Russian Nationalism and the National Reassertion of Russia

Marlene Laruelle

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2009
• eBook ISBN: 9781134013616
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Military action in South Ossetia, growing tensions with the United States and NATO, and Russia's relationship with the European Union demonstrate how the issue of Russian nationalism is increasingly at the heart of the international political agenda.This book considers a wide range of aspects of Russian nationalism, focussing on the Putin period. It discusses the development of Russian nationalism, including in the Soviet era, and examines how Russian nationalism grows out of – or is related to – ideology, culture, racism, religion and intellectual thinking, and demonstrates how Russian nationalism affects many aspects of Russian society, politics and foreign policy. This book examines the different socio-political phenomena which are variously defined as 'nationalism', 'patriotism' and 'xenophobia'. As Russia reasserts itself in the world, with Russian nationalism as one of the key driving forces in this process, an understanding of Russian nationalism is essential for understanding the dynamics of contemporary international relations.

1
Introduction

Marlène Laruelle

In the second half of the 1970s there was a significant rise in the number of works published on contemporary Russian nationalism. Authors such as John Dunlop, Alexander Yanov, and William Laqueur worked for many decades to bring attention to bear on a phenomenon that was formerly little known and barely distinguishable from Soviet nationalism.¹ Then, during the 1990s, after the disappearance of the Soviet Union, several works appeared that focused on the rise of the extreme right and on the risk of “fascization,” even of “Nazification,” of post-Soviet Russia.² Today, a new set of works have emerged on the question of Russian nationalism, whose focal point no longer involves analyzing small groupuscules to ascertain how marginal or, on the contrary, how representative they are, but which attempt to account for a social, cultural, and political field that is in fact much more widespread. Indeed, in the Russian Federation today, nationalism comprises the common denominator, the constitutive element of social consensus and of “political correctness.” Nationalist issues, expressed under the label patriotism, have become defining components of Russia’s political language in the sense that all parties speak it. No public figure, regardless of his or her functions, is able to acquire political legitimacy without mentioning his or her attachment to the Russian motherland and without justifying his or her policy choices in terms of the nation’s supreme interests.

Although this patriotic rhetoric is common in many countries, it has taken on new meanings and forms for Russia over the past decade. The patriotism instituted by the Kremlin must be analyzed as an ideology of action, as the will to remobilize a Russian society whose daily experience is detached from the state. The authorities indeed expect that their excessive promotion of patriotism will yield precise results, including greater respect for the army and for military service, more paying of taxes, less corruption and flouting of the law, consumption of national products to revive the economy, increased charitable social works, and a more efficient organization of structures for supervising youth. This patriotic refrain now forms the key element in deciding the legitimacy or illegitimacy of policy proposals made to Russian society. The current Russian political regime thus cannot be understood as a “return to the USSR”; it reveals a type of Westernization and modernization that, paradoxically, is now being pursued through authoritarianism and nationalism. To get a fair picture of this Russian nationalism, it is therefore necessary to look not only at the political but also at the sociological developments of Russian society as a whole.

Methodological orientation

Any reflection on Russian nationalism first requires an attempted definition of the phenomenon under consideration. Continual characterizations of it as “vague,” “multiform,” or “complex” often do no more than reveal the absence of an appropriate model of analysis. Our guiding postulate in this regard is that a definition is no more than an instrument, and that defining nationalism prematurely and too rigidly would presuppose the existence of an essence of the phenomenon. The obvious advantage of an empirical approach is that it avoids getting bogged down in concepts and enables a subsequent refinement of the theoretical elements being used. So, we will begin with a broad interpretation of nationalism, understood simply as a system of thought in which the nation occupies a predominant position. An important element of discussion is indeed the degree of “predominance,” such that “nationalism” is considered to have a more pronounced consciousness of national belonging than that which every individual might share.

Our approach to the phenomenon of Russian nationalism is informed by some key methodological choices, and primarily by the desire to maintain an historical perspective on the phenomenon. This is so for several reasons. The first is to avoid falling into the trap of thinking that nationalism is undergoing a “renaissance” in post-Soviet space. Nationalism was not born of the collapse of the communist regime; it existed underneath and in it, much more than against it, and had only to adapt itself to the events of 1991. The main doctrines in force today, and the personal and ideological divisions existing within the various movements, often have roots in previously conflicting aspects of Soviet traditions. The idea that a renewal of nineteenth-century nationalist thinking is currently under way, then, is an illusion. Despite recurrent references to great authors of that century, and the frequent republication of their works, the themes of contemporary Russian nationalism find their fundamental inspiration in the Soviet twentieth century and, to a lesser degree, in the emigration of the interwar period. Though the tsarist era may attract nostalgia and its thinkers are afforded respect out of principle, the link to both has been broken. The historical lines of thought leading to contemporary nationalism are of more recent date. Russian nationalism ought therefore to be conceived of not as in opposition to the Soviet experience, but as the continuation of a phenomenon that existed within it.

The second reason for focusing attention on history aims at a more cautious use of several doctrinal terms currently in circulation. In this respect, “fascism,” as well as “national Bolshevism” or “Eurasianism,” will be viewed as doctrines that once had precise historical existences but are now at an end. These terms cannot therefore be applied to contemporary cases unless used in conjunction with the prefix “neo,” or else, with parsimony, when the actors themselves make the parallel or when the connection seems convincing. The point here is not simply to propose a correct classification of apparently highly specialized intellectual lineages, but to prevent the development of a vocabulary that is uncertain and systematically discriminating, and that makes analysis impossible. Prospective approaches to the phenomenon of nationalism will likewise be rejected. The aim is not to predict the possibility of the “extremists” taking power, nor to adopt a catastrophist scenario based on supposed parallels between post-Soviet Russia and Weimar Germany, two already standard themes of studies on the radical Russian right.³

The second methodological choice concerns the degree of inclusion implied by the term “nationalism.” There can be no question here of excluding from “nationalism” so-called imperialist or statist currents, as some authors have repeatedly suggested be done. This is first and foremost because the term “nation” that is contained within the term “nationalism” can refer to a vision of the collective that can be either ethnic or political. Ethnocentrism and nationalism are therefore not synonymous terms, since the first is a possible, but not a necessary, element of the second. Further, though the Russian tradition is often said to be shaped by the German or Central European model of an apolitical cultural nation, it cannot be reduced to it. In Russia there is also a strong statist tradition grounded in a dynastic fidelity to the Romanovs, as well as an ideological one based on the construction of a Soviet state. Despite the well-known, and often exaggerated, conflicts that pit apologists for the state against partisans of an ethnic approach to the nation, the Kremlin has decided to promote both models of the nation in parallel, in the hope that they are not contradictory.

The nationalist phenomenon has always elicited many various readings, which can be schematically divided into two overarching categories, one primordialist, the other constructivist. The present work subscribes to the second perspective: it undermines from the outset the notion that there is a unity to the phenomenon of nationalism, and emphasizes its constructed character. Identity is not immutable; it is not a given but a human construction. It is subject to incessant re-elaboration, creating diverse symbols and constructions that are modifiable over time. We also adopt a constructivist approach to the fact that the Soviet Union institutionalized collective identities and gave to national belonging a role as social marker. The Soviet regime was in fact constructed, with interruptions in the 1930s, through a procedure involving “positive discrimination” toward national minorities, which were assigned, to various degrees defined by the central authorities, identities, territories, and specific administrative and cultural rights.⁴ This institutionalization contributed to transforming nationalism into an instrument in the struggle for power, and in part explains the – at first glance – surprising ability of the elite to shift from points of reference that were officially Marxist-Leninist to discourses centred on the defence of national and/or ethnic interests.

This instrumentalist approach makes it possible to avoid the discussion – irresolvable with regard to the question – about whether Soviet and post-Soviet Russian nationalism was born as a response to that of the other peoples of the USSR or of the Russian Federation, or whether, on the contrary, it was the precursor of the latter and inspired them.⁵ The question of knowing whether Russian nationalism is reactionary effectively supposes a form of naturalness in the reaction, and forgets the fact that all the populations of this space were subject to similar political and social processes. All nationalists, Russian and otherwise, claimed that a power with internationalist pretensions had dispossessed them of a part of their rights. The crucial aspect here is therefore not to know “who started it” but to take note that, just like its neighbors, Russian nationalism entertains an ambiguous relation to what many see as being its own state and rule. Like the other nationalisms of the region, Russian nationalism also claims to suffer from “minority syndromes,” and it also engages in its own idealization of the people as “victim,” regardless of the fact that other nationalisms see it as enjoying all the advantages of a majority.

Nationalism as a modern phenomenon

The phenomenon of borrowing from the West is not new in Russia. As early as the 1820s–1840s the Slavophile movements undertook to import that recently invented product, national sentiment, after removing its German label, and ended up by transforming the term “Enlightenment” into that of “West” and “romanticism” into that of “Russia.”⁶ Indeed, from the nineteenth century on, Russian nationalism has been built on feelings of European domination and Western intellectual colonization. These feelings produced an “ideology of ressentiment”⁷ provoked by the sense that, after the reforms of Peter the Great, Russians were no longer the makers of their own civilization. Russian nationalism, then, has always been “imitative of and in competition with”⁸ Western nationalism.

This fact is further confirmed by the extent to which Russia today participates, albeit involuntarily, in European life. Its populist politicians, its neo-Nazi groupuscules, its identity conflicts, its nostalgia for a bygone era, and its fears of the changes induced by globalization all place it squarely within Europe and in step with Western countries, whether the Russian nationalists recognize that or not. Far from being archaic, nationalism is an expression of the modernity in which contemporary Russia lives. It is illustrative of the processes of massive social self-devalorization that resulted from the rapid changes of the past two decades, and as such can be read as an attempt to provide a spokesperson for the outcasts of modernization in its post-Soviet version. Nationalism among the elites is instead presented as asserting the needs of identity, of collectivity, and of religious feeling in the contemporary world, and is seen as a political response to the global evolutions of societies.⁹

In Russian, as in English, the word “patriotism” possesses a positive aura, and is presented as a respectable and moral way to defend one’s country. In English, “nationalism” designates both national construction and an ideology of national supremacy. In Russian, though, the term is more specific. In the Soviet tradition, “nationalism” was a term that designated aggressive attitudes in which the interests of one ethnic group were placed above those of others, whereas folkloric glorifications of one’s “nationality” were, on the contrary, perceived to be positive and harmless. “Nationalism” was therefore seen as the exaggerated form of a supposedly natural phenomenon – being proud of one’s nation – and as self-evident by virtue of each individual’s belonging to a national collective. However, the introduction of Western European terminology and concepts in the 1990s has added to the definitional complexity, as new definitions have occasionally come to superimpose themselves over the old ones. In point of fact, several Russian nationalist movements today portray “nationalism” as a political necessity for Russia in its desire to become a modern nation like any other. However, there are also, in contrast, academic currents concerned about the new official “patrioti...

Table of contents

• Routledge contemporary Russia and Eastern Europe series
• Contents
• Figures
• Tables
• Contributors
• Foreword
• 1 Introduction
• Part I Historical and conceptual issues in the study of Russian nationalism
• Part II The “far right” and “New Right”
• Part III Intellectual and sociological niches of contemporary Russian nationalism
• Part IV Construction of an official patriotism
• Index