism with strong ingredients of Hitlerism. The sources of the RNE ideology Even if A.Barkashov and his comrades-in-arms call themselves national socialists, their ideology has several sources, as Shenfield points out in his study (Shenfield 2001, 127). On the other hand, the influence of German nazism overshadows that of the other ideologies, namely Italian fascism, Romanian fascism, and the Black Hundreds tradition of late tsarist Russia. Let us take a closer look at Shenfield’s interesting analysis of RNE ideology: The influence of Hitlerite national socialism is striking with respect to such themes as racial purity and Blut und Boden-philosophy. Barkashov, it is true, prefers to resort to other concepts—that of ‘genetics’ or that of the ‘genofund of the Russian nation’ (genofond Russkoi Natsii). At the same time, however, he ‘corrects’ the German racial theory by elevating the Slavs from a state of being less than a human being—in Hitlerite terminology they were called Untermenschen (subhumans)—to a branch of the Aryan race (ibid., 127). In Hitler’s racist national socialism, there is as the legacy of Arthur de Gobineau, the distinction made between the ‘culture-bearing’ race (die kulturschaffende Rasse) and the ‘culture-destroying’ Jewish race (die kulturzerzetzende jüdische Rasse) (Zentner/Bedürftig 1985, 404). In Barkashov’s terminology, there is in principle the same dichotomy, namely the division of the population of Russia into those producing work (trudoproizvodiashchie) and those being ‘parasitic consumers’ (paraziticheski potrebliaushchie) (Barkashov 1994, 57). The view that Jews are parasites was prevailing in Hitler’s Germany. In German national socialist propaganda, anti-Semitism was connected with anticommunism. This tradition is taken over by Barkashov. Shenfield views the Black Hundred’s tradition as a native Russian dimension of the

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alien racism of German nazism (Shenfield 2001, 127). Yet, as an ideological phenomenon Black Hundredness did not lack foreign influences, in particular as regards anti-Semitism. As has already been noted, the Russian nationalists of the 1880s— sometimes called the second generation of Slavophilism—were in touch with German conservative thinkers and influenced by modern German anti-Semitism. This coincided with the growing liberal and socialist opposition in Russia. The opposition movements were blamed for serving as an instrument for the Jews. The supposed influences of Romanian fascism as a source of Barkashov’s ‘spiritual’ mysticism (Shenfield 2001, 127) do not seem to play any greater role, at least not in The ABC of a Russian Nationalist. After all, Barkashov appears to be more a man of action than of thought, whether speculative or irrational. The contribution of classical Italian fascism is said to be less essential. On the other hand, the idea of the ‘national-labour state’ (natsional’notrudovoe gosudarstvo) as manifesting the principle of Italian fascist corporatism seems to have influenced many currents of Russian conservative thought of the twentieth century. First, we can see it in the ideology of the émigrée organisation NTS in the 1930s, and during the first half of the 1940s. Second, in 1989 and 1990, Igor Shafarevich rejected the multiparty system as obsolete and advocated a corporative model of state organisation with elections to the soviets by economic branches and local production units. Even writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn has expressed analogous thoughts, in particular emphasising the ancient Slavophile sobornost’ principle as an alternative to Western political pluralism (see Solzhenitsyn 1991, 70 f). It seems to us, that the Italian fascist influence, whether direct or indirect, should not be underestimated. The RNE’s worldview The way Barkashov’s followers interpret life and history could be said to resemble a simplified version of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Historical events are described in terms of a racial war going on between the destructive cosmopolitan Jewry and the Gentile nations. The latter constitute natural states, the former artificial ones. In Barkashov’s pamphlet we can see the precursor of Begunov’s ethno-cultural chain. The natural states have undergone a natural development: family—clan—tribe—union of tribes—the people—the nation—the national state (Barkashov 1994, 57). The artificial states for their part, have emerged for artificial reasons—economic, political, military, etc. The USA is a typical economic state, whereas Israel represents a political one (ibid.). Like Shafarevich, Barkashov views the revolution in 1917 and the events after 1985 as links of the same chain. However, instead of referring to some enigmatic ‘malyi narod’ as the scapegoat, he declares that there is a Jewish financial oligarchy dominating the West in general and the USA in particular. The Bolsheviks before and after 1917 were mere puppets in the hands of this international force. On the other hand, Stalin, it is true, is praised for his anti-Jewish campaign in 1948–1953. It is significant, how even diehard Russian anticommunist nationalists view Stalin as something better than any other Bolshevik leader. Barkashov views the emergence of national socialist Germany, fascist Italy and falangist Spain as a natural reaction against national humiliation in general, and against

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the onslaught of the international Jewish financial oligarchy in particular (Barkashov 1994, 52 f). In Germany after the take-over in 1933, the new government refused to join the international gold standard. Furthermore, it introduced a number of ‘healthy economic reforms’ in ‘the interests of the Nation and the National State’. As a result, the living standard improved, and Germany became a threatening alternative to the international Jewish oligarchy (ibid., 83). In Barkashov’s interpretation, these reasons were enough for Germany to be sentenced to death by the antinational forces in the world. The Soviet Union was instructed by these forces to do ‘the dirty job’, i.e. to wage a war against Hitler’s Germany and defeat it. It turns out that Germany was not the aggressor in World War II but the victim of the international Jewry, if we take Barkashov’s interpretation for granted. As has already been noted, Suvorov’s pamphlet Ledokol (The Ice-breaker) does represent a similar train of thought (see p. 113). In 1995 and later, however, Barkashov has modified his interpretation of World War II for tactical reasons. With regard to the Great Patriotic War (Velikaia Otechestvennaia Voina) a complete identification with the German national socialists was likely to alienate even those Russians who considered themselves ‘patriots’. This being the case, the war was urgently presented as a misunderstanding between two fraternal nations—Germany was called Russia’s sole potential ally. The Jews had through provocations and manipulation stirred up the two countries against each other. Shenfield interprets Barkashov’s new view as follows: ‘In invading the USSR, Hitler had presumably betrayed the true principles of national-socialism.’ (Shenfield 2001, 121). The Soviet regime was, as Barkashov sees it, nothing but an antinational and antiRussian Bolshevik dictatorship. In its policy of racial genocide the communist party had served as a protégé and mediator of the international Jewish financial oligarchy organising the export of more and more raw materials to the West. This pattern of thought we have already seen in the writings of Antonov, Ivanov, Begunov etc. The perestroika was caused by the fact that the communist party with its bureaucratic apparatus had played out and was of no use anymore. With this interpretation Barkashov views the democratisation and liberalisation of society as a more efficient way for the international Jewish financial oligarchy to bring Russia on its knees, dissolve the country and turn the whole space into a colony of the West. As already seen, the same train of thought is to be found in Begunov’s pamphlet. On the whole, the assessment of the Soviet period as well as of the first years of Yeltsin’s Russia coincides more or less with that of Begunov. Yet, in characterising the enemies of Russia he differs from most other national patriotic publicists. This can be seen in his rejection of cooperating with any other nationalist organisation. As a point of departure, Barkashov refers to the supposed genocide of the Russian people since 1917. Here the concept implies not only executions, but also organised hunger, cultural and economic discrimination, destruction of the environment, etc. In 1917–37, when wholesale murder was continuing, the overwhelming majority of the Party and state leadership belonged to the Jewish nationality. Instead of seeing these events as caused by inner party struggle, Barkashov desribes them as ‘national racial struggle’ (natsional’no-rasovaia bor’ba) (Barkashov 1994, 29). In enumerating Russia’s external enemies, Barkashov appears as a precursor of Begunov’s interpretation. However, in dealing with the so-called inner enemies he finds

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more of them than any other nationalist publicist or party leader. In addition to the socalled democratic forces—they are also referred to as the ‘fifth column’—he enumerates also all the national patriotic organisations as acting against the interests of the Russian nation. His assessment of Zhirinovsky is typical. This nationalist is said to be and remain a ‘democrat’, a Western-minded person and a mondialist. Barkashov does not forget to remind the reader that Zhirinovsky has described his father as a ‘lawyer’ (implying that he was a Jew—TP). The LDPR is an artificial movement, a hybrid of a nationalist and a liberal democratic movement. In Barkashov’s view, the existing artificial patriotic movements and parties are designed to curb and manipulate Russian nationalism (Barkashov 1994, 42). As a result, the latter would be emasculated and made harmless to the West. Barkashov points out the possibility of patriotic organisations that emerge in a natural way, as a reaction to what is happening in the country. The RNE serves as a good example, according to this argumentation. Yet Barkashov rejects the party as a form of efficient organisation. ‘…parties do not contribute to a consolidation of the Russian people, because a consolidation is possible only around the Russian National Idea’ (ibid., 43). This being the case, he emphasises the advantages of a nationalist paramilitary organisation, the Cossack movement81 serving as an obvious example. ‘Chto delat’?’ (What is to be done?) Barkashov assumes that the Russian people has to organise itself into a national liberation movement of sorts. The paramilitary RNE is supposed to serve as an embryo of such a movement. Barkashov’s declaration is significant: ‘we are not politicians—we are in spirit, Warriors, Warriors of Rus’. As Shenfield concludes, only the RNE (and other smaller groups of a similar kind) ‘has devoted such a high proportion of its resources to building up its potential for directed violence’ (Shenfield 2001, 137). Barkashov counts on that his movement will seize power during a protracted, uncontrollable political crisis in Russia. He does not even use the concept ‘national socialist revolution’. His plan of establishing an ethnic dictatorship of sorts can be seen as a precursor of Begunov’s and Korchagin’s ideas of a de facto monoethnic Russian national state being based on certain privileges of the Russian ethnos. Yet, by proclaiming protection of the Russian nation’s health and genetic purity the RNE comes very close to Hitler’s national socialism. We can conclude that the RNE is a ‘modernised’ rightist organisation notwithstanding some traditionalist ‘remnants’ in the vocabulary, for example. Yet, even in a very disciplined organisation like the RNE internal division cannot be avoided. That is what came into the open in Barkashov’s movement in 2000. This event is discussed in Chapter 7.

The situation in the late 1990s After the collapse of the rouble or the default in August 1998, the general opinion became

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antiliberal and more and more anti-Western. The neoliberal reform had turned out to be a failure, and the ‘robber capitalists’ Boris Berezovsky, Vladimir Gusinsky, Vladimir Potanin, Mikhail Khodorkovsky and other oligarchs were perceived as those who are to blame. The general opinion called for law and order, discipline and safety instead of anarchy and robber capitalism, corruption and unsafety. The fact that almost all the oligarchs happened to be Jews resulted in a rise of antiSemitic feelings and agitation in society. was mentioned as having pointed out that the ‘the financial power is in Jewish hands’ (Shafarevich 2000, 295). High-placed members of Zyuganov’s party, such as General A.Makashov, protested against the non-Russian composition of Yeltsin’s government headed by S.Kirienko, a Jew and a liberal. The classical Russian question ‘Kto vinovat?’ (Who is to blame) was again actualised. The situation calmed down a bit in 2000 when Putin was elected President. Most nationalists supported Putin but some movements like RNE were divided. Later on, as we already know, the same tendency could be seen even within Zyuganov’s party. In 2000– 03, Russian racism manifested itself more and more in the skinheads’ movement, in particular in the shape of nazi skinheads in Moscow.

7 Putin’s Russia: towards a synthesis? Yeltsin’s Russia was from the very beginning a politically divided country in which a life-and-death struggle was going on between the reformers in power on the one hand, and the nationalist and communist opposition on the other. The main confrontations and events were: At the end of 1991, three parties—N.Travkin’s Democratic Party of Russia, M.Astaf’ev’s party of constitutional democrats and V.Aksiuchits’ Christian democratic movement—left Yeltsin’s democratic camp because of the break-up of the Soviet Union. The first-mentioned gravitated towards the political centre, whereas the rest joined the intransigent opposition (see Dunlop 1995, 184 f). In April 1993, even Vice President Aleksandr Rutskoi, one of Yeltsin’s close allies, turned against the President of Russia accusing him of protecting corrupt officials within the government and the presidential administration. He sided with the intransigent opposition along with Ruslan Khasbulatov, the speaker of the Supreme Soviet. In 1992–93, ‘red-brown’ alliances came into being, in particular, in the shape of the National Salvation Front (FNS) that participated in organising the rebellion of the Supreme Soviet against President Yeltsin in October 1993. The Army sided with Yeltsin and defeated the uprising. In December 1993, Zhirinovsky’s rightist party won a great victory in the parliamentary elections. His party received about 23 per cent of the votes. Then, in 1994, along with the growing nationalist mood in society there was a drive towards uniting the politically divided Russia. This tendency that also rejected separatism could be seen in the following examples: 1 the instigators of the coup d’état in 1991 as well as those of the rebellion in 1993 were pardoned through an amnesty enacted by the Federal Assembly (Parliament); 2 a party truce was concluded between the government and the opposition in the spring of 1994; 3 Russia started a military campaign against Chechnya in December 1994. The war that lasted to July 1996 was unconditionally supported by only one of the parties with representation in the Duma-Zhirinovsky’s LDPR. In 1995 Duma elections, the great winner was G.Zyuganov with his ‘red-brown’ communist party. The radical democrats (Democratic choice) headed by Gaidar lost all their former seats. The Duma was almost totally in the hands of Zyuganov. Yet, Zhirinovsky played a dual role: while deriding and insulting the liberals during the debates, he, nevertheless, very often supported the government during the votings. Hence, the decisions made by the Duma tended to be unpredictable. The following year, in 1996, Yeltsin was re-elected President with the support of General A. Lebed and his electorate. The oligarchs financed Yeltsin’s campaign. In the autumn 1996, Yeltsin called for

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finding a national ideology in order to unite the divided Russian society but, in the summer of 1998, Russian liberals criticised the West for the NATO enlargement. In this case, they, in fact, shook hands with the opposition. In August 1998, the collapse of the rouble and the default of the financial system in Russia showed that the liberal experiment with a monetarist policy had failed. From now on, only leaders of the security organs were considered suitable for being appointed Prime Minister—declaring a state of emergency was, obviously, taken into consideration as a possible option—Evgenii Primakov (SVR, Foreign intelligence service) in August 1998; Sergei Stepashin (FSB, Federal scurity service) in April 1999, and Vladimir Putin (FSB) in August 1999. In April 1999, Zyuganov’s faction, along with several other factions, failed to mobilise the two thirds of the Duma votes required for impeaching President Yeltsin. Russian liberals joined the nationalist and communist opposition in the summer of 1999 by criticising severely the West and NATO for the military operations against Yugoslavia during the Kosovo crisis but, in the following September, Prime Minister Putin started massive military operations against Chechnya. In an atmosphere of Russian patriotic ecstasy, Putin got the support of all political parties represented in the Duma including the communists and the liberals. President Yeltsin resigned at the end of 1999 and appointed V. Putin acting President. As we know, in the presidential election in March 2000 he was elected President by an overwhelming majority of voters. Putin signified the beginning of a new era of recentralisation of state power after Yeltsin’s years of drift, disorder and anarchy. The new catchwords were ‘a strong Russian state’ and ‘the dictatorship of law’.

Irreversible modernisation and Westernisation What can be said about the 1990s in Russian history? It was a time when the Soviet oneparty regime was totally dismantled and replaced by representative multi-party democracy, first in the form of dual power embodied by the President and the Supreme Soviet 1991–93, then in the presidential form of government. The official attitude towards the President, the centre of supreme power, is now secular and pragmatic. Political modernisation in the form of representative government seems to have been accepted by all the existing main parties. The results of the Duma elections of 1993, 1995 and 1999 have not been questioned, neither has the outcome of the presidential election in 1996. Another irreversible change occurred in the economic field. More than 80 per cent of all state companies have already been privatised, albeit in most cases through lawless transactions. As a result, the oligarchs got a hold on Russia’s entire economy. This reminds us of the so-called robber barons in America of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. A third irreversible change can be seen in Russia’s increasing economic integration with the West, through IMF and the World Bank. Even if representatives and mouthpieces of the ‘red-browns’ (CPRF and other ideologically analogous organisations) or the ‘browns’ (RNE, etc.) have advocated isolationism and autarchy, Russia can no

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longer afford to cut off its political and economic ties with the West. Globalisation and interdependence of the states have become irreversible. As we have seen repeatedly in this study, even the absolute majority of the nationalist opposition including the ‘red-browns’ has become influenced by the changing reality. Religious nationalism has gradually been overshadowed by a more down-to-earth national patriotism. Today, secular thought and pragmatic considerations, including adaptation to the existing rules of formal democracy, dominate the political behaviour of CPRF, LDPR and other antiliberal political organisations represented in the Duma. Political compromises replace more and more manifestations of open confrontation in the Duma and on the streets. In March 2000, during the presidential election, even part of the militant and extremist RNE resorted to pragmatic thinking. A number of active members of the movement decided to vote for Putin, whereas Barkashov and his most faithful comrades-in-arms boycotted the election. As a result, RNE was divided into those who wanted to find a modus vivendi with the regime and those who remained intransigent (cf. Shenfield 2001, 264 ff). We can conclude that Putin has got most of the organised nationalists under control. Apparently, the disorganised Russian nazi-skinheads in Moscow, St Petersburg and several other Russian cities are the only growing movement that continues its existence without being under the control of state authorities. Westernisation, however, includes even other currents of Western thought than that of liberal democracy. In Russia, modern Russian nationalism has evolved under the influence of Western rightist theories such as fascism, national socialism and police state authoritarianism. Hitler’s racial policy can be seen in RNE’s ideology, whereas the LDPR and the CPRF have above all adopted geopolitics. Most Russian skinheads proclaim ‘white power’, a rather ‘modern’ catchword of Western extraction. Late Lebed and now Putin seem to embody essential elements of police state authoritarianism.

Growing conservative nationalism in society In Yeltsin’s Russia the ongoing neoliberalist reforms had polarised society between the few well-off and the many poverty-stricken in a deteriorating economic situation. The precarious situation had been aggravated by criminalisation and corruption of public life. As a result, Yeltsin’s Westernisation policy became unpopular. This tendency was aggravated by the fact that the loss of empire had been a very frustating and humiliating experience for many Russians. As a result, in 1993–94, largely under the influence of the political opposition, Yeltsin and the liberals in power started to view the Russians living in the newly independent states as an integral part of the Russian nation (cf., Tolz 2001, 253). The Russian Federation was considered to be the real homeland (rodina) for this ‘Russian diaspora’. The prevailing mood in society was more and more coloured by a conservative pessimistic Weltanschauung embodied in the ‘Russian idea’ that implies the rejection of developmental optimism including Marxism and liberalism. A retreat from the liberal, democratic ideals of the late 1980s was going on (cf. Devlin 1999, 203). Even the official attitude towards the West changed. The foreign policy establishment began to move from

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an ‘Atlanticist’ to a ‘Eurasian’ perspective (cf. Hosking 2001, 609; cf., Sovremennaia 1997, 1997 f). There was a great disappointment with the West which had extended less help to Russia through the IMF than expected. Russia’s democrats were accused of having sold ‘the country’s birthright including intermediate range nuclear weapons and a military presence in central Europe, for insubstantial promises’ (ibid., 609). After the humiliating break-up of the Soviet empire in December 1991, the political climate in society had become more and more coloured by a frustrating feeling of loss of identity among ordinary Russians. The political initiative was more and more taken over by the conservative and rightist forces in Russia. Strong and influential nationalist and ‘red-brown’ movements emerged. This development was to become a mainstream trend in the late 1990s as had been predicted by several analysts, including some Western specialists in Russia such as I.Neumann (cf. Neumann 1996, 210). Yet Yeltsin and the reformers could not be ousted from power, even if they were challenged several times. The armed rebellion in October 1993 was the first abortive attempt by the ‘red-brown’ opposition to seize power. Next time, during the presidential election in 1996, G.Zyuganov was a dangerous competitor for Yeltsin, but General Lebed with his electorate tipped the balance by supporting the incumbent in the second and final round. Zyuganov, who lost, was supported by 40 per cent. Lebed had got 15 per cent of the votes cast in the first round and if he had then sided with Zyuganov in the second round, the latter would probably have beaten Yeltsin. During the impeachment voting in the Duma in April 1999, another nationalist, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, came to Yeltsin’s rescue. There were 13 votes missing of the 300 needed—this issue required the support of a two-thirds majority of the members of the Duma—as a consequence of the LDPR’s active non-voting behaviour. How could Yeltsin and the liberals survive throughout the 1990s when the general opinion, not to mention the mood of common people, was more and more marked by disillusionment and disappointment with the practical consequences of the reforms? In our view, the main reasons were as follows: • The nationalist opposition in and outside the Duma was very heterogeneous including different varieties, as we have seen in chapter three: ethnocentrists versus great power nationalists (Eurasians), traditionalists versus modern nationalists, procommunist and anti-communist nationalists and so on. This being the case, uniting these diverse movements and groupings into one front turned out to be impossible. For instance, there were certain ‘patriotic’ movements unable to interact. We remember that both Zhirinovsky’s LDPR and Barkashov’s RNE relied on their own and refused to cooperate with any other nationalist organisation. As regards the other nationalists, there were attempts to unite the communist and the nationalist forces. This ‘red-brown’ phenomenon has been dealt with earlier in our study. Yet, in the long run the ‘red-brown’ ideology was epitomised mainly in Zyuganov’s strong communist party that had become very nationalist. During the presidential election in 1996, the opposition was divided into those who advocated Zyuganov (the ‘red-browns’ including Baburins ROS and some minor nationalist groupings) and all the other nationalist forces including Zhirinovsky’s LDPR and Barkashov’s RNE who preferred Yeltsin. It turns out, that Boris Yeltsin was always successful in pursuing a policy of divide et impera vis-à-vis the nationalist

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movements and parties. • The aforementioned division of the ‘patriotic’ forces was closely connected with the lack of a charismatic nationalist leader who could be supported by all. Instead, numerous national patriotic movements, parties and societies were headed by small ‘Führers’ contending with each other. After the Duma elections in 1993, Zhirinovsky was for some time generally viewed as a potential new ‘Führer’. Yet, his great electorate was rather due to the fact that no other nationalist organisation than the LDPR had been allowed to participate in those elections. Two years later, in 1995, he lost half of this electorate. Thereafter, his rating has been declining even more, mostly due to his uncontrolled behaviour in certain situations. Gennadii Zyuganov was another party leader trying to unite the ‘patriotic’ opposition. Without being charismatic himself, Zyuganov, nevertheless, had, in 1996, a high rating due to his strong and well-organised party. Yet, he was too much perceived as connected with the Soviet past to be attractive among anticommunist nationalists. General A.Lebed was, in 1996–98, the most popular among the different nationalist leaders, but his efforts to become something more were confined to be elected governor in the Krasnoiarsk region in 1998. Thereafter his rating was declining. He turned out to be less trained for coping with economic problems than for resolving military ones. Paradoxically, the unpopular liberals had a great trump in Boris Yeltsin as their unchallenged and charismatic leader who was always supported by part of the nationalists. • The bulk of Russian media was in the possession of liberal-minded journalists and publishers. During the presidential campaign in 1996, media autonomy was definitely eroded: the frightening prospect of Zyuganov being elected President made the media in general, and the TV in particular, hold back from critical reporting on the government. This was, in a way, a return to the former Soviet model that was to continue even after the elections. Furthermore, with the so-called oligarchs taking over the Russian media world, a mixture of owner-dictated editorial policies and selfcensorship began to materialise (cf., Nivat 1998, 43). Those in power had, in fact, gained a monopoly on reporting. The Russian national-patriotic and ‘red-brown’ media culture was, and still is, much weaker and did reach only part of the population. The papers have an old-fashioned layout and a limited circulation. There is but one nationalist literary magazine with quite a wide readership: Nash sovremennik.

Russian nationalism within the state administration In this study, directly or indirectly, there have been references to the state in general, and its repressive institutions in particular, as a breeding ground of nationalism (and antiSemitism). This had been the case under the Soviet regime as well as in tsarist Russia before 1917. The new post-Soviet state administration could not appear ex nihilo but had to establish itself, at least partly, in the context of earlier historical experience and time-

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honoured attitudes. In this context, national patriotic ideas and attitudes could smoulder and, under certain circumstances, flare up. Authoritarianism 1993 As regards government rule, Yeltsin’s constitution that was adopted in December 1993 did, in fact, imply almost authoritarian rule. The President was endowed with sweeping powers, he was formally even stronger than the General Secretary of the CPSU. The Parliament including the Federation Council and the Duma was for its part in a much weaker position. Yeltsin and most liberal reformers preferred a strong president to a strong parliament for quite pragmatic reasons: they wanted to introduce sweeping reforms efficiently and rapidly. Moreover, the dramatic events in October 1993 had made the liberals advocate a parliament with limited power. With Zhirinovsky’s active and unreserved support Yeltsin’s draft was adopted with a slight majority of the voters in a referendum that was held simultaneously with the Duma election. It goes without saying, that the idea of strong executive power was attractive to the nationalists and the ‘red-browns’, even if the latter were opposed to Yeltsin. We can conclude, that contemporary Russia’s presidential rule mirrored the impact of both the time-honoured Russian autocratic tradition and certain Western influences, including the Pinochet-syndrome. Great power chauvinism in state policy in 1994–95 Yeltsin’s triumph over the ‘red-browns’ in October 1993 turned out to be a Pyrrhic victory. A new nationalist threat made itself felt. After Zhirinovsky’s election breakthrough in December 1993, the Russian great power atmosphere in society became even more pronounced. Statist and imperialist ideas—we could define them as ‘whitebrown’—influenced to a great extent the course of both foreign and domestic policy. The Kremlin began to remove people disliked by influential nationalist quarters from the government. The chief reformers left the government, along with foreign advisers like Jeffrey Sachs (cf. Solovyov-Klepikova 1995, 211 f). In domestic policy, the powers and rights of the police were broadened in fighting crime. A suspect could be detained without a public prosecutor’s warrant for 30 days. Moreover, the police were authorised to conduct warrantless searches in homes and automobiles as well as to check bank accounts and financial documents of the detained or of their relatives. To crown everything, states of emergency could, when considered necessary, be imposed in the large cities (ibid., 217). These measures resulted in numerous violations of human rights, as some of the most critical liberals repeatedly pointed out. However that may have been, the tendency towards creating a police state was obvious. There was a drastic change of the political climate within the establishment: liberals competed with each other to see who could be more patriotic and nationalistic. Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev, for instance, began to defend things that he had denied before: Russia’s superpower status and its special role in the ‘near abroad’ (blizhnee zarubezh’ie); the priority of geopolitical and geostrategic interests over all talk about

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human values; the priority of national interests over international obligations; the protection of Russians in the former Soviet republics and the Serbs in Bosnia (cf., Solovyov-Klepikova 1995, 213). Kozyrev even ordered a temporary freeze on the withdrawal of Russian troops in the ‘near abroad’ (ibid.). The Kremlin’s international policy became less and less dependent on the West and increasingly coloured by geopolitical thinking. In the ongoing discussions with the West, Russia insisted on preserving its superpower status. Military strength was considered a prerequisite for Russia in negotiating with other powers. As a consequence of the militarist mood within the establishment, the Kremlin was forced to cancel a planned radical reduction of the three-million-strong army (ibid., 214). The most far-reaching repercussions of the rising tide of nationalism could be seen in Russia’s policy towards Chechnya, the insubordinate republic within the Russian Federation. Yeltsin replaced his liberal first-hand advisers with people representing the ‘party of war’. There were the leaders of the so-called ‘power structures’ (silovye struktury): Defense Minister Pavel Grachev, Interior Minister Viktor Erin, Chief of Federal Security Service Sergei Stepashin and the President’s powerful bodyguard General Alexander Korzhakov. Furthermore, there were people close to the militaryindustrial complex such as Deputy Prime Minister Oleg Soskovets (cf., Elletson 1998, 212). Some of the most critical liberals including Yegor Gaidar viewed this ‘party’ as more or less ‘national socialist’ or ‘fascist’. However that might have been, Yeltsin unleashed in December 1994 a full-scale war against Chechnya, in accordance with Zhirinovsky’s repeated chauvinistic slogans vis-àvis insubordinate non-Russian nationalities, whether in the ‘near abroad’ or within the Russian Federation. One of the main reasons behind this campaign was, obviously, to raise Yeltsin’s declining authority and popularity with the help of a military Blitzkrieg. As we know, this turned out to be wishful thinking: instead the Russian troops got involved in a protracted and bloody war and suffered defeats. There were, doubtless, other motives behind the military campaign. One was probably related to oil. Another was that the insubordinate Chechnya represented a dangerous example to other non-Russian units within the Federation. The tendency towards a reunification of the former Soviet empire, that had manifested itself after the Duma elections in 1993, implied an uncompromising policy of strength and military coercion vis-à-vis disobedient republics. Furthermore, the geopolitical visions presented in the pamphlet Poslednii brosok na iug (The Last Push to the South) were popular among numerous Russian officers of high rank. With certain reservations, Yeltsin’s war could be seen either as a general rehearsal of Zhirinovsky’s plan or as a modification of the plan itself. Significantly enough, in the Duma, Zhirinovsky’s fraction was the only one to support Yeltsin’s war without reservations. The President and the ultra-nationalist V.Zhirinovsky seemed to have become almost ideological allies. As we know, the Chechnya war was brought to an end in 1996 by General A.Lebed through negotiations. Extreme nationalists among military people and civilians called the truce a ‘shameful surrender’ to the Chechen separatists. The fact that Russia started a new war against Chechnya in 1999 can at least be partly explained by an eagerness for revenge prevailing within the Russian Army command.

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Integration of ‘red-browns’ and ‘browns’ with state administration The Duma elections in December 1995 signified the breakthrough of another nationalist force—the nationalist-minded communists or the ‘red-browns’. G.Zyuganov’s CPRF got as many votes as the LDPR had received in 1993, whereas Zhirinovsky this time lost half of his electorate. There was a drastic change of the political constellation in the new Duma. Zyuganov’s party became the dominating force that controlled about 150 seats or one-third of the whole Duma. In the new situation, Zyuganov’s ‘red-brown’ fraction became partly integrated with the legislative power structure: the new speakers of both chambers came from the CPRF. G.Seleznëv chaired the Duma, whereas Egor Stroev became speaker of the Council of the Federation that included speakers of legislatures as well as governors/presidents of the 89 provinces of Russia. Among them, there were several representatives of the CPRF. We can conclude that the Russian legislature was at least partly in the hands of Zyuganov’s ‘red-brown’ representatives. The dominating political climate in the Duma was generally coloured by national patriotic ideas and slogans. On the other hand, Zyuganov turned out to be a smart negotiator who in dealing with Yeltsin’s government could resort to compromises when needed. In the sphere of central nationwide power, the integration of nationalist-minded communists was not confined to the legislative branch. Academician Evgenii Primakov is a good case in point. Having served in 1991–96 as counterintelligence chief he became Foreign Minister in 1996. Two years later, after the collapse of the rouble in August, he was appointed Prime Minister. Even some other seats in the government were at that time occupied by representatives of the CPRF. Russia’s foreign and domestic policy was to some extent coloured by ‘red-brown’ thinking, albeit in a very modest form. At regional and local level of state administration with corresponding Duma and executive power organs, the integration of the ‘red-browns’ followed the same pattern, in particular in the southern parts of Russia, where the CPRF had, and still has, a very strong electorate. Among ‘communist’ governors, Nikolai Kondratenko of Krasnodar is well known for his morbid anti-Semitism and cooperation even with anti-communist nationalists. On the whole, we can conclude that the CPRF had got a strong foothold de jure within the state apparatus. General A.Lebed and his party were the third separate nationalist force to be integrated with the state administration. As already noted in this study, he was elected governor of the Krasnoiarsk region in 1998. Yet, he encountered great difficulties and setbacks in his struggle with the local mafia as well as in dealing with other practical issues. Being a professional military man, Lebed had no qualifications for civilian leadership. His rating declined drastically and he himself decided not to run for presidency in 2000. On the other hand, in his region Lebed remained a powerful executive power de jure until January 2002 when he suddenly died. The RNE, the fourth nationalist force that has served as an object of our study, was integrated de facto with certain power structures, mainly at local level. We remember that this paramilitary organisation established contacts with army units in certain regions, that it organised training camps for young people before they began their military service. Furthermore, RNE storm troopers aided the police in preserving order in certain cities.

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This being the case, the strongest nazi organisation in Russia became, in fact, part of the local state administration.

Towards a new national unity In 1998–99, the drive towards uniting the politically torn Russia was gaining momentum. A consensus on statist issues appeared in political life: there was a wish for reconsolidation of the Russian state and the federal centre (cf. Simonsen 2001, 281). At the same time the growing ‘patriotic’ sentiment in the public was coloured by critical and sometimes even hostile attitudes towards the West. Yet, these feelings expressed by most Russians, were aimed at the United States rather than Western Europe (cf., Tolz 2001, 130). Even the liberal forces within the establishment were deeply affected by this mood. The main reasons were: NATO enlargement; the collapse of the Russian economy due to the failed American-inspired reforms; the Kosovo crisis and the impression that the Americans try to oust Russia from all of its traditional zones of interest. Significantly enough, the Kosovo phenomenon was considered to have contributed more to the consolidation of Russia’s anti-NATO-stance than the whole vociferous campaign against the enlargement of NATO (Baranovsky 2001, 439). The critical attitude towards the West could well be seen in liberal papers like Izvestiya and Segodnya (Today). Another issue that made most liberals join the chorus of Russian patriotism was the new military campaign against Chechnya that started in the autumn 1999. Significantly enough, even the Western-minded Chubais called Yavlinsky a traitor for having suggested negotiations with the Chechen authorities instead of starting a full-scale war (cf. Simonsen 2001, 282). With the exception of some independent individuals like Sergei Kovalëv, the well-known human rights activist, or Sakharov’s widow Elena Bonner, all the main parties united in supporting Putin’s policy in Chechnya. Contrary to the 50th Anniversary of the Victory in the Great patriotic war, this consensus materialised in the autumn 1999 on conditions exclusively set by V.Putin, not by the opposition. The need for a new policy could be seen even in other spheres of life. For instance, the state itself had been disintegrating as a result of the mighty oligarchs’ influence on Yeltsin and the government as well as of the regional governors’ actions contradicting federal law. Furthermore, corruption and criminalisation had resulted in arbitrariness at all levels of the decision-making process which was becoming increasingly unpredictable. In this precarious situation that was aggravated by the ongoing deep socioeconomic crisis in the country, there was a growing opinion demanding strong rule and discipline including a relentless struggle against corruption and organised crime. In this light, the rise of a man like Vladimir Putin, with a KGB background, to power seems logical, almost expected. With the help of the media, he was introduced to the public as the new national leader to come. V.Putin seemed to live up to people’s hopes: he was healthy and remarkably young. Furthermore, he was hardworking, resolute, tough-minded and efficient. With Putin, the security services in general and the FSB (Federal Security Service) in particular have taken over as the de facto decision-making bodies in Russia. This process

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of political consolidation resembles, at least theoretically, the situation that prevailed in Stalin’s Soviet Union after the purges in 1937–38: the party was paralysed by the arrests and executions of party functionaries en masse. The security organs were the only active and efficient force in the country. It goes without saying that no opposition could exist in such a system. With Putin, state power in Russia has been recentralised. The view according to which the President aims at creating a unitary state instead of a federation in the generally accepted sense is not groundless. He has restored ‘effective vertical power in the country’ by establishing seven federal districts (federal’nye okruga) headed by presidential representatives, of whom five are generals (Petrov-Slider 2003, 204, 209). This mechanism increases the central control over federal agencies in the regions, including the courts, police and television. Putin has curbed the power of regional elites by re-forming the Federation Council. Sitting governors and chairmen of regional legislatures are replaced with full-time representatives who would be appointed by governors and legislatures (ibid., 209). As a consolation for losing their seats, the former governors become members of the Presidential State Council, a body with advisory function that is convened four times a year by the President. Furthermore, new laws allow the President to remove provincial (regional) leaders from office and dismiss regional parliaments if they fail to bring provincial legislation in line with federal law (cf. Huskey 2001, 88f). As part of his recentralisation programme, Putin has changed the tax collection. A new tax code increases the centre’s share that was previously 50 per cent. This gives the federal government greater control over taxation (Petrov-Slider 2003, 209). As a conspicuous tendency, the number of representatives of the security forces in general and of the FSB in particular has been rapidly growing throughout the ministeries and within the presidential administration. This offers Putin an opportunity to rule rather like an authoritarian leader instead of a democratic president. The active role played by the security services and other repressive state structures in political and economic life testifies to a corporatist state coming into being. Even if Putin in relying on strong secret services formally resembles Stalin, there is an enormous difference between the secret police of the 1930s, 1940s and early 1950s on the one hand, and the corresponding authorities in Russia at the turn of the millennium on the other. In the former case, the staff consisted of rude, uneducated people, whereas the employees of the FSB and other repressive institutions today are highly educated. Accordingly, the methods of coercion and repression have ‘modernised’ and become more sophisticated and less visible. As a consequence of the process of recentralisation of power in Moscow, the poorly articulated party system has been weakening. Putin has been able to mobilise all the political forces behind his policy in trying to build a strong Russian state. In plain language, he has more or less silenced the political opposition consisting of the CRPF and others. Instead, most parties seem to assure their loyalty to the President and his policy. As a consequence, their political role is getting more and more superfluous. Putin for his part, has declared his intent to limit the number of political parties to a manageable few. The merger of Putin’s Unity party with three other parties in 2002 was in line with this goal (cf., Remington 2003, 57f). At the same time, the new ‘party of

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power’ Edinaia Rossiia (One Russia) gives the President undisputed control over the Duma, the lower house of the Parliament. This has made him independent of Zyuganov’s ‘red-browns’. During his electoral campaign in early 2000, Putin repeatedly promised to free Russia from the power of the oligarchs (Colloudon 2003, 90). Actually, in dealing with these influential tycoons, Putin has resorted to the policy of divide et impera. B.Berezovsky and V. Gusinsky, two of the greatest and most influential businessmen, have been forced by law-enforcement agencies to sell part of their shares of media empires controlled by them. As a result, Berezovsky lost his hold on ORT, the country’s main television channel, and Gusinsky’s Media-Most group including the television channel NTV was taken over by the government. Having separated the oligarchs from the state and, thus, restored state functions to the state (cf., Sakwa 2002, 462), Putin has allowed the remaining oligarchs to continue their business on the condition that they do not get involved in politics. The arrest of Mikhail Khodorkovsky in the autumn 2003 was probably related to his financial support for political parties belonging to the opposition. Moreover, in view of the forthcoming Duma elections in December 2003 and presidential elections in 2004, this reaction by the authorities could be seen as a warning example to the other oligarchs. Could this imply, that the unbridled ‘robber capitalism’ that flourished in the 1990s has now become somewhat ‘state-controlled’? However that may be, one thing is clear: instead of renationalising the economy, Putin prefers to compel (as far as possible) big business to work in the interests of the state. On the other hand, the structure of oligarchic capitalism as such will remain more or less intact in Russia. Practically, Putin seems to have made all obey and support him in whatever he is undertaking. His indirect influence can be seen in the media in general and on television in particular: he has signalled that he prefers a friendly press (cf., Belin 2001, 339). As a consequence, open criticism of the President and his policy is avoided. Today, all television channels with a national reach are under varying degrees of government control (cf., Lipman-McFoul 2003, 77). Censorship, or, more precisely, self-censorship, has become part of the new Russian media culture. Putin has introduced what he calls a ‘managed democracy’ (upravliaemaia demokratiia), in plain language more or less authoritarian rule. As a result, Western freedom of thought seems, at least to some extent, to be replaced by the time-honoured Russian sobornost’ principle—in Soviet time it was called ‘democratic centralism’—that emphasises unity and concord instead of pluralism and political opposition. We remember how A. Solzhenitsyn derided pluralism as ‘tolerance of the absurd’ or as ‘a pluralism of errors and lies’ (Solzhenitsyn 1985, 2). In the light of this, V. Putin seems to live up to the general expectations of a strong and energetic authoritarian leader as a sine qua non for Russia’s survival. At the same time, the gradual demolition of democracy has made Putin’s critics assert that a ‘bureaucratic police state’ is being created. Furthermore, a Putin cult has emerged in public life: there are, for instance, songs and poems glorifying the President’s deeds around the country. Could he be a new Stalin? Yet Putin’s policy has many faces and needs a more specific definition. Undoubtedly, there have been symptoms of a police state mentality—the methods used by the FSB and

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other repressive authorities to crack down on certain oligarchs, as we have seen, testify to this. Furthermore, outspoken journalists have been, and still are, harassed by the FSB for criticising the war in Chechnya. Human activists, environmental leaders, and Western non-governmental organisations and their Russian affiliates have also become victims of analogous treatment (cf., Lipman-McFoul 2003, 64). We can say that Putin’s domestic policy has been quite conservative. It can be seen even in the fact that the President has tried to unite both Soviet and tsarist traditions of statehood. This is illustrated by his decision to restore the old Soviet anthem with new words as the national anthem. At the same time, he has maintained the pre-revolutionary tricolor and double-headed eagle as Russia’s national flag and herald. On the other hand, the Soviet banner is still in use. This has made Putin popular among those who yearn for the good old Soviet times as well as among most nationalist-minded Russians including the ‘red-browns’. In foreign policy, Putin has underscored Russia’s global interests and great power pretensions by visiting several European countries, North Korea, China, Japan and India. In Asia, he has sought to build trust with both China and India—the continent’s two giants. Priority has been given to military cooperation (cf., Herspring-Rutland 2003, 249). Furthermore, Putin has restored the relations to former Soviet allies like Iraq, Libya and Cuba. After September 11 2001, however, Putin has joined the West in the fight against terrorism. As a highly pragmatic leader he has concluded that Russia’s interests can best be served through close cooperation with the economically and militarily superior West. Contrary to Yeltsin who focused on good relations with the United States, Putin has simultaneously pursued a pro-American and a pro-European policy (cf., ibid., 243). Putin’s new foreign policy has to be judged in the light of the new political constellations in the world. First, the Islamic fundamentalism has become a dangerous and unpredictable force threatening the Russian borders in the south. Ever since the war in Afghanistan in 1979–88, the former warm relations with the Arab countries have become colder and colder. The wars in Chechnya have aggravated the situation even more. At the same time, Russia and Israel have improved their relations. Second, Russia and the USA have now found each other in quite a bizarre way: During the cold war both superpowers had tried to use Islamic fundamentalism against each other, directly or indirectly. The Soviet aid to Libya, a training camp for terrorists, is a good case in point, another—the cooperation between CIA and Osama Bin Laden against Soviet troops in Afghanistan of the 1980s. In the 1990s and later, however, the terrorists have turned their weapons against their former ‘benefactors’ and launched terrorist attacks in Chechnya, against some American embassies in Africa, against Pentagon in Washington and World Trade Centre in New York. This made the Russians and Americans allies against the common enemy. The dramatic terrorist action in Moscow in October 2002 that cost more than 100 civilian lives seemed to have made President Putin even more resolute in his conviction that the use of force is the only solution to the Chechen problem. At the same time, however, he was seeking to divide the Chechen nationalist insurgents from the Islamic extremists, and to initiate negotiations with the moderates (cf., Kipp 2003, 193). In the West, on the other hand, there was a recognition of the terrorist component to the Chechen conflict (ibid., 196).

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Russia’s alliance with the West coincides with the new anti-terrorist mentality taking over in the world. Human rights are being partly overshadowed by the primacy of combating international terrorism. The new American special courts with imperfect law protection are a good case in point. This plays into the hands of Putin in pursuing a repressive policy in Chechnya and in silencing critical voices. The police state mentality seems to globalise, at least for the time being. In dealing with Russia’s economy, Putin has decided to continue the liberal reforms as the only way to resolve the country’s precarious problems. He has said that he has no plans to review the privatisation deals of the 1990s in general. Before he was elected President, he rejected the idea of confiscation and nationalisation (cf., Ot pervogo 2000, 162f). His main concern, as it seems, is to preserve social stability. In this context his policy of co-existence with a number of oligarchs seems to be expedient. In the era of globalisation, even a strong president has to resort to other means than repressive policy exclusively. What Putin desperately needs in rebuilding and re-forming Russia is money. In this situation, the rich oligarchs’ assets happen to be very needed. Furthermore, by abstaining from reviewing the results of privatisation Putin hoped to get more Western investments in the Russian economy. We can conclude that Putin’s policy is to try to unite a divided Russia by combining elements of both Western liberal thought and Russian conservative nationalism, including ‘red-brown’ ideology. At the same time, the idea of a separate national path of development for Russia seems to have become obsolete. The drive towards the West in general, and Europe in particular, has accelerated due to the new tendencies of police state mentality within the Western culture. As noted before, Pinochet has been admired among Russian democrats as well as among numerous national patriots as a strong authoritarian leader able to revive his country’s economy. The fact that the Pinochet regime killed thousands of political opponents does not seem to interest people. In the late 1990s, a growing number of Russians voiced their preference for strong authoritarian rule. In 1999, Prime Minister Sergei Stepashin was nicknamed a Russian Pinochet by part of the media. People hoped that he would curb the oligarchs and save the country’s economy. Stepashin’s successor Putin evoked the same hopes and expectations, in particular after he had been elected President. So far his policy has been liberalism minus actual democracy. In Pinochet’s Chile, it is true, there was not even formal democracy.

Conclusion For most of its history, Russian thought has, directly or indirectly, been influenced by the intellectually and politically dynamic West. Consequently, Russia’s protracted and partly delayed modernisation manifests several similarities with the political and economic development in Western countries. Above all, there have been the same Western ideologies Marxism and liberalism serving as a driving force of change. Even if the Bolshevik experiment—a Russian reinterpretation of Marxism—failed, it paved the way for the liberal reforms to take over in 1992. After the era of isolationism under Stalin, growing trade and other contacts with the West in general had resulted in a budding shadow capitalism within state and society. At the same time, since the nineteenth century Russia has also been influenced by European conservative ideas, the main counter-philosophy against modernisation. The Russian equivalent was Slavophilism, later called also the ‘Russian idea’. As an irony of history, however, this anti-Western Weltanschauung had its roots in German idealistic philosophy. In this study, we have seen how German and Russian conservative ideas have influenced each other in modern history. It turns out that the established view of Russia as something different from the West needs to be specified. Generally, Russia is now undergoing the same process of political and economic modernisation that was accomplished in the West during the first half of the twentieth century. The greatest difference between Russia and Western countries lies mainly in the political and economic backwardness of Russia. Russia’s modernisation is still going on, but now drawing to its final conclusion. It seems that there are at least three historical reasons why the country’s development has not been as rapid as in the West: First, Orthodox Christianity adopted by Russia as its official religion more than a thousand years ago rejects rationalism and individualism. The actual fusion of this religion with state power slowed down the process of secularisation. Under the Soviet regime, Marxism-Leninism served as a surrogate of sorts for the traditional state religion. Second, as a result of two hundred years of Mongol-Tatar domination from 1240 to 1480, Russian society lost its contacts with Western Europe. The Renaissance, the Reformation and the Enlightenment signified great transitions in European history paving way for economic and political liberalisation. Russia was denied the consequences of this evolution. Third, since 1480, Russia has been a land empire expanding incessantly until the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Its enormous size created difficulties in keeping it under control and preserving its integrity—the long boundaries, for instance, had to be kept safe by numerous troops. The Soviet Union was but a historical continuation of the tsarist empire. Even today’s Russian Federation has an imperial power structure and the country as such includes several vast non-Russian territories (Caucasus, Siberia, the Far East). The traditionally extremely centralised power in Russia has served as a uniting

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force. On the other hand, an imperial policy of serving the centre at the expense of the periphery has retarded regional and local policy and business undertakings at grass-root level. This being the case, decentralisation of power seems to be necessary before the vast periphery of Russia can also undergo an unimpeded modernisation and globalisation. The present study has focused on Russian conservative nationalism and its evolution after the fall of the communist regime in August 1991 and the break-up of the Soviet Union in December 1991. This process has been influenced by Western conservative ideas in general and German national socialist views in particular. Yeltsin’s Russia with its political anarchy, corruption, social polarisation and a more or less criminalised economy, served as a hotbed of growing anti-Western and anti-liberal as well as racist attitudes in society. Some political observers compared this critical situation with that of the Weimar Republic. As we have seen, there are, in fact, some parallels in German and Russian modern history. The rise of the extreme right in Russia was preceded by a national awakening in Brezhnev’s Soviet Union (Parland 1993). • The yearning for the bygone rural past and the glorification of the Russian peasantry resembled the manifestations of Völkisch thought in Germany of the nineteenth and early twentieth century. In both countries this current of thought was fuelled by pronounced anti-Semitism. • Geopolitical thinking serving as a justification for great power expansionism and imperial policy constitutes another common trait in German and Russian radical conservative thought. The influence of H.Mackinder’s and K.Haushofer’s geopolitical views is striking. • National bolshevism is the third common denominator in German and Russian radical conservative thought. In Germany, it existed through the 1920s up to 1932. At that time, the German nationalist-minded communists cut off their contacts with the ‘leftist’ national socialists, and national bolshevism disappeared as a political phenomenon. In the Soviet Union, on the other hand, national bolshevism existed in a disguised form until the end of the Soviet era. In Yeltsin’s Russia, it appeared in the shape of the strong communist party led by G.Zyuganov as well as in some other minor movements. • Finally, there is German national socialism that has served as a model for some movements of the Russian extreme right. In Yeltsin’s Russia, the most influential national socialist organisation was Russian National Unity (RNE), even if it is now divided. Its racist anti-Semitism is close to that of Hitler’s NSDAP. Today, the manifestations of extreme Russian anti-Semitism could be considered an anachronism compared to the situation in contemporary Germany, where racism and nazism are criminalised. The very fact that the idea of a Jewish conspiracy against Russia is still popular in quite broad layers of the population, seems to indicate that the Russians have never been informed enough about racism and anti-Semitism, whether in the form of public campaigns or in school teaching. Yet there are at the same time some fundamental differences between German and Russian national socialism that have to be noted: First, Hitler’s strong movement became a mainstream uniting force in Weimar

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Germany. Having seized power the Führer could easily defeat the opposition within the movement. Contrary to this, the nationalist camp in post-Soviet Russia was, and still is, extremely divided. Broadly speaking, it includes ethnocentrists like the RNE and statists (imperialists) like Zhirinovsky and Zyuganov—these opposites mirror conflicts between the centre and the periphery. Furthermore, there are traditionalists and secular rightists representing the ‘Old Right’ and the ‘New Right’, pro-communist and anti-communist national patriots disagreeing on how to assess the Soviet past, and so on. Here we have a natural breeding ground of discord and conflicting interests and aspirations. This being the case, the national socialist RNE never had a chance to assume a dominating role among Russian nationalists in order to seize power and establish a Russian national state in accordance with its own program, Second, the tendency of fragmentation of political movements in general and radical organisations in particular seems to play quite a great role in Russia. Being weakly articulated, Russian multi-party system is still rather unstable and, to some extent, unpredictable. We have seen how Pamiat’ started to disintegrate in the form of numerous different national patriotic movements and organisations, the most radical of which was the RNE. As we have seen, this national socialist paramilitary movement disintegrated in 2000. In Russian history, the general tendency of disintegration has been counter-balanced by a strong centralisation of power, by autocracy. Whenever this balance has been shaken, the empire’s survival has been at stake—Russia with its central power crisis in 1916–17 was about to break up. The absence of a strong and independent middle class with a built-in interest in compromise has resulted in strong—whether disguised or open—antagonisms in society. The attraction of ultimate and absolute values instead of pluralism and tolerance seems still to prevail in the minds of ordinary Russians. This being the case, a merciless struggle for power is going on within the nationalist movements that now and then results in new splits. Another dividing line among Russian nationalists can be seen in the multitude of different theories on Russia and its role in history. This is probably due to the impact of different influences of Western conservatism on Russian thought, including modern racism and anti-Semitism, various geopolitical theories, as well as corporatist philosophy. Furthermore, the birth and consolidation of Soviet power served as a breeding ground for national bolshevism. This worldview was the product of two clashing and inter-acting ideologies—bolshevism and Russian nationalism. Third, the greatest difference between the Weimar republic and post-Soviet Russia lies in the fact that traditionalism or religious (Orthodox) nationalism still plays an important role in the latter country. Such a premodern political phenomenon did not exist in the Germany of the beginning of the twentieth century. German national socialism was a deChristianised movement representing both pagan beliefs, occultism and pseudo-scientific thought. Apparently, Orthodox nationalism is connected with the special role played by the Orthodox Church in Russian history. Under the Soviet regime, it is true, the symbiotic relationship between state and church was curtailed. With the total rehabilitation of the Church in 1988, however, Orthodoxy was perceived as the actual official ideology in

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society. Yet after a couple of years of Westernisation in general and ‘dirty development’ in the shape of ‘robber capitalism’ in particular, religious and moralistic viewpoints were more and more overshadowed by secular and pragmatic thought. This tendency made itself felt even among Russian nationalists. Notwithstanding the strong conservative drive in the Russian state and society of the late 1990s, some steam seems to have gone out of the fascist and national socialist forces, at least for the time being. On the contrary, with Putin’s rise to power the most powerful nazi movement, the RNE, has disintegrated and become a marginalised political force. This could be interpreted as a paradox after the growing fascist and racist tendencies that had been noted in the late 1990s. Then, does Putin’s era really signify the end of Russian fascism and national socialism as well as of other forms of the radical right? In our view, these currents of thought will continue to exist, even if they, with the exception of the militant skinheads just now, are less vocal and noisy. In Putin’s Russia, all of the different organised movements are more or less under a strict state control. Officially, rightist extremism has been banned by law. On the other hand, certain state structures, in particular the repressive ones, are still perceived as hotbeds of racism in general and anti-Semitism in particular by the Jewish organisations in Russia. Post-Soviet Russia is to a great extent a product of Westernisation and globalisation. The world of a growing interdependence of different countries constitutes a complete antithesis to Europe of the 1920s and the 1930s, when autarchy was considered to serve as the best guarantee of national security. Being well aware of his country’s weak position in the contemporary world, Putin considers it to be extremely important that Russia makes a good impression on the West. This being the case, political extremists are seen as dangerous troublemakers who have to be silenced. In this study we have seen that Russia in the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries has been influenced by several entirely different Western theories and worldviews. Hence, Westernisation of Russian conservative thought includes not only impulses from the Western extreme right but also certain moderate and liberal influences. A certain deChristianisation and secularisation of thought in general are also implied. Then what are the results of Westernisation in this broad sense? As regards the Russian radical right, we find certain phenomena as follows: First, there is racism based on pseudo-scientific premises, on occultism or pagan beliefs. This thinking, having its roots in German national socialism, has been adopted by the RNE. The Russian skinheads are the latest manifestation of Western ‘white power’ mentality. Second, geopolitical imperial thinking with both Western and Russian roots in the late nineteenth and the early twentieth century became popular in the 1990s. The strongest nationalist and ‘red-brown’ movements, such as Zhirinovsky’s LDPR and Zyuganov’s CPRF, view geopolitics as their guiding star. Third, Western authoritarian theories including police state-philosophy are attracting attention. Strong uncompromising leaders, such as Franco and Pinochet as well as the Russian Prime Minister Stolypin at the beginning of the twentieth century, became very popular not only among Russian nationalists but even among part of the liberals and

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radical democrats in Yeltsin’s Russia. Fourth, Western individualism with its corollary pragmatism has already influenced the main Russian nationalist parties LDPR, CPRF, late Lebed and his comrades-in-arms, and even part of the RNE. In the 1990s, the era of accelerated globalisation, Russian conservative nationalism interacted with the ongoing neoliberal Westernisation of Russia. Two contradictory tendencies made themselves felt: • The conservative nationalist mood was gaining momentum in society and influenced strongly, first, Zyuganov’s communist party, and later on, most of the liberal reformers. • The most influential Russian and ‘red-brown’ forces adapted themselves more and more to modernisation and Westernisation. Their political vocabulary and argumentation have become secular and more pragmatic. The tendencies can be graphically described as follows. In Figure 21, the position of Zhirinovsky’s party is ambivalent due to the contradictory behaviour of the party leader. That is why the party has been placed somewhere between the pragmatists and the extremists. It should be emphasised, that the dividing line between the most extreme ‘red-browns’ and the fascists or national socialists is blurred. The very fact that all of the most influential national patriotic parties or movements in Yeltsin’s Russia, as mentioned in Figure 17, represented non-traditionalist ‘modern’ thinking, testifies to the triumphal progress of Westernisation of Russian nationalism. Here we take into account that this Westernisation implies also secular ideologies like fascism or national socialism. The nazi skinheads represent the latest manifestation of Western rightist changes in Russia. At the same time, Westernisation implies also pragmatism, one of the main characteristics of modern society. If the new political situation in Russia under Putin remains stable, extremism will, probably, become

Figure 21 The struggle and interaction between Westernisation and Russian conservative resistance

marginalised or, at least, have a much lesser influence on the so-called general opinion.

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On the other hand, even if Putin for the time being is supported by about 75 per cent of the population he has several extremely difficult problems to cope with. When and how will he make the oligarchs stop their illegal practices of grabbing money and getting it transferred to the West? When will they become ‘good citizens’, i.e. ordinary taxpayers? Furthermore, Putin’s recentralisation of Russia will turn out to be counter-productive in the long run. The regionalisation process, it is true, has come to a halt, but will sooner or later continue to thrive and after a very long period of time probably result in some decentralised federal state of sorts or even in a confederation, as predicted by the late Lebed. In a word, for the time being Putin seems to be the best alternative for Russia. On the other hand, he represents outdated imperial thinking when resorting to centralisation of power without local self-government. Putin is still needed as a strong authoritarian leader but for how long? The great success of Putin’s party Edinaia Rossiia and other more extreme nationalist parties in the Duma elections of 2003 at the expence of the communists (de facto national Bolsheviks) and the liberals confirms the general tendency of a steadily growing conservative mood against Westernisation. Pure nationalism seems to get the upper hand in state and society. The changed political climate improves Putin’s possibility to be reelected President in 2004. The question arises, whether Putin in the new situation will ‘russify’ his liberal policy. Russia is now going through its fourth historical period of smuta—in this case the Russian concept includes chaos, disorder and national weakness. At the same time, the country has entered its final stage of transition to modernity. This pattern of development has had its precursors. In examining Russian history we recognise four periods of smuta82 that have contributed to Westernisation. The Bolshevik revolution in 1917–21 and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 constituted the third and fourth fundamental societal change in Russian history. The Bolsheviks destroyed the very foundation of the traditional patriarchal agrarian society in 1929–34, whereas the radical democrats and liberals in 1991 dismantled the Soviet one-party system. Formal democracy and market economy—the criminal tendencies in the latter do not change the matter—were introduced in post-Soviet Russia. Globalisation, however, constitutes a new element in Russian history. It signifies accelerated Westernisation of Russia including its integration with the West. This trend seems to be irreversible.

Postscript The rapprochement of Russia and the West should, however, be seen as a consequence of Westernisation in the broad sense of the term. At the same time, we have to face the rise of the right and radical right in several Western countries. President George W. Bush in the USA, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi in Italy, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in Israel, the rightist advance in France are significant examples of this general political tendency in the West. This being the case, we could characterise the new relationship between Russia and the

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West as follows: Russian conservative nationalism is Westernising, whereas the West is gravitating towards the right. What could be the reasons behind this worldwide rightist trend? In our view, there are, at least, the following ones: First, the political and ideological situation in the world totally changed after 1991. The Western political and economic model has triumphed over totalitarian socialism. Neoliberalism, or the doctrine of laissez-faire capitalism, has become the dominant ideology not only in the West but also in most parts of the rest of the world. Furthermore, globalisation is already replacing national economies of states with an uncontrolled transnational economy. The radical leftist alternative to neoliberalism is rather unpopular after the bankruptcy of the Soviet experiment. Furthermore, globalisation has, in fact, diluted European social democracy and made it gravitate towards the principles of neoliberalism. Today, the only serious challenge to neoliberalism can come from the right. Second, neoliberal globalisation seems, in fact, to pave the way for a populist right in the rich part of the world. Unrestricted and uncontrolled laissez-faire capitalism resulting in polarisation of society invokes the principle of the survival of the fittest, i.e. social Darwinism that happens to be one of the characteristics of fascism as well as of national socialism. In history, the same free-market regime prevailed at the turn of the nineteenth century until it was destroyed by World War I. The chaotic development of the 1920s and 1930s led to economic hardships culminating in the Great Depression with protectionism and political antiliberal nationalism as a consequence in most European countries. Today, Western national states have lost their economic sovereignty. They are dependent on the deregulated global economy with its unpredictable international stock market and fierce capitalist competition. The danger of an economic breakdown in some part of the world—we know what happened in 1998 in Southeast Asia and Russia—is always possible. The world race to achieve maximum efficiency and minimum wages (a tendency among the biggest manufacturers to shift production from the industrial countries can already be seen) threatens now the well-being of the middle layers of the Western society. With the massive job insecurity, and the growing unemployment in several branches, a real fear for the future is spreading throughout the Western world. Everywhere there is the same programme of reducing public expenditure and eliminating social services. The welfare state seems to be withering away. This creates a breeding ground of rightist populism, the leftist alternative being much less attractive today. There is a drive towards the past, when order, national traditions and some economic prosperity seemed to co-exist, at least for the middle class. Third, the rightist tendencies in the West are fuelled by xenophobia and outright racism—a consequence of the growing immigration that has been sweeping the Western world in the late twentieth century and still continues to thrive. Immigrants in general, and those representing other cultures and races in particular, are mostly perceived as parasites by middle-class citizens who have lost or are about to lose their previous economic status. In multinational Russia, as we have seen, there are some parallels with

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this situation in the West. We remember the typical cliché attitude, according to which non-Russian nationalities have lived and prospered at the expense of the blue-eyed Russians. On the other hand, it is true, this is not due to external immigration as in the West. Yet, in Russia with a birth-rate that is lower than the death-rate there is a demographic need for a growing immigration in the years to come. For instance, already now there are people from former Soviet Central Asiatic republics trying to find jobs in Russia where the wages are much higher than in their own countries. This development will probably continue and accelerate with the same consequences as in the West. Fourth, deregulated globalisation has created new international dangers. For instance, an international borderless market has been accompanied by an international borderless terrorism. As we have already seen in this study, in combating terrorism Russia as well as the West have resorted to policies that are sometimes quite repressive. This has been in line with general rightist attitudes favouring the creation of a police state. Fifth, Huntington’s worldview of clashing civilisations can be criticised for many exaggerations but it cannot be totally ignored. The confrontation of Islamic and Western values—we remember the Middle East conflict since 1948, the Iranian revolution in 1979 and several terrorist actions having occurred in other countries before and later—has manifested itself in different parts of the world in the late twentieth century and the same conflict is continuing to thrive. This creates a breeding ground for attitudes with racial undertones. Russia seems to have resolved the ‘cursed’ question about its future in favour of a rather conservative Western model of development. The ‘Russian idea’ proclaiming a separate path belongs to history. Even Zyuganov’s Eurasianism is forced to Westernise in order to survive. As an irony of history, geopolitical considerations force Russia to join the West: the country’s safest border is in Europe. Today and even more in the future, the greatest threat to Russia is coming from the south: there we have the Islamic world and China constituting a demographic time-bomb. The main reason why Russia and China now happen to be friends is tactical. Both try to counter-balance the too dominant role played by the United States in world politics. Paradoxically, Russia’s new geopolitical choice has materialised through mobilising numerous Russian conservative nationalists for the purpose. The traditionally divided Russian society seems now to be reunited. At the same time, even Russia’s Western partners are undergoing changes. Combined with neoliberalism the conservative alternative in politics is materialising not only in Russia but also in numerous Western countries. In some of these countries, rightist parties have got a strong position within the government, in other ones those in power have adopted a more restrictive policy towards immigration and have introduced more rigorous legislation against terrorism. On the other hand, in most cases this rightism is, though, so far, rather moderate. Outright racism, national socialism and fascism are officially banned. At the same time, however, Western unity seems to wither away. Being the sole superpower in the world, the United States of America has more and more been inclined to resort to unilateral military actions without the consent of the UN. This could be seen before and during the Iraq war in 2003. France, Germany and Belgium, who had advocated a peaceful solution to the problem with Saddam Hussein and his alleged weapons of mass destruction, severely criticised the

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USA for having started the war. This resulted, in fact, in a new division of Europe: Great Britain, Spain, Italy, Holland, Denmark and Iceland along with the new post-communist states in Eastern Europe supported the USA, whereas France, Germany and Belgium referred to the United Nations as being the only international organisation authorised to legalise military options. Russia has verbally given statements supporting the position of France, Germany and Belgium. One of the reasons is geopolitical: the general opinion in Russia prefers a multipolar world to a unipolar one. On the other hand, there are several prestigious Russian political analysts warning against endangering the relations with the USA, the sole military and economic superpower. Putin’s dilemma has been how to cope with this new situation: his sympathies seem to be with France and Germany—this orientation mirrors more or less Russian nationalist geopolitical thinking that is popular within the military establishment. On the other hand, Russia cannot afford to go too far in irritating the USA. Western-minded Putin appears in the role of a Russian Hamlet being confronted with a new crucial choice: In order to be on the safe side, should he count on the USA and other ‘Atlanticist’ Western countries or would it in the long run pay off to concentrate on the ‘continental’ European powers France and Germany? To make matters worse, France and Germany (with whom Russia obviously sympathises) have continued to irritate Putin by criticising the situation in Chechnya, whereas President G.W.Bush seems to have turned a blind eye to the problem. The world situation is contradictory: On the one hand, a New World Order of sorts is coming into being in the shape of Pax Americana with the United Nations playing a lesser role than before. On the other hand, the future seems unpredictable due to the growing anti-Americanism in the Islamic world and elsewhere. International terrorism will continue to threaten the international order. As long as new global economic breakdowns, political turbulences or terrorist actions have not occurred, the existing controversies in society and between certain states are likely to be kept under control with the help of military actions or semi-police state measures already adopted. In the long run, however, the growing imbalance in the world between a minority living the good life and a majority experiencing hunger and impoverishment could destabilise the global situation with terrible consequences.

Notes Introduction

1 Yavlinsky, Grigorii. Deputy of the State Duma. Leader of Yabloko (Apple), a party professing moderate liberalism. Originally, Yabloko was an election bloc set up by Grigorii Yavlinsky, Iurii Boldyrev and Vladimir Lukon in 1993. YABLOKO is an abbreviation of the three founders’ surnames (Yavlinsky, Boldyrev, Lukin). The party has represented the democratic opposition against the regime’s neoliberal policy of schock therapy. 2 Traditionalism. Any doctrine founded in the defence of tradition, but specifically the philosophy of history and political programme developed by the counterrevolutionary movement in eighteenth and ninteenth century France (cf., Scruton 1982). Among contemporary Russian nationalists, those proclaiming Orthodoxy and monarchism are called traditionalists. Their attitude towards the West is isolationist. 3 Old Believers (staroobriadtsy). In 1653, the Russian Orthodox Church split, when Patriarch Nikon tried to reform the liturgy as to comply better with the Greek original. Those who opposed the reform, the so-called staroobriadtsy, were cruelly persecuted by the state Church. The Old Believers fought for a purely Russian faith free of foreign influences (cf., Berdiaev 1990, 83). 4 Black Hundredness (chernosotenstvo) is a common name for the Russian extreme right with some traits of national socialism that emerged in the first years of the twentieth century. This phenomenon continued after 1917 among Russian rightwing émigrés, and after 1987 in the Soviet Union in the shape of leaflets, at protest meetings and in pamphlets. 5 The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. A pamphlet forged by the tsarist secret police (‘Okhranka’) in order to discredit the Jews. The publication tells of an alleged secret meeting of self-proclaimed Elders of Zion in 1897—in that year the first Zionist congress was held in Basel—in order to promote world-wide Jewish hegemony. Later on, in the 1930s and 1940s the pamphlet played an important role in the antiJewish propaganda of German national socialism. 6 Chaadaev, P.Y. (1793–1856), a nobleman, philosopher. His article Philosophical Letters (Filosofskie pis’ma) published in the periodical Teleskop in 1836 was extremely critical of official Russia and its ideology. Chaadaev declared that Russia with its crude barbarism and deep ignorance had no tradition, no past, and, consequently, no history. The official reaction was swift: The periodical was immediately forbidden, and Chaadaev himself declared to be insane and was confined to house arrest for the rest of his life. Chaadaev’s Philosophical Letters marked the beginning of endless

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polemics between Westernisers and Slavophiles about the significance of nationality. The problem most hotly debated was whether Russia should choose the Western universal model of development or resort to a separate national road to progress. 7 S.Huntington’s pessimism. In Professor Huntington’s view, Russia does not belong to the West, but represents a distinct Slavic-Orthodox civilisation. His thesis about the basic differences that exist between different civilisations, in fact, excludes the possibility of a real approachment and mutual understanding between Russia and the West.

Chapter 1

8 Huntington’s popularity in Russia. Among more or less ‘Westernised’ and secularised national patriots and nationalist-minded Russians, there are several thinkers and publicists who perceive Huntington as an authority in explaining the different conflicts and contradictions in the post-Cold War world. Moreover, there are even some Western-minded Russian historians sharing Huntington’s conception (see Utkin 2000). G.Zyuganov, chairman of the national Bolshevik communist party, shares more or less the view of a struggle between different civilisations as the driving force of contemporary development. In one of his articles, he presents Huntington’s pessimistic conception criticising nothing but the author’s loyalty towards the West (cf., Zyuganov 1995, 18 f). 9 Christianity as a meta-civilisation. In this study, we find it expedient to consider Christianity as an expression of Western culture in the broadest sense of that term. In this particular case, Russia having been Christianised more than a thousand years ago could be considered a Western country. Thus, as a meta-civilisation Christianity comprises two civilisations—those of Western Christendom (including Catholicism and Protestantism) and Eastern Orthodoxy. 10 Natural, non-artificial development. This concept as applied to society and man’s social activity reflects the national socialists’ anti-intellectualism. Natural spontaneous growth was opposed to what was called in German ‘das intellektualistisch Konstruirte’ (artificial creation) (Zentner-Bedürftig 1985, the title-word organisch, p. 432). 11 Patrimonial rule, patrimonialism. This term was coined by Max Weber, who makes a distinction between two kinds of traditional rule—rule by the few (feudalism) and one-man’s rule (patrimonialism). In the latter case, the patriarchal ruler was at the same time the sole proprietor. From the fifteenth century on, the tsar was considered to be the owner of all lands in Russia (cf., Parland 1993, 74). 12 Gemeinschaft vs. gesellschaft (community vs. society). Terms employed by the sociologist F.Tönnies in order to distinguish two kinds of association, one based on bonds of affection, kinship, etc., the other on division of labour, self-interest and contract. Gemeinschaft implying non-contractual allegiance is a model of political

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association and political obligation in traditional society. It is popular among traditional conservatives. Gesellschaft for its part, is the ideal type of contractual obligation and therefore a model of political association and political obligation in modern society. It is popular among liberal individualists (see the title-word Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft in Scruton 1982). 13 The second generation of Slavophilism. The original Slavophiles had opposed autocracy and serfdom but also Western constitutionalism. After the abolition of serfdom in 1861 and the Polish rebellion of 1863, Slavophilism began to degenerate and became a narrow-minded and aggressive kind of Russian nationalism. The second generation of Slavophilism appeared in the 1870s and 1880s in the shape of N.Danilevsky and K.Leontiev. The former equated Russia’s national interests with autocracy and expansionist imperialism. K.Leontiev—the leading ideologist in the 1880s—launched some kind of police state ideology in order to save Russia from European influences. 14 N.Markov, known as Markov II, had been one of the most influential leaders of the Union of the Russian People and a member of the tsarist Duma. After the Bolshevik revolution and the civil war he settled in Germany and entered the service of the national socialists (cf., Laqueur 1993, 24). 15 G.Schwartz-Bostunich was a Kiev-born Russian who became a high-ranking SS officer, a confidant of Hitler as well as of Himmler, and a friend of numerous toplevel public officers in the Third Reich (cf., Laqueur 1993, 35; Laqueur 1965, 125; Ganelin 1992, 149). 16 General Biskupsky was considered to be the first among Russian ‘Hitlerites’. He served as a ‘Prime Minister’ of the Russian Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich’ government in Koburg in Germany, and had close contacts with Hitler (cf., Ganelin 1992, 142 f). 17 General Viktor Filatov. A well-known figure on the Russian right. He was the editor of the periodical Voenno-istoricheskii zhurnal (the Journal of Military History) in 1992 when it published excerpts from Hitler’s Mein Kampf. 18 The old imperial structure. During the civil war in 1918–20, the Bolsheviks promoted the imperial idea by re-establishing Russia’s supremacy over White Russia (Belarus), Ukraine, Transcaucasia, Central Asia and the Far East. The Russian empire was more or less restored in 1922, in the shape of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Formally, the Soviet republics were equal members of a union, they were free to opt out, if they so wished; in reality, they were subordinated to Moscow in a way that reduced them to administrative units of a unitary state (cf., Parland 1993, 56). 19 Stalin was not a national Bolshevik. The Soviet dictator was a typical Machiavellian player, who used ideologies instrumentally in order to further his own ends. Sometimes he turned against his own nationalist allies within the party leadership. He was subsequently to throw the entire NEP concept overboard in order to embark on a policy of rapid collectivisation and industrialisation, much to the dismay of the Russian nationalists (cf. Parland 1993, 58). Furthermore, the kind of anti-Semitism that Stalin professed was hardly as rabid as Agurskii implies (cf., Agurskii 1980, 239). The close cooperation between the USA and the Soviet Union

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within the United Nations in 1948 for the creation of the state of Israel testifies to this (cf., Kostikov 1988, 9). 20 Russification. In a non-Russian Soviet Republic, the position of the First Secretary of a republican Communist Party was reduced to a mere figurehead and real power was vested in the position as Second Secretary. Among other things, the Second Secretary was responsible for the contacts with the security organs (OGPU, NKVD, MVD or KGB), and this crucial position was hardly offered to anyone but a Russian (cf., Carter 1990, 51). Needless to say, the Russian language became the administrative lingua franca par excellence throughout the Soviet Union. 21 The Jewish anti-fascist committee. Founded in 1942 and subordinated to the Soviet Bureau of Information (Sovinformbiuro), it served the overarching purpose of mobilising the Soviet people against Hitler’s Germany. It also developed into a centre for Jewish cultural life throughout the Soviet Union. 22 The theory of Rechtstaat (Germ., a law-abiding state) implies a form of government in which no power can be exercised except according to procedures, principles and constraints contained in the law, and in which any citizen can find redress against any other, however powerfully placed, and against the officers of the state itself, for any act which involves a breach of the law (see the title-word rule of law in Scruton 1982, 415). 23 SA (Sturmabteilung; Storm Detachment) The early private army, the Storm Troopers, of the German national socialist party. Originally, it was designed to protect national socialist mass meetings and oppose rival political parties, in particular the communists. By 1932 its ranks had risen to 400,000. 24 Pochvenniki. In the 1860s, Fedor Dostoevsky had become the ideological spokesman for a group native-soil conservatives called pochvenniki. They were often in consonance with mainstream Slavophilism. Dostoevsky called the upper social strata, particularly the Western-minded intelligentsia, to dissociate themselves from the harmful Western ideas and to return to the spiritual values that were incarnate in the God-fearing Russian people and the national soil (my italics—TP).

Chapter 2

25 Aleksandr Tvardovskii (21.6.1910–18.12.1971) Poet, editor. Served as editor-inchief of the liberal literary magazine Novyi mir in 1958–69. He published writings of controversial writers like Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. 26 The fight between Novyi mir and Molodaia Gvardiia signified, in fact, a duel between Marxism and Russian nationalism. The outcome of this fight testifies to the strong position the national patriots had in the Establishment. After Novyi mir had attacked the national patriots in an article full of appropriate Marxist arguments, the response came in the form of a devastating counterattack. A joint letter, signed by 11 national patriotic and Stalinist authors, raised the rhetorical question: ‘What is Novyi mir fighting?’ (Protiv chego vystupaet ‘Novyi mir’?). The letter—which

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accused Novyi mir of cosmopolitanism of a kind reminiscent of the suspect and ‘subversive’ Czech mass media prior to the invasion in 1968—was published in Ogonëk, a contemporary periodical with a solidly conservative reputation (cf., Yanov 1987, 115; Solzhenitsyn 1975a, 274; PROTIV…1989, 175–9). The campaign against Novyi mir continued in other papers and periodicals and had far-reaching cosequences for the editorial staff. A.Tvardovsky, the liberal-minded editor-in-chief and author, lost his most competent collaborators, to which he responded by resigning towards the end of 1969. As a result, Novyi mir lost its liberal profile. 27 The Iakovlev affair. In 1972, Aleksandr Iakovlev, the communist party’s chief ideologue, used Literaturnaia gazeta, the mouthpiece of the Writers’ Union, as a platform for an all-out attack against the Russian nationalists. He made his statements as a representative of the official party line; and they were not rebuked by the official media. Yet Veche, the undergound publication of dissident nationalists, published a rejoinder (cf., Stranitsy 1993, 171–178). Iakovlev’s reference to Lenin’s conclusions about the nation’s right to self-determination was rejected on the ground that this logic might justify the dissolution of the entire Soviet Union (cf., Yanov 1987, 121 ff). ‘In 1918 the Soviet Republic was reduced to the dimensions of the Muscovite realm during the time of Ivan III. That is what the Russophiles’ prosecutor dreams of (Stranitsy, 177). Shortly thereafter, Iakovlev unexpectedly left his high position within the party hierarchy for an appointment to an ambassadorship in Canada. This also marked the end of the official campaigns against the national patriots. Iakovlev was brought back to Moscow under Iurii Andropov in 1983. In the summer of 1985, shortly after Gorbachev came to power, he was given back his post as head of the Central Committee’s propaganda department. In 1987, he was made full member of the Politburo. Iakovlev became known as the main architect of the policy of glasnost. 28 Vladimir Osipov (1939–). Editor, journalist. One of the leading samizdat-dissidents in the Soviet Union during the Brezhnev-Andropov-Chernenko years. In the 1990s, he moved to the right and became member of the All-Russian national rightist centre (Vserossiiskii Natsional’nyi Pravyi Tsentr), an umbrella organisation of conservative forces including the constitional democrats (see below). 29 National Liberals. They represent the kind of moderate nationalism that joined forces with Yeltsin’s democratic movement before as well as after the dramatic events of August 1991. Yet, shortly thereafter, most national liberals changed their mind, quit the democratic camp and joined the opposition. Thus, they became national patriots. 30 The ‘Bourgeois’ democratic revolution in 1991 was a direct consequence of the failed putsch on August 19–21: the Communist Party of the Soviet Union as well as the Russian Communist Party were banned, and the popularly elected President Yeltsin, actually, became the new institution of power. As a consequence the Soviet empire was dissolved in December 1991. Yet, it is a moot point whether this turning point in Russian history can be equated with the French revolution or any other of the Western social revolutions that gave birth to the modern bourgeois society with a dominating middle class. In Russia, it has been argued, a middle class in the real sense of the word has not yet come into being. The so-called ‘New Russians’ do not

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qualify for this denomination as they have become rich mainly through speculation. 31 ‘Feudal socialism’. This concept has been frequently used in the contemporary social debate in Russia. Originally, it was based upon Marx’s interpretation of the so-called Asiatic mode of production (aziatskii sposob proizvodstva), which implies a system of a ruling bureaucratic elite in a society where the land is public property. In the beginning, the land was owned by several village communes, which later were combined into larger units. This process eventually resulted in the state’s becoming the sole proprietor of land. 32 Constitutional Democrats. In 1990, they founded People’s Freedom Party (Partiia Narodnoi Svobody). 33 Christian Democrats. The Christian democratic movement of Russia (Khristianskodemokraticheskoe dvizhenie Rossii) was founded in 1990 by Viktor Aksiuchits, a deputy, and other Orthodox activists. 34 Travkin’s Democratic Party. Nikolai Travkin was in 1989 elected a deputy of the Soviet parliament (the Congress of People’s Deputies of the USSR), and in 1990 of the Russian parliament. He left the CPSU in 1990 to found the Democratic Party of Russia (Demokraticheskaia Partiia Rossii, DPR). Originally, the party proclaimed anticommunism and pure liberalism in the interpretation of Reaganomics. Later, Travkin and his fellow-partisans rejected economic liberalism of the Western model in favour of a more emphasised role of the state in creating a market economy (cf., Sogrin 1994, 139f). 35 New examples of the conservative drive. During the election campaign in 1993, numerous democrats turned against Yeltsin’s and his government’s neoliberal policy and leaning towards the West. This resulted in the emergence of two new democratic parties: The Party of Russian Unity and Concord (Partiia rossiiskogo edinstva i soglasiia) with Sergei Shakhrai as its leader, and Grigorii Yavlinsky’s Yabloko party. Both combined moderate reformism with elements of conservative nationalism. Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin’s state power party Our Home is Russia (Nash dom—Rossiia, NDR) was founded in 1995 to get support of the government even among moderate nationalists and others gravitating towards the centre. NDR was joined by Shakhrai and his party. General Aleksandr Lebed and his fellow-partisans represented moderate nationalism, but in the Duma elections 1995 their electorate was close to that of N. Travkin whose party had disappeared from political life. 36 Anatolii Chubais (1955–). Known as the ‘Minister of privatisation’ in 1992–94 when he served as the head of the State privatisation committee. Chubais was appointed First Deputy Prime Minister in March 1997. He was closely tied to Russia’s new financial oligarchy from the very beginning (cf., McFoul 1997, 324). 37 Stanislav Govorykhin (29.3.1936-). A well-known movie director, whose film ‘The Russia We Have Lost’ glorifies the late tsarist period. Politically, Govorykhin is an anticommunist conservative who in 1994 published a pamphlet Velikaia Kriminal’naia Revoliutsiia (The Great Criminal Revolution) in which he accuses Yeltsin and the liberals of ruining Russia, selling out the country to the mafia and transforming it into a colony for raw material supply. Govorykhin has been called ‘fascist’ or ‘red-brown’ by the liberals.

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38 George Soros (1930–) is known as a financier in general and an investor and philanthropist in particular. He was born in Hungary, emigrated to England in 1947 and to the USA in 1956. He has played an active role in promoting numerous business undertakings in post-Soviet Russia. 39 Outspoken fascists and national socialists are all the extremists adhering to the Blut und Boden-philosophy, and the extreme statist nationalists like A. Dugin. V.Zhirinovsky, notwithstanding his sympathies for national socialism, cannot be referred to this category as being too inconsistent. Zhirinovsky’s party fraction supported in most cases Yeltsin’s and the government’s policy. 40 Solzhenitsyn and Marxism. In 1973, Solzhenitsyn compared Marxism with a ‘murky whirlwind from the West’ (Solzhenitsyn 1974, 17). In his view, the official Marxist-Leninist state doctrine was the greatest enemy of Russia. The mass crimes committed in GULAG were possible owing to the ideology (cf., Solzhenitsyn 1975, 80). 41 Valeriia Novodvorskaia (1950–). A neoliberal extremist. She has been heading the Democratic Union, a radical group founded in 1988. 42 Igor Shafarevich (1923–). Mathematician with international reputation. Joined the dissidents in the late 1960s and was close to Solzhenitsyn. In the late 1970s he went over to the extreme right of the dissident movement. His pamphlet Rusofobiia (Russophobia) published in 1989 in the nationalist periodical Nash sovremennik (Our Contemporary) was coloured by slightly disguised anti-Semitism. As a matter of fact, his message was not but a sophisticated version of Pamiat’s rampant conspiracy theory according to which all Russia’s disasters including the revolutions in 1917 were the result of a Jewish plot (see Shafarevich 1989). In a way Shafarevich is a typical ethnocentric traditionalist, on the other hand his statements are more based on scientific argumentation than on religious viewpoints. 43 Petr Stolypin (1862–1911). Russian Prime Minister 1906–11, had agrarian reforms designed to break up the peasant communities by encouraging private ownership of land. Being a strong supporter of autocratic monarchism, Stolypin used bloody methods of repression against the revolutionaries. 44 Viktor Anpilov (1.10.1945–). One of the founders of the Russian Communist Workers’ Party (Rossiiskaia Kommunisticheskaia Rabochaia Partiia), a more or less Stalinist organisation.

Chapter 3

45 Informals (Neformaly). Non-party social or political groups that began to emerge in 1987 and became fashionable in 1988–90. Later on, among tens of thousands of different informals, a much smaller number finally developed into political parties. 46 Etnotsentristy (ethnocentric Russians). In the 1990s, especially after the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, the word pochvenniki sometimes began to be replaced by the word etnotsentristy. This phenomenon seems to have been related to the first

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manifestations in the country of undisguised racism in terms of eugenics. 47 Gosudarstvenniki or Derzhavniki (statists or great power nationalists). Statism (Fr.Étatisme) signifies primacy of the state in social, economic and political development (see the titleword ‘Étatisme’ in Scuton 1982). In the Russian context, statist nationalism signifies preoccupation with the imperial idea too. This being the case, gosudarstvenniki and derzhavniki are, in fact, synonymous. Some of the extreme statists present themselves as imperialists. 48 Vozrozhdentsy. Aderivative of vozrozhdenie, the Russian word for revival, renaissance. In the context of Soviet reality before 1985, this term implied the Russian nationalist upsurge outside the Soviet establishment or what Solzhenitsyn named the ‘Russian national and religious renascence’. 49 Vasil’ev as a fascist (see title-word Vasil’ev Dimitri Vasil’evich in Sovremennaia 1998). Confessionally, Pamiat’s leader is an Orthodox sectarian who shows preference for the Russian Orthodox Church abroad (Russkaia Pravoslavnaia Tserkov’ Za Rubezhom) over the Moscow Patriarchate, in view of the fundamentalism and the more outspoken national sentiments of the former. 50 The ‘near abroad’ (blizhnee zarubezh’e) implies all the former Soviet non-Russian republics that became independent and sovereign states in 1991. The Russian Federation considering itself the inheritor of the USSR perceives the aforementioned republics as belonging to its sphere of interest. Being a typical example of imperial thinking, the concept ‘near abroad’ leaves room for a more hopeful interpretation of the future. 51 The ‘red-brown’ alliances. This kind of party truce between ideological foes is a logical follow-up of the tacit cooperation that occurred in post-Stalin Soviet society between Stalinists and other conservative communists on the one hand, and National Bolsheviks and non-party nationalists on the other. 52 Orthodox anticommunist nationalism. This current of thought has been, and still is, typical among Russian émigrés as well as among former Russian-minded dissidents. Marxism and liberalism are blamed for focusing on man’s material needs exclusively and ignoring or under-estimating religion and the spiritual values in life. 53 The werewolf legion was a small ultra-rightist paramilitary organisation sticking to the German pattern of national socialism. Without being involved in political activities, its young members devoted attention to combat training and staging terrorist acts. They targeted religious sects as well as meetings of radical democrats and radical communists. In 1997, however, most of the Werewolf Legion leaders were prosecuted on murder charges and sentenced to lengthy imprisonment. 54 Zhirinovsky and Le Pen. In February 1996, the two nationalist leaders announced plans to form a European Union of extreme-right forces. As a first step, Le Pen and Zhirinovsky would meet in Moscow in late April 1996 to map out a ‘Union of right forces of Europe’. So far, however, there is no reliable information on whether this project has materialised. 55 The four largest nationalist parties. In this study, we base our assessments on the constellation of nationalist movements and parties as well as their strength and influence in 1996–99 (before the Duma elections in December 1999). The State Duma was dominated by Zyuganov’s party, whereas Zhirinovsky’s LDPR was the

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second largest party. Lebed who had helped Yeltsin become re-elected President in 1996 was elected governor in the extremely important Krasnoiarsk region in 1998. He had founded a party of his own—Russian People’s Republican Party (Rossiiskaia narodno-respublikanskaia partiia)—and was considered a very serious candidate for the presidency in 2000. Barkashov’s RNE convincingly demonstrated its strength and influence in 1996–99 as by far the largest openly national socialist movement in Russia. 56 Zhirinovsky taking bribes. According to an article in Transitions, a Western periodical, the rewards the nationalist leader got for his service were a promotion to colonel in the Russian Army and an honorary doctorate from Moscow University (Parfenov-Sergeeva 1998, 35). 57 Aleksandr Rutskoi. Former Vice President (1991–93) of Russia. Leader of the Social patriotic movement ‘Derzhava’ (great power) from April 1995. Elected governor of the Kursk region in 1996. 58 Other communist parties. In 1992, when the ban on communist activities was lifted, the communist movement was disorganised and split. This being the case, there emerged several conservative communist parties trying to unite and restore both the CPSU and the Russian communist party. The latter could partly be restored in the shape of CPRF, but there remained other parties that refused to unite. Among them, the Russian Communist Workers’ Party (Rossiiskaia Kommunisticheskaia Rabochaia Partiia) has been the most active and influential—it gathered about 3 million votes in the parliamentary elections in 1995, even if it did not exceed the threshold of 5 per cent required for getting seats in the Duma. This ‘party of action’ headed by Viktor Anpilov obviously prefers street activities like meetings, picketing and protest demonstrations before running election campaigns. The party programme has an anti-Semitic undertone. All the other communist parties are marginal. To mention only one of them, the All-Union Communist Party of the Bolsheviks (Vsesoiuznaia kommunisticheskaia Partiia Bolshevikov) professes open Stalinism. Its leader Nina Andreeva has established contacts with North Korea. Bolshevik is a monthly issued by the party. 59 G.Seleznëv. He was expelled from the CPRF in May 2002. 60 Solzhenitsyn on the harmful influences from the west. In his manifesto of 1990 Kak nam obustroit’ Rossiiu (Rebuilding Russia), the Russian writer criticises the iron curtain in a somewhat unexpected way. The curtain ‘did not reach all the way to the bottom, permitting the continuous seepage of liquid manure—the self-indulgent and squalid “popular mass culture”, the utterly vulgar fashion, and the by-products of immoderate publicity—all of which our deprived young people have greedly absorbed. Western youth runs wild from a feeling of surfeit, while ours mindlessly apes these antics despite its poverty. And today’s television obligingly distributes these streams of filth throughout the land’ (Solzhenitsyn 1991, 40).

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Chapter 4

61 The Orthodox Church. A decree enacted in January 1918 by the Bolshevik government separated state and church. This separation is still in force de jure. Yet, the historical reconciliation between state and church in 1988 implied that the state (read the CPSU) relinquished its monopoly on truth. Instead, the Church de facto became part of state power as a theocratic institution for moral guidance. 62 Democratic centralism. The guiding organisational principle of the Bolshevik party. Originally, this principle was introduced by Lenin who wanted to concentrate the authority of the party in the hands of the central committee, in which, in turn, the minority would bow to the majority. Dissenting factions were not allowed after 1921. 63 Corporatism (or corporativism). The theory of the corporate state as developed in fascist Italy under B. Mussolini. It justifies the organisation of the economic system into ‘corporations’ subordinate to the state. This system is said to render political representation superfluous. The economy is divided into associations (called ‘syndicates’) of workers, employers and the professions. In Mussolini’s Italy, only one syndicate was allowed in each branch of industry, and all officials were either fascist politicians or else loyal to the fascist cause. The corporations united the syndicates in a given industry. The theory of the corporate state holds, that because people are not politically articulate, their interests could be consulted only through institutions related directly to their occupations. In Russia, both Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Igor Shafarevich have expressed views close to the aforementioned argumentation.

Chapter 5

64 ‘Sacral geography’ (sakral’naia geografiia). Dugin resorts to this concept in showing how the ancestors viewed the surrounding world in general and their homeland in particular in its spatial dimension. ‘Sacral geography’ is the geography of sacred places and forces. Epic literature, biographies, legends, myths and magic fairy-tales are based on it (Dugin 1999, 616). Originally, in ‘sacral geography’ the North symbolised Spirit and Eternity, the South Matter and Time respectively. Later on, this vertical axis North-South was replaced by the horizontal axis East-West (Tradition vs Profanation, source vs decline) (ibid., 476). ‘Sacral geography’ of Russia appears in the shape of three formulae mirroring the development of Russian statehood. Russia was perceived as a circle with different poles of power. First, there was the Kievan state with several centres, the Muscovy with only one centre (Moscow as the Third Rome), and finally, there was the Petersburg period of Russia,

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where the centre had been transferred to St Petersburg implying the country’s dependence on the West (ibid., 617–20). Dugin’s ideal is the Moscow-centred model of empire that was restored by the Bolsheviks. 65 Rudolf Kjellen (1864–1922). A Swedish scientist who introduced the concept of geopolitics. He defined the state as a living organism that functioned in a given geographic area. 66 Karl Haushofer (1869–1946). A German geopolitician, who focused on the idea of the natural living space (Lebensraum) of Germany. The theory served as a justification of nazi Germany’s expansionist policy in the late thirties and early forties. On the other hand, Haushofer advocated ideas that never could materialise like that of a geopolitical alliance of Germany, the Soviet Union and Japan. 67 Carl Schmitt (1888–1985). A famous German lawyer who contributed to geopolitics by elaborationg the theory of Grossraum (the Great Space). A Grossraum can signify an empire or an alliance of several powers sharing a common religion or culture. In the latter case, the alliance mostly consists of one great power towards which the other smaller powers gravitate. 68 Ernst Niekisch (1880–1967). A German politician and writer who proclaimed German national bolshevism. 69 ‘Agents of influence’ (‘agenty vliianiia’). A concept used by Russian-minded people who rejected Gorbachev’s and Yeltsin’s reforms. The concept signifies persons who accept the Western liberal values and are considered to serve as allies and aides of the West in trying to Westernise Russia (cf., Begunov 1996, 296).

Chapter 6

70 Russian values. In national patriotic thought they are as follows: 1 Orthodox Christianity as the Russian national identity. Russians are considered to be a God-chosen people. Ethnocentric Russians are yearning for a golden past embodied in the ‘Holy Russia’ (Sviataia Rus’), i.e. theocratic Muscovite Russia with a traditional rural culture without Western influences. 2 Autocracy as a traditional Russian form of rule based on historical experience. 3 Sobornost’ as a unifying alternative to Western majority rule that results in a divided country. 4 Obshchinnost’ (communality), a derivative of obshchina, the village community that was held as an example by the early Slavophiles. It was praised as a genuinely Russian unit of collective social action, founded not on material rewards, but on moral principles. To the ethnic national patriots of our days the obshchina and the artel’ (a local voluntary cooperative) represent the very essence of freedom from state coercion. This is in line with the standard definition of both terms as a voluntary association of people from different families with a common goal requiring the cooperation of many (cf. Tsukanov 1990, 119).

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71 The Jews’ role in promoting modernisation. In the economic field, the Jews made a lasting contribution towards Europe’s transition from self-sufficiency and barter trade to monetary economy. Moreover, they paved the way for large-scale international trade, and played an active role in the diffusion of modern business methods based on the maximisation of profit. As a result the Jews contributed to the emergence of modern ‘Big’ capitalism, which originally manifested itself in the form of stocks, bonds and shares, and subsequently in the form of gambling on the stock market (Briem 1940, 76 f). Politically, many Jews participated in the making of modern Europe. In the nineteenth century, they joined radical political movements like the liberals, the socialists and the social democrats, and subsequently the communists. Furthermore, representatives of the Jewish intelligentsia played a very important role in the development, diffusion and implementation of social democratic and communist theories. In this context, Karl Marx, the grand old man of socialism and communism, and Ferdinand Lasalle, the founder of the German social democratic party, deserve to be mentioned. In political life, the Jews made a lasting contribution in the field of journalism. In the late nineteenth century, the German liberal and democratic as well as social democratic press were subject to obvious Jewish influence (Briem 1940, 287 f). Many Jews played a key role in the communist revolutions after World War I; suffice it mention names such as Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg. They were at the helm of the Spartacus League, which was founded after the November revolution in 1918 and which subsequently reconstituted itself as the German communist party (Briem 1940, 293). Contemporary Russian nationalists in general, and ethnocentrists in particular, never forget to emphasise how many Jews occupied high posts in the Bolshevik establishment of the 1920s and early 1930s. 72 SA (Sturmabteilung, Storm Detachment). See the title-word SA in Snyder 1998, 304. 73 The final solution (Endlösung). The cover name of Hitler’s plan to exterminate all the Jews in Europe. Today, another name—the Holocaust—has become more frequent in research as well as in discussions concerning the Jews’ fate in the Third Reich. In a way, the Final Solution represented the ultimate consequence of pseudoscientific racism. The extermination project that started in 1942 resulted in the annihilation of about 6 million Jews in concentration camps before World War II was over. 74 SS (Schutzstaffel; Elite Guard). Originally the personal guard of Hitler but later transformed into a mass army on which was to rest the ultimate exercise of nazi power. The SS served as a political police dedicated to maintain the principles of national socialism. Later it was assigned the duty of administering concentration camps and extermination camps (see the titleword SS in Snyder 1998, 329 f). 75 National soul searching. In an article published in 1991, A.Zubov claims that the Russians are incapable of national soul searching. It is a characteristic that set them apart even from the Germans, who have already confessed their guilt. ‘This is a sad fact, which the politicians must take into account’ (Zubov 1991, 3). A few months later, in December 1991, L.Bezymenskii used the periodical Novoe vremia, whose correspondent he was, as a forum for his view that it was most unfortunate that ‘not

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a single one of the newly founded Russian parties had seen fit to call upon its sympathisers to stand up against nationalism, chauvinism and antiSemitism’ (Bezymenskii 1991, 18). 76 Other versions of the conspiracy theory. Russian pamphlet literature is full of different theories about the Jews’ alleged responsibility for what happened to Russia in the twentieth century, and even before in history. The anti-Jewish propaganda in contemporary Russia, is, in fact, differentiated in a way that might be modelled on German nazi propaganda. The brutal Jew-baiting is taylor-made for the benefit of the average citizen, while the educated classes are courted by theoretical, pseudoscientific analyses. Most Russian anti-Semitic publications, whether religious or secular, do belong to the first-mentioned category. A.Barkashov’s Azbuka Russkogo Natsionalista (The ABC of a Russian Nationalist) is a case in point. Among more sophisticated interpretations of the conspiracy theory like that of Igor Shafarevich, there are some writers whose contributions deserve to be mentioned: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s Lenin v Tsiurikhe (Lenin in Zurich) (1976); Viktor Belov’s Vsė vperedi (Everything is Still to Come) (1986); and I. Bickerman’s article Rossiia i russkoe evreistvo (1990). Generally, however, they seem to be rationalisations of sorts of the aforementioned Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Differentiated Russian anti-Semitism can, in fact, be described graphically, as shown in Figure 22. Traditional anti-Semitism

Modern anti-Semit

Popular anti-Semitism

Pamiat’ (Vasil’ev) V.Korchagin K.Begunov

RNE (Barkashov) V.Korchagin K.Begunov

Sophisticated anti-Semitism

V.Belov: Vsë vperedi

I.Shafarevich: Rusofobiia

Figure 22 Differentiated Russian anti-Semitism

77 The commitment of the Jews to the revolutionary movement. Shafarevich explains the inclination towards revolutionary terrorism many of the young Jews had by referring to a crisis that occurred within the Jewish congregations at the end of the nineteenth century. Yet, Shafarevich never clarifies what this crisis was all about. In our view, it was probably somehow related to the political turnabout in the wake of the assassination of Alexander II in 1881. The reactionary policies of his successor, Alexander III, shattered the hope for liberal and democratic reform. When the regime unleashed a wave of pogroms in the 1880s, a number of young Jews broke out of the isolation, which their religion had imposed on them, and joined forces with the political opposition. ‘Large parts of the Jewish youth were thus driven into opposition by the authorities. This provided the authorities with yet another pretext for the repression of the Jews and served as yet another argument against the freedom movement, which was portrayed as an instrument of the Jews’ (Valentin 1935, 73 f). 78 Mondialism is a derivative of the French le monde (the world). It denotes a certain

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ideology proposing the fusion of all states and nations into one planetary formation, the creation of a world government and the abolishment of all racial, ethnic, national and cultural barriers (see title word mondializm in Dugin 1999, 906). 79 ‘The ethno-cultural chain’. Begunov’s counter-argument against the ‘cosmopolitan’ concept world citizen. Man’s consciousness is turned towards nature and society, but this is possible only as he has certain ethno-cultural roots: the family, the clan, the tribe and the nationality. Begunov views human society as a battle field where national ideas struggle with secret cosmopolitan forces in history. The historical processes can be controlled only along the ethno-cultural chain with the help of the national idea. The aforementioned chain is described graphically as follows: Man→family→clan→tribe→nationality (national character) →the people→the nation→mankind (Begunov 1996, 391) 80 Comprador bourgeoisie. A derivative of the concept comprador signifying a merchant that serves as a mediator between foreign companies and the local market (cf., Schildts 1995, 111). Accordingly, the concept comprador bourgeoisie signifies that part of the bourgeoisie in a colonial or dependent country that serves as a mediator between the foreign capital and the local market. It is opposed by the rising national bougeoisie, that, as a rule, plays a central role in the anti-colonial struggle (national liberation war) against foreign rule and exploitation 81 The Cossack movement. In the 1990s, there was a Cossack renascence in parts of southern Russia. The considerably numerous extremists of the revival movement professed views close to fascism and national socialism (cf., Shenfield 2001, 78).

Conclusion

82 SMUTA. The four periods of smuta in Russian history are as follows: 1. The collapse of the Kievan state in 1200–1350; 2. The situation after Ivan IV in 1564–1613 called smutnoe vremia (The Time of Trouble); 3. The Bolshevik revolution in 1917–1921; 4. The dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991 and its aftermath.

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Author index

Agurskii, Mikhail 1, 18–4, 20–7, 211, 222 Aksiuchits, Viktor 32, 62, 182, 213 Alapuro, Risto 27, 222 Alekseev, Nikolai 16 Aleksii II, 60 Alexander I, 79, 121, 155, 220 Alexander II, 79, 155, 220 Alexander III, 79, 220 Allensworth, Wayne 1–2, 35–6, 69, 73, 74, 222 Altwater, Vasilii Admiral 18 Andreeva, Nina 1, 216, 222 Andropov, Iurii 171, 213 Anpilov, Viktor 48, 215–16 Antonov, Mikhail 31, 118, 120, 173, 179, 222 Aspaturian, Vernon V. 79, 86, 222 Astaf’ev, Mikhail 32, 48, 61,182 Astaf’ev, Viktor 42, 58, 60, 222 Avdeev, Vladimir 162 Baburin, Sergei 58–58, 62 Bachkatov, Nina 16, 229 Baranovsky, Vladimir 191, 222 Barkashov, Aleksandr xv, xvii, xxi, 3, 38, 40, 43, 46, 55, 58, 62, 65–9, 77, 89, 151, 160, 162, 164– 5, 169, 173, 175–80, 184, 186, 216, 219, 222 Barygin, Igor Nikolaevich 21–8, 222 Becker, Leena 5, 222 Bedürftig, Friedemann 13, 15, 62–6, 176, 210, 229 Begunov, Iurii xvii, 151, 160, 164–5, 169–74, 178–80, 218, 220, 222 Beilis, Mendel 156 Beliaev, Iurii 57, 58, 74 Belin, Laura 57, 65, 194, 222 Belov, Vasilii 29, 60, 219, 222 Berdiaev, Nikolai A. 209 Berezovsky, Boris 180, 194 Berlusconi, Silvio 38, 205 Besancon, Alain 153, 223 Bezymenskii, Lev A. 219, 223 Bickerman, Iosif M. 168, 219, 223 Bin Laden, Osama 195 Birman, Michael 33, 223

Author index

200

Biskupsky, Vassily 14, 211 Bismarck, Otto von 23 Bogdanova, Rita 39, 223 Boldyrev, Iurii 209 Bonner, Elena 192 Bormann, Martin 20 Bracher, Karl Dietrich 56, 223 Brezhnev, Leonid xiii, 20, 27–6, 123, 136, 154, 164, 171, 199, 213 Briem, Efraim 158, 218–19, 223 Brown, Archie 4, 222–24 Brusilov, Alexei 18 Buchanan, Pat 38 Bush, George W 205, 208 Carter, Stephen K. 2, 13, 18–5, 54, 211, 223 Catherine II, 86 Cato, Marcus Porcius 144 Chaadaev, Pëtr 5, 209 Chalidze, Valerii 1, 17–3, 31, 223 Chamberlain, Houston Stewart 158 Chernomyrdin, Viktor xxi, 49, 68, 121, 214 Chërnyi, Andrei 12 Chubais, Anatolii 46, 192, 214, 229 Churchill, Winston 43, 49 Clark, Bruce 48, 223 Clauzewitz, Carl von 23 Clover, Charles 122, 135, 137, 223 Coleridge, Samuel 9 Colloudon, Virginie 194 Danilevsky, Nikolai 12–7, 16, 20, 54, 87, 88, 138, 211 Davies, Robert W. 41–2, 47, 49–49, 223 Defelice, Renzo 56, 223 Devlin, Judith 2, 44, 185, 223 Dostoevsky, Fedor 140, 212 Dreyfus, Alfred 157 Dubcek, Alexander 30, 41 Dugin, Aleksandr xvi, xxi–1, 3–3, 7, 9, 11, 23, 42–42, 57–58, 61, 73, 83, 85–13, 88, 121–39, 142– 45, 214, 217, 220, 223 Duncan, Peter J.S. 2, 29, 36, 223 Dunlop, John B. xxi–2, 35, 26, 32, 54, 182, 223 Durham, Martin 119, 223 Duverger, Maurice 62, 223 Dzerzhinsky, Felix 170 Ehrenburg, Il’ia 21 Elletson, Harold 189, 224 Erin, Viktor 189

Author index

201

Fedorov, Boris 33 Fichte, Johann 10 Filatov, Viktor General 16, 211 Flew, Anthony 11, 224 Ford, Henry 174 Franco, Fransisco xx, 53, 132, 202 Frank, Semen L. 18, 224 Friedman, Milton 6, 33, 52 Friedrich II, 23 Gaidar, Yegor xx–xx, 33, 36, 39, 44, 63, 65, 71–6, 121, 183, 189, 224 Ganelin, Rafail S. 14, 211, 224 Gaulle, Charles de 132 Geust, Carl-Fredrik 35, 22, 224 Globachev, Mikhail 76, 224 Gobineau, Arthur de 158, 176 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von 9 Goldman, Marshall 34, 224 Gorbachev, Mikhail xiii–xiii, 24, 28, 36, 52, 72–72, 81, 121, 127, 170, 172, 213, 218 Goriacheva, Svetlana 76–76 Gorodetsky, Gabriel 43 Govorukhin, Stanislav 4, 48, 59, 214 Grachev, V. 74, 189, 224 Gritchin, Nikolay 66, 224 Gubenko, Nikolai 76–76 Gumilev, Lev 3, 8, 118, 138, 224 Gusinsky, Vladimir 180, 194 Haider, Jörg 38 Handelman, Stephen 34–3, 224 Haushofer, Karl 85, 87, 122, 135, 199, 217 Hayek, Friedrich von 6, 33, 52 Hegel, Friedrich 10, 20, 23 Hellin, Tomas 10, 40 Herder, Johann 10, 11 Herspring, Dale 53, 195, 223–25 Himmler, Heinrich 20, 42, 170, 211 Hoffmann, Joachim 43 Hosking, Geoffrey 2, 185, 224, 227 Huntington, Samuel 5–5, 36, 85–13, 125, 131, 135, 138–39, 206, 210, 224 Huskey, Eugene 193, 224 Hussein, Saddam 68, 207 Iakovlev, Aleksandr 30, 170, 172, 212–13 Iivonen, Jyrki 17–17, 225 Ioann, Metropolitan xix, 54, 60–3, 74 Ivan III, 212

Author index

202

Ivan IV, 221 Ivanov, Viktor 120, 173, 179 Jaroslavskii, Emel’ian 167 Johansson, Håkan 66–9, 225 Kamenev, Lev 18, 167, 170 Kant, Immanuel 9 Kasimovskii, Konstantin 55 Katys, Marina 60, 225 Kazintsev, Aleksandr 168, 225 Kerensky, Alexander 42 Khasbulatov, Ruslan 182 Khimich, Vadim 64, 225 Khodorkovsky, Mikhail 180, 194 Khomeini, Ayatollah Ruhollah 124 Khomiakov, Aleksei 80 Khrushchev, Nikita 28–6, 33, 123, 136 Kipp, Jacob W. 196, 225 Kirienko, Sergei 68, 74, 121, 180 Kjellen, Rudolf J. 85, 217 Klepikova, Elena 2, 40, 44, 67–2, 145–48 188–89, 228 Klerk, Frederik Willem de 41 Kolpakidi, Alaeksandr Ivanopvich 21–8, 222 Kondratenko, Nikolai 191 Korchagin, Viktor I. 160, 164, 174–75, 180, 225 Korzhakov, Aleksandr 189 Kostikov, V. 211, 225 Kovalëv, Sergei 192 Kozhinov, Vadim 3, 18, 164–65, 170, 225 Kozyrev, Andrei 189 Kuptsov, Valentin 72 Lammenais, Félicité de 9 Laqueur, Walter xiv, xxi, 2, 10, 12–15, 35, 23, 28, 30, 39, 45, 89, 119, 150, 171, 211, 225 Lasalle, Ferdinand 218 Latynina, Alla 163 Laufenberg, Heinrich 23 Le Pen, Jean-Marie 38, 40, 63, 68, 216 Lebed, Aleksandr xv, xx, 3, 46, 49, 53, 56–59, 62, 69–5, 73–9, 77, 88, 183, 185–87, 190–91, 202, 204, 214, 216, 224–25 Lenin, Vladimir 10, 17–4, 23, 32, 41, 48, 80, 123, 167, 170, 212, 217, 219, 225, 228 Leontiev, Konstantin 211 Liebermann, Uuria 171 Liebknecht, Karl 219 Limonov, Eduard 58 Lipman, Masha 194, 195, 225 Locke, John 9

Author index

203

Lukianov, Anatolii 72 Lukon, Vladimir 209 Luxemburg, Rosa 219 Lynch, Merrill 70, 225 Lysenko, Nikolai 57, 63 MacCauley, Martin 225 Machiavelli, Niccolo 20 Mackinder, Sir Halford 122, 199 Maistre, Joseph Marie de 9 Makashov, Albert 72, 180 Malinovskii, V.V. 225 Malyshev, Aleksandr 163, 225 Mandeville, Bernhard de 9 March, Luke 2, 20, 44, 53, 72, 81, 137, 183–184, 214, 223–225 Markov II, 211 Martin, Hans-Peter xviii, 4, 5, 38, 140, 223, 225–26 Marx, Karl 7, 41, 213, 218 McDaniel, Tim 2, 10, 33–2, 39–9, 45, 225 McFoul, Michael 194–95, 214, 225 Medved’ev, Roy 29 Messmer, Matthias 44, 225 Mitterand, François 132 Mlekhin, Leonid 43, 226 Modestov, Nikolai 34–3, 226 Moeller van den Bruck, Arthur 22 Mosse, George L. 4, 89, 153, 158–59, 161, 226 Mussolini, Benito xx–xx, 14, 125, 130, 217 Nazarov, Mikhail 48, 226 Nemtsov, Boris 46 Neumann, Iver B. 2, 185, 226 Niekisch, Ernst 87, 218 Nietzsche, Friedrich xvi, 89–17 Nikolai II, 48, 79, 156 Nikon, Patriarch 82, 209 Nilus, Sergei 12, 226 Nivat, Anne 187, 226 Novodvorskaia, Valeriia 44, 46, 214 Orttung, Robert W. 226 Osipov, Vladimir 48 Parfenov, Viktor 63, 65–9, 68, 216, 226 Parland, Thomas xii, 9, 11, 32, 45, 55, 58, 60, 72, 73, 80–80, 86, 88, 118, 120, 142, 155–56, 159, 162–65, 167, 175, 199, 210–11, 226 Pastukhov, Vladimir 27–4, 32, 226 Pedashenko, Alisa 40, 226

Author index

204

Peter I, 82, 86 Peter the Great 5, 32, 44, 78–79 Petrov, Rem 12, 192–93, 226 Peuranen, Erkki 8, 226 Pinkus, Benjamin 35–6, 155–56, 226 Pinochet, Augusto xv, xix, 44–6, 50, 53, 70, 84, 188, 196–97, 202 Pipes, Richard 11, 79, 86, 226 Plekhanov, Sergei 68, 226 Poltoranin, Mikhail 39, 223 Potanin, Vladimir 180 Pribylovsky, Vladimir 53, 227 Primakov, Evgenii 74, 183, 190 Prokhanov, Aleksandr 48, 57–58, 61, 121, 128 Puheloinen, Ari 86, 227 Pursiainen, Christer 118, 227 Putin, Vladimir xiii, xvii, 4, 46, 53, 66, 71, 82, 84, 127, 143–44, 146, 149, 153, 181–98, 201–204, 207–208, 223–25 Radyshevskii, Dmitrii 60, 227 Rasputin, Valentin 29 Remington, Thomas F. 53, 55, 193, 227 Remnick, David 4, 8, 33, 37, 46, 72, 227 Rokhlin, Lev 52 Roosevelt, Franklin D. 43, 49 Rosenberg, Alfred 14–15 Rstaki, Arsen 63, 227 Rutland, Peter 195, 224 Rutskoi, Aleksandr 32, 69, 182, 216 Sachs, Jeffrey 188 Sakharov, Andrei 29–7, 165, 192 Sakwa, Richard 4, 40, 67–2, 146, 194 Savitskii, Petr 124 Schelling, Friedrich 10 Schmitt, Carl 87, 122, 127, 218 Schumann, Harlad xviii, 4, 6, 38, 140, 225, 226 Schwartz-Bostunich, Gregor 14, 211 Scruton, Roger 2, 78, 85, 209–10, 212, 227 Sergeeva, Marina 63, 65–9, 68, 216, 226 Service, Robert 2, 68, 189, 192, 12–12, 227 Shafarevich, Igor xvii, 3, 9, 29–7, 48, 54, 58, 61, 74, 77, 89, 151, 160, 164–69, 171–72, 9–58, 180, 214, 217, 219–20, 227 Shakhrai, Sergei 213–14 Sharon, Ariel 205 Shatrov, Albert 66, 227 Shenfield, Stephen D. 2, 57, 74, 160–61, 163, 175, 176–78, 180, 184, 221, 227 Shevardnadze, Eduard 170 Shimanov, Genadii 31

Author index

205

Shlapentokh, Vladimir 35, 36, 227 Simonsen, Sven Gunnar 2, 67, 191–92, 227 Sinyavsky, Daniel 4, 33, 35, 37, 227 Sirotin, Vladimir 74 Slavin, Boris 46, 227 Slider, Darrell 192–93 Snychev, I.V. xix Snyder, Louis F. 4, 62, 219, 227 Sogrin, Vladimir 3, 32–33, 40, 213, 227 Soifer, Walerij 162, 227 Solonevich, Ivan 138 Solovei, Valerii D. 2, 67, 72–7, 228 Solovyov, Vladimir 2, 40, 67–2, 145, 148, 188–89 Solzhenitsyn xix, 3, 7–2, 22, 29–7, 36–7, 42, 43–4, 46, 48–49, 51, 54, 59, 60–3, 73, 75, 77, 80, 86, 88, 118, 127, 129, 141, 150–51, 153–54, 165–66, 168, 177, 194, 212, 214–17, 219, 227–28 Sombart, Werner 23 Soros, George 4, 35, 37–6, 140, 172, 214, 228 Soskovets, Oleg 189 Sotnikov, B. 164, 228 Spengler, Oswald xvi, 8, 20, 23, 89–17 Stalin, Josef 14–16, 19–6, 23–23, 28, 32, 41–4, 49, 80, 87, 89, 123, 138, 141, 152–54, 160–61, 165, 171, 178, 192–93, 195, 198, 211, 215 Stanley, Alessandra 71, 228 Stepashin, Sergei 127, 183, 189, 197 Stolypin, Petr 15, 45, 202, 214, 228 Strange, Susan 37–6, 228 Strasser, Gregor and Otto 23 Stroev, Egor 190 Struve, Nikita 86, 228 Suvorov, Viktor 42, 178, 228 Sverdlov, Iakov 167 Szamuely, Tibor 78, 227 Tolstoy, Count Aleksei 21 Tolz, Vera 2, 185, 191, 228 Toynbee, Arnold J. 138 Travkin, Nikolai 32, 182, 213–14 Treadgold, Donald W. 79, 228 Trotsky, Leon 19, 41, 73, 123, 167, 170 Trubetskoi, Prince Nikolai 16, 124 Tsukanov, Aleksandr 218, 228 Tvardovskii, 29, 212 Ugelvik Larsen, Stein 228 Ulybin, K. 45, 228 Urban, Joan Barth 2, 66, 72–7, 228 Urigashvili, Besik 66, 224 Ustrialov, Nikolai 20–7

Author index

206

Utechin, Sergej V. 15–1, 21, 80, 229 Utkin, Anatoly I. 2, 210, 229 Vakulovskii, Oleg 62 Valentin, Hugo 29, 72, 158, 220, 229 Varennikov, Valentin 72 Varshavchik, S. 62, 229 Vasil’ev, Dmitrii xix, 44–5, 56, 58, 60–3, 73, 120, 151, 160, 163, 175, 215 Vinberg, Fedor 14 Vishnevskii, Boris 229 Visuri, Pekka 85, 229 Vladimirovich, Kirill 211 Vlasov, General Andrei 15–1, 43–4 Voslensky, Mikhail 229 Wilson, Andrew 16, 229 Wolfheim, Fritz 23 Yanov, Alexander 2, 12, 13, 20, 31, 36, 212, 229 Yavlinsky, Grigorii xx–xx, 35, 68, 69, 81, 127, 192, 209, 214, 229 Yeltsin, xii–xv, xvii, xxi, 2–6, 6, 17, 25–2, 32–60, 67–4, 73, 75, 81, 84, 88, 121, 125–27, 129, 137, 139, 140, 144, 146, 149, 153, 162, 172, 176, 179–80, 182–83, 185–90, 192, 195, 199–200, 202– 203, 213–14, 216, 218, 223–24 Zentner, Christian 4, 13, 15, 62–6, 176, 210, 229 Zhirinovsky, Vladimir xv–xvi, xxi–xxi, 2–6, 38, 40, 44, 47, 48, 54–7, 59, 62–6, 65, 67–5, 73–9, 77, 82, 88, 120–21, 145–49, 162, 179, 182–83, 186, 188–90, 200, 202–203, 214, 216, 226, 228–29 Zhukov, Marshal Georgii K. 49, 73 Zinov’ev, Aleksandr 3, 229 Zinov’ev, Grigorii 18, 167, 170 Zolotov, Andrei 35, 229 Zubov, Andrei 70, 219, 229 Zyuganov, Genadii xii, xv–xvii, xxi–2, 3–6, 17, 24, 31, 44, 47, 48, 49–1, 52, 54–59, 62, 68, 69–77, 82, 83–15, 118, 120–21, 128, 137–45, 180–81, 183, 185–87, 190, 193, 200, 202–203, 207, 210, 216, 229

Subject index

activism 15, 19, 174 Afghanistan xvi, 57, 123, 131, 136, 148, 195 agents of influence 121, 170, 172 Altai 26, 44, 81, 173, 180, 183, 199 anarchy 44, 81, 118, 191, 199, 202, 219 anticommunism xv, 29, 50, 177, 213 anti-Semitism xv–xvi, xviii–xix, 11–8, 18, 29, 31, 52, 55–8, 60, 64, 82, 84, 118, 120, 125, 151, 154–60, 162–63, 165, 167, 171, 177, 187, 191, 200–201, 211, 219, 221; modern racial anti-Semitism 159; popular anti-Semitism 158, 163 Arctic Ocean 148 Ariosophy 161 Aryanism 83–83 asceticism 153–54 Athens 139 Atlanticism 121–24, 128, 130–34, 136, 138, 144 Atlanticists 123, 129–30, 134, 136 Austria 6, 38, 157 autarchy, xvi, 19, 23, 87, 129, 142, 184, 202 authoritarian/authoritarianism xiv–xv, xx, 15, 19, 25–2, 37, 45–6, 48, 69–3, 76, 81, 83, 122–24, 127, 129, 131, 141, 188, 193, 194, 196–97, 202, 204; police state authoritarianism xvii, 184–85 autocracy xv, 31, 76, 78–79, 81, 201, 210–11; ideocratic autocracy xv, 80; theocratic autocracy 78 Belarus 17, 58, 66, 133, 143, 211 Black Hundred xiv, xx, 2–2, 12–8, 174, 176, 177, 209; Black Hundredness xix, 2, 177, 209 Blut und Boden-philosophy 176, 214 Bolshevik 3, 7, 13–15, 17–5, 44, 48, 58–3, 72–7, 80, 128, 165, 167, 170–72, 178, 198, 204, 210– 11, 216–17, 219, 221, 223–24; national bolsheviks 35, 21, 22, 29, 52, 215 Bolshevism xv, 1, 13, 15–23, 29–6, 44, 46–7, 51, 74, 87, 89–18, 128, 137, 159, 163–64, 168–69, 174, 200–201, 218; national bolshevism xiv, 1, 16, 18–23, 28–6, 87, 89–18, 128, 137, 163, 200, 218; German national bolshevism 21, 218 capitalism xv, 7, 26–4, 31, 34–5, 38–9, 69, 71, 75, 120, 139–40, 142, 157–58, 166, 172, 194, 205, 218;

Subject index

208

criminal capitalism xvii, 34, 52; robber capitalism xiv, 24, 34, 180, 194, 201; shadow capitalism 198 Carthage 122, 123, 125, 144 Catholicism 11, 86, 210 Chechnya xvi, 35, 40, 46, 49, 83–10, 127, 129, 131, 137, 143–44, 149, 182–83, 189–90, 192, 195– 96, 208, 225 Cheka 167, 170 CIA 172, 195 civilisations xvi, 2, 5–9 8, 12, 16, 83, 85–3, 118, 128–9, 135, 137–9, 143–4, 150, 172, 206, 210; commercial civilisation 124; Eurasian civilisation 127; military-authoritarian civilisation 124 cold war 35, 37, 122, 125, 131, 195 collectivism xii, 123 commercialisation 28, 60, 122 communism xxi, 7, 32, 35, 41, 43, 46, 47, 71, 118, 121, 151, 158, 218; CPSU 29, 31–9, 33, 52, 71, 80–81, 188, 213, 216, 217; KPD 35, 21, 22; nationalist-minded communists 5; Russian Communist Party 31, 71, 210, 213, 216; Russian Communist Workers’ Party 216 comprador bourgeoisie 172 Confederation of Grossraums 128–29 conservatism xv, xviii, xix–1, 6, 9–5, 18, 26, 50, 88, 124, 201, 223; pragmatic conservatism 50; radical conservatism xiv, 6–2, 18, 55, 82; traditional conservatism xxi, 45, 86; conservative backlash xiii, 5–26, 38, 82, 152; conservative communists 58, 215; conservative nationalism xii, xiii, xvii, 23, 31, 185, 196, 199, 205, 214; conservative thought xiii–xiv, 2, 9, 23, 82, 138, 177, 199, 200, 202 conspiracy theory xvi, xviii, 119, 120, 158, 160, 162, 163, 164–65, 169, 173, 214, 219; worldwide Jewish conspiracy 11; Zionist-Masonic conspiracy 60 constitutional rule 79, 82 consumerism 139, 153, 154 corporatism 84, 177 cosmopolitanism 29, 121, 154, 156, 159, 212 Darwinism xx, 39; social Darwinism xiv, xvii, 37, 39–9, 50, 82, 89, 140, 205 democracy xviii, 4, 6–6, 10, 15, 19, 24, 31, 33–2, 38–8, 41–1, 44–5, 48, 71, 81, 84, 85, 89, 123–25, 127, 135, 139–41, 144, 147, 160, 166, 184, 194, 197, 204, 225; formal democracy 146, 184, 197; multi-party democracy 81, 183; representative democracy 146; democratic centralism 80, 83, 194;

Subject index

209

democratic pluralism 146; democratic socialism 29, 41 Democratic Party of Russia 2, 32, 67, 213 Democratic Union 214 derzhavniki 54, 55, 72, 75–76, 215 Deutsche Volksunion 68 Developmental optimism 7 DPA 53 Dreyfus affair 157 Duma xxi, 12, 34, 40–40, 47, 50, 56, 57, 62, 65, 67–3, 72, 76–76, 121, 182–84, 186, 188–91, 193– 94, 204, 209, 211, 214, 216 economy xvii, xx, 3, 8, 25, 27, 33–33, 40, 45–6, 73, 75, 81, 85, 129, 140, 142, 148, 166, 172, 175, 184, 191, 194, 196–97, 199, 205, 217; command economy 27; market economy xvii, 24–2, 27, 32–3, 81, 85, 127–29, 204, 213; monetary economy, 26–4, 218 Edinaia Rossiia 53, 193, 204 Edinstvo xv, 55, 175 egalitarianism xv, 41 Elementy 57, 63 empire xiii, xvi–xvii, xx–2, 12, 15, 17–3, 24, 26, 32, 35–4, 39–9, 47–8, 51–3, 54–7, 58, 67–1, 73, 75, 78, 79, 81, 83, 86–15, 125–30, 136, 138–39, 145–46, 148–51, 155, 162, 172, 185, 189, 199, 201, 211, 213, 217–18; multinational empire xvi, 125 Enlightenment xiv, xix, 8–3, 77, 82, 88, 160, 166, 199 establishment xvii, 20, 27–7, 33–2, 38, 47, 52, 54, 60, 67–4, 80, 84, 87–15, 121, 123, 137, 145–46, 149, 154, 165, 185, 189, 191, 207, 212, 215, 219 ethnocentrism 150, 151, 152, 153, 160 ethnocentrists 76, 150, 152, 153, 155, 160, 173, 186, 200, 219; ethnocultural chain 169 ethnogenesis 8, 118 etnotsentristy 53, 54, 215 eugenics xv–xvii, 64–8, 160–62, 215 Eurasian/Eurasians 15, 16–2, 21, 53–7, 73, 86, 87–32, 134, 136–37, 139, 144, 150, 163, 172, 185– 86, 223; Eurasianism xv, 14, 16–2, 23, 61, 87, 89–18, 121–24, 137–38, 145, 207, 227; neo-Eurasianism 2, 23, 89, 121–22, 128, 150; neo-Eurasians 52–5, 87, 120–22, 127, 128, 130 expansionism 86, 127, 199 extreme right xvi, xviii, xxi, 6, 12–9, 16–3, 29, 31, 40, 42, 45, 53, 55–9, 60, 62–6, 72, 89, 125–26, 152, 159, 161, 164, 171, 175, 199, 200, 209, 214 fascism xii, xiii, xv, xviii, xix, 1, 4, 6, 9, 13, 15–1, 24, 51, 56–9, 62–5, 64–8, 77, 89, 150, 152, 164, 171, 175–77, 184, 202–203, 205, 207, 221, 228 fifth column 42, 47, 120, 121, 173, 179 Final Solution 14, 20, 159, 219 finlandisation 132

Subject index

210

FNS 58, 182 France xviii, xx, 6, 22, 28, 38, 41, 43, 57, 63, 77–77, 87, 119, 132, 136, 144–45, 157, 205, 207, 208, 209 Front National 63, 68 FSB 183, 192, 193, 195 geopolitics xvi, xx, 16, 40, 50, 62, 68, 71, 73, 82, 84–17, 137, 149, 185, 202, 217, 218 Germanophilia 132, 146 Germany xvi, xviii, 9, 11–15, 17, 18–8, 24, 35–4, 43, 62, 63, 78, 89, 119, 122–23, 129–33, 135, 137, 144–46, 151–53, 155–59, 161, 163, 177–78, 199–201, 207–208, 211, 217, 218, 225 globalisation, xiv, xvi, xviii, 4, 5–6, 36–6, 40, 121, 129, 140, 149, 196, 199, 202–203, 205–206 globalism, 85 gosudarstvenniki 54–6, 215 Great Britain xviii, 18, 22, 43, 122, 131, 136, 207, 227 great power chauvinism 51, 145 Great Russians 150–51, 173 Grossraum 127, 137, 147, 218 GRU 123 GULAG archipelago 167 heartland 122, 130–31, 137, 143 Hitlerism 22, 176 Iakovlev affair 30, 212 ideocracy 81–81, 123 IMF 36, 170, 184, 185 impeachment 183, 186 imperialism xv, 23, 128, 138, 211 imperial expansionism 11, 127; traditional imperialism 128 individualism 9, 11, 38, 86, 123–24, 141, 144, 198, 202 industrialism 39, 153; industrialisation xvii, 7, 31, 125, 152–53, 211 inequality 50 inner enemies 46, 126, 151, 163, 179 Islam 6, 129, 144 isolationism 35, 26, 30, 65, 75, 126, 142, 151, 184, 198 Istanbul 148 Izvestiya 4, 42, 192 Jewish mafia 174–75 Jewish question 13, 73, 154, 158, 160, 163–64 Jewry 12–8, 168–70, 177–78 Judaism 154, 169, 171 KGB 29, 43, 62, 82, 123, 171, 192, 211 Komintern 35

Subject index

211

Komsomol 20 Kosovo crisis 183 Kuril Islands 135 laissez-faire 37–7, 205 land power 125 Latin America xvi, xx, 69 LDPR xxi, 47, 56, 59, 63, 65, 67–4, 77, 146, 149, 179, 182, 184, 186–87, 190, 202, 216 Lebensraum 135, 217 Ledokol (The Ice-breaker) 178 liberalisation 27, 134, 179, 199 liberalism xiii–xv, xvii, xix–2, 6–7, 10, 19–5, 31, 41, 45, 50–1, 52–4, 60–3, 75, 77, 85, 89, 119, 122, 129–30, 139–40, 150, 170, 185, 197–98, 209, 213, 215; neoliberalism xix–1, 3, 5–6, 39–9, 50, 52, 139–40, 205, 207 Libya 131, 136, 195 mafia 27, 34–3, 38, 40, 66, 191, 214, 226 malyi narod 165–69, 178 maritime Greece, 122 Marxism xii–xv, xviii, xix–3, 6–7, 10, 16, 18–5, 21–23, 28–6, 32–32, 41, 48, 51–4, 55, 58, 60–3, 71, 72, 75, 77, 80, 85, 87, 119, 122, 128, 148, 156, 185, 198, 212, 214–15, 226 Marxism-Leninism xii, 1, 10, 23, 28–6, 31–32, 48, 51–4, 55, 60, 71, 72, 75, 80, 122, 128, 148, 156, 198, 226 Masonry 169–71 Masons xvi–xvii, xviii, 61, 119–20, 163, 169 mechanistic 7, 9, 89 Mediterranean Sea 148 Mein Kampf 14, 211 Mitteleuropa 132, 135, 137, 161 modernisation xiii–xv, xvii–xvii, xx–xx, 5, 7, 8–3, 11, 24, 31–32, 45, 60–4, 63, 78, 125, 138, 152– 53, 156, 183–84, 198–99, 203, 218 Molodaia gvardiia 30, 163–64, 225, 228 monarchism xiii, 13, 15, 29, 51, 56, 60, 160, 209, 214 mondialism 169 Mongol-Tatar domination 199 multipolar world xvi, 138, 142, 147, 207 Muscovite Russia 16, 78–79, 85, 218 Napoleonic wars 157 Nash sovremennik 61, 120, 165, 168, 222–23, 225, 227–29 Nasledie predkov 162, 222 national identity 18, 37, 169, 218 national patriotism xiv, 29, 31, 52, 55, 59, 63, 65, 74, 83, 130, 173, 176, 184; national patriots xii, xix, xxi, 2, 7–2, 16–3, 30, 39, 45–6, 49, 53–41, 60, 76, 82, 87, 89, 119, 123, 125, 130, 162–3, 165, 168, 172, 196, 200, 212–13 national reconciliation xiv, 46–7, 48–50, 58 national socialism xii–xv, xvii, xix, 3, 8–3, 12–15, 35, 21, 23, 51, 55–8, 61–5, 64–8, 68, 76–77, 89, 121, 146, 152, 155, 158, 160, 175–76, 180, 184, 202, 205, 209, 214–15, 219, 221;

Subject index

212

German national socialism xiii, 3, 13, 35, 42, 63, 89, 138, 152, 161, 200–201, 209; rightist national socialism 21; Russian national socialism xxi, 200 national state 9, 125–26, 130, 156–57, 176, 180, 200, 205; national-labour state 177 nationalisation 196 nationalism xii–xv, xvii, xix, 2–5, 4, 9–5, 18–5, 21, 24, 27, 28–32, 47–8, 49–1, 53–7, 58, 59–4, 63, 67, 69, 71, 75–77, 83, 86–16, 118, 121, 125, 143, 145–46, 150, 154, 156, 159–60, 173, 176, 179, 184, 187, 189, 201, 203–205, 211–15, 219; nationalism pur sang 150; ethnic nationalism xv–xvi, 151; secularised nationalism xiii NATO enlargement 183, 191 Natsiia 57 NEP 18, 42, 211 New Right xii, 2, 61, 200, 226 new Russians 35–4, 39 New World Order 119, 139 NKVD 123, 211 nomenklatura 27–4, 32, 34 nomenklatura bourgeoisie 27–4 nomenklaturnaia burzhuaziia 27 North Korea 131 Nouvelle Droite xx Novgorod 30, 141 Novyi mir 30, 212, 224, 227, 229 NRPR 57–58, 63 NSDAP 21, 23, 200, 222 NTS 14–15, 16, 177 occultism xxi, 89–17, 120, 138, 159, 162, 201–202 Okhranka 12, 209 Old Believers 82, 209 Old Right 2, 61, 200 oligarchs 35, 78, 81, 162, 180, 183–84, 187, 192, 194–97, 204 one-party state 80 organic 9–3, 11, 15–1, 88–17, 124, 142, 144 Orthodoxy xiii, xix–3, 5–9, 9, 10–7, 15–15, 21, 29, 32, 49–51, 56, 58–2, 62, 71, 73, 77, 79, 80, 82, 86, 129, 144, 160, 163, 201, 209–10, 226; Orthodox fundamentalists 160, 163 Pacific Ocean 148 pagan religion 159 Pakistan 136 Palestine 136 Panslavism xx, 11, 87, 88 Parliament 40, 50, 70, 81, 182, 188, 193 Party of Russian Unity and Concord 213

Subject index

213

patrimonialism 210 patriotism 35, 28, 47, 48, 60, 72, 119, 172, 176, 192 Peloponnesian war 122 perestroika 1, 28, 43, 55, 121, 141, 168, 172, 179, 223; postperestroika 172 pessimism xv, 7, 50, 124, 210 Pinochet-syndrome 50, 84, 188 plutocracy 123, 124 pochvenniki 29, 150, 152–53, 212, 215 police state xv, xvii, xx, 40, 68, 71, 83, 146, 184–85, 188, 194, 195–96, 202, 206, 208, 211 political left 21, 40, 71, 174 political pluralism 166 political right xx–2, 32, 174 pragmatics 76 Pravda 46, 59, 74, 226–27 presidential regime 146 presidential rule 26, 44, 188 privatisation, 26, 34, 75, 196, 214 Protestantism 11, 86, 210 Protocols of the Elders of Zion xii–xvii, 56, 119, 158, 163, 164, 170, 177, 209, 219 Pskov 30 Punic wars 122 racial biology xvi–xvii, 13, 62, 64, 157 racial purity 126, 158, 160, 176 racism xv–xvi, 9, 41, 53, 55, 69, 82–11, 118, 125, 149–50, 152–82, 200–202, 206–207, 215, 219; biological racism xx radicals 13, 23, 76, 167 Rapallo 35, 22, 132 Rechtstaat 20, 146, 212 Red Army 17, 35, 21–8, 44 red patriotism 17 red-browns 1, 2, 51, 184, 186, 188, 190–91, 195, 203 Reformation 199 Reichswehr 35, 22 religious messianism xv, 86 Renaissance, 88, 199 revolution, xvii, 3, 13, 17, 23, 27, 31–9, 34, 41, 48, 60, 65, 72, 80–81, 136, 153, 158, 165, 168, 171, 178, 180, 204, 206, 211, 213, 219, 221, 223; August revolution 31, 35, 71; conservative revolution xix, 7, 22–23; French Revolution 9, 31, 119, 166; German conservative revolution 21–9; national revolution xix, 21–9; world revolution 17–4 RFP 14 right-wing radicalism xx, 38 RNE xv, xxi, 55–59, 62, 65–66, 74, 77–77, 160–61, 175–77, 179–81, 184, 186, 191, 200–202, 216

Subject index

214

RNS 57–58, 63–7 ROD 64, 126 Rome 11, 86, 122–23, 217, 223 ROS 57–58, 62, 186 rule of law xviii, 39, 50–1, 81, 85, 135, 212 Russian collaborators 43 Russian Federation 1, 2, 40, 52, 56, 61, 66, 71, 74–75, 81, 87, 125–26, 172, 189, 199, 215 Russian Idea xviii, xix, 2, 6, 82, 174, 225 Russian Liberation Army (ROA) 44 Russian national socialism xxi, 200 Russian Orthodox Church 10, 160, 167, 209, 215 Russian People’s Republican Party 56, 69 Russian radical right-wing tradition xix Russianness 54, 83, 125, 150, 154 Russkii poriadok 4, 66 Russophobia 73, 154, 162, 164–66, 168, 169, 214 SA 21, 42, 159, 212, 219 samizdat 1, 29, 52, 60, 118, 154, 159, 165 Satan 60, 163 sea power 125 second and third party secretaries 31 secularisation xviii, 7, 10, 35, 60, 77–80, 82–82, 159, 175, 198, 202 self-restriction 141 self-sufficiency (samodostatochnost) 118 separate path 10, 35, 28, 153, 207 Shturmovik 57 Siberia 49, 135, 199 skinheads 40, 63, 181, 184–85, 202–203 Slavophilism 10–6, 20, 54, 80, 82, 87, 177, 198, 210–12 smuta 118, 204, 221 social democracy 18–5, 41, 74, 205 social democrats 71, 75–76, 218 socialism xii, xiii, xvi, 7, 13, 19–5, 21, 22, 28–7, 32, 33, 41, 46, 58, 64–8, 69, 89, 120, 124, 162, 165–66, 176, 202–203, 205, 207, 213, 218; feudal socialism 31 Society of Nav 161 Soiuz venedov 74, 159 solidarism 15 Sovetskaia Rossiia 74, 222 Soviet Russia xiv, 2, 3, 16–2, 18–5, 21–8, 23–1, 35, 42, 52, 62, 74, 81, 87, 119, 121, 125, 153, 162, 171, 200–202, 204, 214, 225 SS 211, 219 Stalinism 1, 41, 216 Stalinist 1, 27, 30, 32, 50, 72, 74, 164, 215; Stalinist paper Bolshevik 73 statism xv, 19, 53, 68, 127, 146, 150 storm troopers xii, 65–9, 191

Subject index sustainable development 141–43 SVR 183 Syria 136 Teheran 131, 136 The Last Push to the South 147, 162, 190 the Petersburg period 78, 217 Third Reich 2, 4, 20, 211, 219, 226–27 Transitions 4, 216, 226, 227 Trilateral Commission 136, 170 Ukraine 17, 58, 66, 133–34, 143, 211 Ukrainians 151, 173 Union of Rightist Forces, xx Unity (Edinstvo) 53 universalism xvi, 5, 75, 85, 138, 147 urbanisation xviii, 7, 27, 30, 152 urbanism 87, 153 Veche 30–8, 118, 141, 212 village writers 51, 152 Völkisch thought 152–54, 160, 199 Völkisch Weltanschauung 88, 155 Washington 196, 228 Wehrmacht 15 Weimar Republic 199 welfare state 36–6, 40, 206 Werewolf Legion 63, 215 Western city culture 152 Westernisers xiv, 5, 123, 209 white activism 15 white power-mentality xv whites 49–58, 161 World Bank 35, 184 world community 35 world government 127, 220 world hegemony xviii, 129, 138–39, 142, 171 Zavtra 4, 57, 74, 128 zemskii sobor 80 zhidomasonskii zagovor 119 Zionism 154, 168–71

215