| personalia | статистика | факты | мнения | консультации | новости |
Антисемитизм в РоссииThe task I set myself in writing this book was to assess the prospects of fascism in post-Soviet Russia. Is fascism if not an inevitable then at least a plausible outcome of the prolonged socio-economic crisis, as the popular analogy with Weimar Germany implies? Or is Russian fascism, as others have argued, a marginal phenomenon, and bound to remain marginal for deep structural reasons?First I needed a workable concept of "fascism." My studies led me to understand fascism -- to use the expressions of the Italian fascist philosopher Julius Evola -- as "a rebellion against the modern world," an attempt to return to "the sacral and virile values" of the times before the Enlightenment and the popular upheavals of recent centuries. But unlike ordinary reactionaries, who want simply to return to a bygone age, fascists aim to harness mass discontent to build a "revolutionary" new order -- as do bolsheviks, the difference being that the fascists' new order is dedicated to the revival of old pre-modern values.
The next question I posed was: Does Russia have a fascist cultural or political tradition? I concluded that if Russia can be said to have a fascist tradition at all it is -- by comparison with Germany, Italy or even France -- a very weak one. Among the numerous writers and philosophers produced by 19th century Russia there were plenty of reactionaries, but only one who really prefigured fascism -- namely, Konstantin Leontiev, the "Russian Nietzsche." The Black Hundreds of the late tsarist period have been characterized as "proto-fascist," but any further development into full-blown fascism was cut short by 1917.
Assessing fascism in contemporary Russia is in part a quantitative problem. How strong are fascist organizations in Russia? The answer hinges, of course, on which organizations are to be counted as "fascist." If we regard, as many do, the Liberal-Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) and the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF) as fascist, then we can hardly call the phenomenon marginal.
My analysis of these two parties did not allow me to classify either of them unequivocally as fascist. I was surprised to discover considerable ideological diversity within the LDPR. A "national liberal" or "imperial liberal" wing on one side (exemplified by the former LDPR governor of Pskov Yevgeny Mikhailov) counterposes a clearly fascist wing on the other, with Zhirinovsky keeping his options open. Thus the LDPR is not outright fascist, but it does contain a reservoir of fascist activists who would be released into the broader political environment in the likely event of the party's collapse.
Concerning the CPRF, we have to assess the new ideology introduced by Zyuganov and its status within the party. Zyuganovism is in a strong position but is far from fully permeating the CPRF. It is a form of great-power nationalism based on Eurasianist ideas, which means that it is not fascist, though it may have some potential to develop in a fascist direction.
The Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) is portrayed by some as another hotbed of fascist tendencies. There is indeed a large fundamentalist wing within the ROC, but on the whole its ideology is not fascist but rather reactionary of the Black Hundreds variety, characterized by nostalgia for the "Holy Russia" of pre-Petrine times, an obsession with Satanic forces, and antisemitic paranoia. Patriarch Alexy has constrained the politicization of the fundamentalist wing, but there is no guarantee that future patriarchs will do likewise.
What then of the more extreme organizations, the fascist credentials of which are beyond doubt? Available information on them is fragmentary and contradictory. Estimates of the number of "fighters" in Russian National Unity (RNU), until its recent split by far Russia's largest fascist movement, ranged in the late 1990s between 6,000 and 300,000. Eventually I settled on a figure in the range 20-25,000. Plus 5-10,000 members of the National-Bolshevik Party and 15,000 or so Nazi skinheads, with a few thousand more divided among a multitude of smaller fascist organizations.
But figures for Russia as a whole conceal enormous regional variations. In many parts of the country there are hardly any active fascists, while in other places fascist organizations are very visible. The east and south-east of Moscow Province, Voronezh Province, and in the south the Stavropol and Krasnodar Territories were strongholds of RNU and now of its successors. Even in regions where the fascists are weak overall, there are often certain small and medium-sized towns where they have a strong presence.
Arguably none of this is incompatible with the thesis of the marginality of Russian fascism. However, marginality is not merely a matter of size. There is also the question of the relationship between fascist organizations and mainstream political forces. RNU forged close ties with many local and regional authorities -- and not only in areas under CPRF control (as the idea of the "red-brown" alliance would lead you to expect), but also in quite a few areas governed by Yeltsin loyalists or non-aligned figures. Such deals between RNU and local power-holders were based less on ideological sympathies than on an exchange of favors, with RNU making itself useful by providing strong-arm services as police auxiliaries and undertaking the pre-draft training of youth.
I conclude that there are indeed structural factors that block the path of fascist movements to central state power. Such factors are the general weakness of Russia's party system, now institutionalized by the new law on political parties, and the connected phenomenon of regional fragmentation of power, likely to remain considerable even under Putin. Under these conditions all ideological movements become increasingly dependent on "non-party" regional and central governing elites. The weakness of the fascist tradition in Russian culture also impedes the emergence of a coherent and united fascist movement.
What this does not exclude is a creeping penetration and co-optation of fascist elements into the existing power structures. Fascist paramilitary groups are evidently perceived by many powerful people as serving useful purposes -- above all, as insurance against the contingency of social destabilization. Even if this trend never does culminate in any political order that it would be correct to call fascist, its further development will put paid to any remaining hopes for democracy and civil freedom in Russia.
From: JRL RESEARCH AND ANALYTICAL SUPPLEMENT, Issue No.
1
Editor: Stephen
D. Shenfield
| обсудить на ReForum+ | ответить письмом | посетите сайт нашего спонсора | демография россии |