Andreas Umland
Trinity College Cambridge
Post-Soviet “Uncivil Society” and
the Rise of Aleksandr Dugin
A Case Study of the Extraparliamentary
Radical Right in Contemporary Russia
Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences of
the University of Cambridge for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.
This dissertation is the result of my own work and includes nothing which
is the outcome of work done in collaboration except where specifically
indicated in the text. No parts of the text have been submitted for another
qualification.
Word number: 79,605
(including footnotes and the Appendix, but excluding the Bibliography)
Kyiv, 23 January 2007
Summary
This dissertation argues that, in Russia, the extreme right, in spite of its relative fail-
ure to become a notable force in parliament throughout the 1990s, remains a signifi-
cant social and political factor in the new century.
The thesis uses the generic concepts of uncivil society, groupuscule, and right-wing
Gramscianism developed in comparative fascist studies to substantiate the claim that
the political potential of ultra-nationalism in a given country might be assessed in-
completely by sole measurement of the electoral performance of right-radical parties.
It refers to the transformation of anti-Semitism in late Imperial Germany from a party
ideology into a component of national political culture as an example illustrating that
stagnating or downfalling ultra-nationalist parties, sometimes, indicate not a decline
of the popularity of their aims, but an infiltration of their ideas into society. The thesis
reviews recent comparative research on the role of third sector actors in regime
change and post-War politics in Western Europe to illustrate that a consideration of
the organizational capacities, ties with the elite, and social rootedness of extremely
right-wing extraparliamentary groupings might constitute an important addition for an
adequate assessment of the prospects of the ultra-nationalist movement of a given
country.
In its second, empirical part (Chapter III), the study develops a case study in the
emergence of post-Soviet uncivil society detailing the context and course of the rise,
in 1988-2006, of Aleksandr Dugin’s circle of “neo-Eurasianists” from a lunatic fringe
group into an influential think-tank with a notable presence in the Russian book mar-
ket, intellectual discourse and mass media. Apart from showing Dugin’s increasing
reach into Moscow high politics, the study, in particular, focuses on his purposeful
attempts to enter Russia’s academic life and mainstream political publicism, and
some successes he had in doing so.
The conclusions relate the findings from the case study to recent trends within Rus-
sian extremely right-wing party politics, and make some tentative suggestions on how
the Russian extreme right, as a whole, as well as its scholarly study, as a collective
enterprise, might develop in the future.
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 3
“One of the most important and dangerous spiritual events of the post-communist
period is the ‘sudden’ resurgence of conservative-nationalistic fundamentalism and
its messianic pretensions.”
Assen Ignatow, “Das postkommunistische Vakuum und die neuen Ideologien:
Zur gegenwärtigen geistigen Situation in Rußland,”
Osteuropa 43, no. 4 (1993): 311-327, here 313.
“The prospects of the extreme Right in the former Soviet Union and Soviet bloc seem
better than in most other parts of the world.”
Walter Laqueur, Fascism: Past, Present, Future
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 178.
“In post-totalitarian Russia, the ideological climate has been gravitating more and
more towards right-wing conservative values colored by Russian nationalism.”
Thomas Parland, The Extreme Nationalist Threat in Russia:
The Growing Influence of Western Rightist Ideas
(London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2005), 1.
“I would like to stress again that the widespread rise in xenophobia is most alarming.
Excessive nationalism and the ideologies transmitted by parties and organizations
attached to the extreme right are the main causes of this state of affairs.”
Report by Mr Alvaro Gil-Robles, Commissioner for Human Rights, on his Visit
to the Russian Federation 15 to 30 July 2004, 19 to 29 September 2004
(Strasbourg: Council of Europe, 2005), 67.
“Xenophobia exists in many countries, but in Russia it has become a norm, a com-
monplace for the majority of the country.”
Aleksandra Radkovskaya, a psychologist at Moscow State University,
quoted in Financial Times, 30th December 2005.
Contents
List of Tables 7
List of Abbreviations 8
Acknowledgements 10
Preface 12
I Introduction 22
I.1 The Purpose and Structure of this Study 22
I.2 The Arguments, Foci and Limits of this Study 28
A Note on the State of Russian Right-Wing Extremism Studies 29
Dugin’s Competitors 30
The Major Concepts of this Study 34
Conceptual Borders of Generic Civil Society and Nationalism 37
A Methodological Rationale of this Investigation’s Approach 39
A Final Introductory Note 40
II Civil Society’s Relevance for Right-Wing Extremism Studies 42
II.1 Some Peculiar Dilemmas of Russian Ultra-Nationalist
Politics in the 1990s 42
II.2 Some Recent Developments in Russian Ultra-
Nationalist Party Politics 53
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 5
II.3 Evaluating Declining Ultra-Nationalist Parties:
Some Lessons from German History 57
II.4 Civil Society’s Role in Democratic Transition,
Consolidation, and Breakdown 60
II.4.1 German Vereinswesen in the Weimar Republic 60
II.4.2 Antiliberal Associationism 62
II.5 Electoral vs. Non-Electoral Activities of the Western Extreme
Right Today 66
II.5.1 The Relevance of Post-War Extraparliamentary
Ultra-Nationalism 66
II.5.2 The Groupuscule 68
II.5.3 The European “New Right” 72
III Ultra-Nationalist Intellectual Centres in Contemporary Russia 76
III.1 Other Manifestations of Uncivil Society in
Contemporary Russia 76
III.2 Post-Soviet Right-Wing Think Tanks 81
III.3 Sergey Kurginyan’s ETTs 84
III.4 The Role of Aleksandr Prokhanov 88
III.5 The Dugin Phenomenon 92
III.5.1 Dugin’s World View 93
III.5.2 The Rise of Dugin 97
Dugin’s Origins 97
Dugin’s Emergence as a Publicist 101
In the Wilderness 107
Theoretician of the Post-Soviet Russian Right 111
From the Margins to the Mainstream 118
Dugin in Moscow High Politics 127
Dugin’s “Academic Career” 133
III.5.3 The Role of “Neo-Eurasianism” in Dugin’s
Political Mimicry 141
Dugin’s Intellectual Biography 146
ANDREAS UMLAND 6
Similarities between Classical Eurasianism
and “Neo-Eurasianism” 152
Discrepancies between Classical Eurasianism
and “Neo-Eurasianism” 154
Dugin’s Late Embrace of Russian Eurasianism 156
III.5.4 Excursus I: Gumilëv’s “Eurasianism” 159
The Gumilëvian World View 159
Gumilëv and Classical Eurasianism 162
III.5.5 Dugin’s Re-Interpretation of “Eurasia” 163
Eurasia and Europe 163
Eurasia and the US 166
Geopolitics, Conservative Revolution, and Obfuscation 167
The Eurasianist Label and Interpretation of Dugin 169
III.5.6 Excursus II: Conceptualizing “Duginism” 172
“Revolutionary Expansionism,” “Geopolitical Anti-Semitism”
“National Bolshevism,” “Geopolitics,” “Traditionalism” 173
The Connection to the European “New Right” 178
III.5.7 Dugin’s Relevance in Context 182
IV Conclusions: Anti-Democratic Politics and Uncivil Society
in Post-Soviet Russia 189
Appendix: Some of Dugin’s Sources and Allies 203
Bibliography 211
Primary Sources 211
Secondary Sources 216
List of Tables
1 The major extremely right-wing parties in the RF in the 1990s 25
2 The major books authored, and journals edited by Dugin,
if not otherwise indicated, under the imprint of Arktogeya 103
3 Some WWW-sites within Dugin’s webring 116
4 Seats won by electoral blocs with a manifestly anti-Western
outlook in the State Duma elections of December 2003
and December 1999 193
5 Numerical strength of factions with a manifestly anti-Western
outlook in the 4th and 3rd (post-Soviet) State Dumas of
2003-2007 and 1999-2003 194
List of Abbreviations
APO Ausserparlamentarische Opposition (extra-parliamentary opposition)
CDI Center for Défense Information
CPSU Communist Party of the Soviet Union
ENR European New Right
ETTs Eksperimental'nyi tvorcheskii tsentr (Experimental Creative Center)
EWE Erwägen Wissen Ethik (Deliberation Knowledge Ethics)
GDR German Democratic Republic
GOP Grand Old Party (the US Republican party)
GRU Glavnoe razvedovatel’noe upravlenie (Main Intelligence Directorate, the
secret service of the USSR General Chief of Staff)
JRL Johnson's Russia List
KGB Komitet gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti (Committee for State Security)
KPRF Kommunisticheskaya partiya Rossiiskoi Federatsii (Communist Party of
the Russian Foundation)
LDPR Liberal'no-demokraticheskaya partiya Rossii (Liberal-Democratic Party
of Russia)
MGU Moskovskii gosudarstvennyi universitet (Moscow State University)
NBP Natsional-bol'shevistskaya partiya (National-Bolshevik Party)
natsboly natsional-bol’sheviki (National Bolsheviks)
NTV Nezavisimoe televidenie (Independent Television)
NSDAP National-Sozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (National-Socialist
German Workers Party)
OPOD Obshcherossiiskoe politicheskoe obshchestvennoe dvizhenie (All-
Russian Political Social Movement)
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 9
ORT Obshchestvennoe rossiiskoe televidenie (Public Russian Television)
PIR Perspektivnye issledovaniya i razrabotki (Future-oriented Research and
Projects)
RAN Rossiiskaya akademiya nauk (Russian Academy of Sciences)
RAU Rossiisko-amerikanskii universitet (Russian-American University)
RF Russian Federation
RFE Radio Free Europe
RL Radio Liberty
RNE Russkoe Natsional’noe Edinstvo (Russian National Unity)
RTR Rossiiskoe teleradiokompaniya (Russian TV and Radio Company)
RSFSR Russian Soviet Federal Socialist Republic
SS Schutzstaffel (Protection Squad)
SVR Sluzhba vneshnei razvedki (Foreign Intelligence Service)
US United States [of America]
USSR Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
VAK Vysshaya attestatsionnaya kommissiya (Highest Attestation Commis-
sion)
Acknowledgements
My first thanks go to Dr. John D. Barber who was my supportive university supervisor
in 1995-96 when I embarked on a dissertation project on the Russian extreme right. I
am also very grateful to Dr. Harald Wydra who, kindly, agreed in 2006 to be my the-
sis supervisor, and gave me some important advice.
A further scholar I wish to express my special gratitude to is Professor Roger D. Grif-
fin who has given me useful feedback on the various subject matters of the below
survey. I use Professor Griffin’s taxonomic and conceptual framework concerning the
ideological and organizational permutations of contemporary ultra-nationalism in this
study. A closer look on the development of post-war comparative studies of the ex-
treme right, in general, and of international fascism, in particular, should lead one, I
would think, to recognize in Griffin the most important taxonomist and interpreter of
contemporary Western ultra-nationalism. It is less the neatness of his constructs or
playfulness of his language, than, simply, the usefulness of his terminology and defi-
nitions for my particular concerns that has led me to embrace most of Griffin’s con-
ceptual framework.
Concerning the practical side of this study, I am especially grateful to Dr. Michael
Hagemeister and Aleksandr Verkhovskii whom I would call “professional friends” and
who—though being busy with their own research—have spared considerable time to
give me extensive feedback on earlier versions of this study. I am also grateful to Dr.
Cas Mudde and Dr. Robert L. Paarlberg for reading through, and making valuable
remarks on, the working paper out of which this study developed, as well as to Prof.
Dr. Michael Minkenberg for some useful feedback. Prof. John B. Dunlop and Dr.
Robert Otto helped me in many ways to collect the material for this study.
I had the opportunity to present papers on various aspects of this study at the follow-
ing seminar series or conferences: on 15th May 2002, at the Post-Communist Politics
Workshop at the Davis Center for Russian Studies, Harvard University
(http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~postcomm/papers/2001-02/umland.pdf); on 5th Novem-
ber 2002, at the “Rechtsextremismus in Europa” Lecture Series organized by the
Thüringer Forum für Bildung und Wissenschaft e.V. at the Haus auf der Mauer in Je-
na; and, on 25th March 2003, at the International Conference „Russia and Europe”
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 11
organized by the Robert Bosch Lecturer Program at the Yaroslavl’ State Pedagogical
University, 25th March 2003, (http://www.boschlektoren.de/a-sites/projektterasse/
fertigeprojekte/csteck/andreas.doc). In connection with these presentations, I thank
these venues’ organizers’ Dr. Lucan Way, Dr. Maria Popova, Dr. Vera Haney and
Christiane Steck for giving me the opportunity to get some useful critical remarks and
suggestions on my argument.
During the time in which I prepared this study, I have benefited in one way or another
from the support of the following institutions: the Fritz Thyssen Foundation at Co-
logne; the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs and Davis Center for Russian
Studies at Harvard University, Cambridge, MA; the Lecturer Program of the Robert
Bosch Foundation at the University of Hohenheim, Stuttgart; the Institute of Central
and East European Studies of the University of Glasgow; St. Antony’s College Ox-
ford; the Russian and Eurasian Studies Center, Nissan Institute for Japanese Stud-
ies, and Department of Politics and International Relations of the University of Ox-
ford; the Saxony Office of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation at Dresden; the National
Taras Shevchenko University of Kyiv; the Goethe-Institute at Kyiv; and the German
Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) at Bonn. I am very grateful to these institutions
for their support.
Of course, none of the above-mentioned individuals or institutions bears any respon-
sibility for the mistakes, omissions and misjudgements this study may contain.
Among the friends I would like to thank for their warmth and kindness towards me
during the last years are Eugene, Ingmar, Desiree, Gergana, Markus, Kriszta, Thom-
as, Michael, Uschi, and, of course especially, Lena.
But it is to my parents to whom I dedicate this study.
A.U., Kyiv, January 2007
Preface
“Liberalism is a disgusting, human-hating, mean doctrine.
It is loathsome in theory and practice.”
Aleksandr Dugin1
The bodies of literature on both Soviet Russian nationalism and the post-Soviet Rus-
sian extreme right have, as documented in the footnotes below, grown during the last
years.2 Why would an extensive treatment of one particular aspect of the Russian
extreme right dealt with in one way or another in other studies by various scholars be
1
As quoted in Dmitrii Oreshkin, “Spor Slavyan,” Moskovskie novosti, 15th April 2003, URL
(last accessed October 2006): http://www.mn.ru/issue.php?2003-14-29, URL (last ac-
cessed October 2006): http://iicas.org/libr_rus/enbz/17_04_libr_rus_bz.htm.
2
On Russian nationalism in the post-war Soviet Union, see the surveys by John B. Dun-
lop, The New Russian Revolutionaries (Belmont, MA: Nordland Press, 1976); idem, The
Faces of Contemporary Russian Nationalism (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1983); idem, The New Russian Nationalism (New York: Praeger, 1985; Alexander
Yanov, The Russian New Right: Right-Wing Ideologies in the Contemporary USSR
(Berkeley, CA: Institute of International Studies, 1978); idem, The Russian Challenge
and the Year 2000 (New York: Blackwell, 1987); Dina Rome Spechler, Russian National-
ism and Political Stability in the USSR (Cambridge, MA: Center for International Studies,
MIT, and Center for International Affairs, Harvard University, 1983); Yitzhak M. Brudny,
Reinventing Russia: Russian Nationalism and the Soviet State, 1953-1991 (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1998); and, especially, Nikolai Mitrokhin, Russkaya parti-
ya: Dvizhenie russkikh natsionalistov v SSSR, 1953-1985 (Moskva: Novoe literaturnoe
obozrenie, 2003). For useful introductory overviews on the late Soviet and early post-
Soviet ideologies of the Russian extreme right, see, in chronological order, Thomas Par-
land, The Rejection in Russia of Totalitarian Socialism and Liberal Democracy: A Study
of the Russian New Right (Helsinki: Finish Society of Science and Letters, 1993); Walter
Laqueur, Black Hundred: The Rise of the Extreme Right in Russia (New York: Harper-
Collins, 1993); Wendy Slater, “Imagining Russia: The Ideology of Russia’s National Pat-
riotic Opposition,“ unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Cambridge 1998; Nikolai
Mitrokhin, “Ot ‘Pamyati’ k skinkhedam Luzhkova: Ideologiya russkogo natsionalizma v
1987-2003 godakh,” Neprikosnovennyi zapas, no. 5(31) (2003): 37-46 as well as numer-
ous further works cited below. Most of the relevant secondary literature published on the
subject until 1996 is reviewed in Andreas Umland, “Pravyi ekstremizm v postsovetskoi
Rossii,” Obshchestvennye nauki i sovremennost’, no. 4 (2001): 71-84; for a shorter Eng-
lish version, see idem, “The Post-Soviet Russian Extreme Right,” Problems of Post-
Communism 44, no. 4 (1997): 53-61. For large data bases on the subject (with further
links), see the sites of Panorama Agency at URL (last accessed October 2006):
http://www.panorama.ru:8101/works/patr/, Memorial Society at URL (last accessed Oc-
tober 2006): http://www.memo.ru/library/Faszisty/fasz1.htm, Sova Research Center at
URL (last accessed October 2006): http://www.xeno.sova-center.ru, anti-racism project
Moscow Bureau for Human Rights at URL (last accessed October 2006):
http://antirasizm.ru/english.php, and Antifashist Public Foundation at URL (last accessed
October 2006): www.aha.ru/~ofa/Oglav_1.htm. Primary sources links on the web are
listed at URL (last accessed October 2006): www.patriotica.ru.
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 13
worth adding?
First, while the post-Soviet Russian political system—whether one regards it as dem-
ocratic or not—has been consolidating and the socio-economic situation stabilizing
since the turn of the century, the relevance of extremely right-wing ideas in Russia
has, as I shall illustrate below, not diminished. The, if compared to the State Duma
elections of 1999, resurgence of nationalist parties other than the Communist Party in
the parliamentary poll of December 2003 and the widely reported numerous xeno-
phobic incidents in various Russian cities over the last years are only the most obvi-
ous manifestation of this tendency. A number of other developments pointing in the
same direction will be mentioned or analyzed below.
Second, while Russian and foreign public attention to some permutations of Russia’s
“uncivil society” (a concept extensively introduced below), such as for instance the
skinhead movement, has risen during the last years, similar developments in the
realm of Russia’s intellectual life, academia and mass media have received less at-
tention. They constitute topics located at the margins of Western investigations into
Russian politics. This is in spite of them being politically more relevant than the wide-
ly reported tendencies in youth culture.
Parts of post-Sovietology have returned to “Kremlinology” and become a kind of
“Putinology” that, sometimes, tends to downplay the significance of developments
outside the inner circle of the Russian president’s entourage. Other tendencies in
Western post-Soviet studies remain focused on such organs as the State Duma,
Federation Council or regional governments—institutions that have lost significance
since Vladimir Putin’s rise. A third direction has developed an economistic focus, ex-
pressing itself, above all, through the high interest for the so-called “oligarchs,” and
their machinations. While all of these fields of study are important, they seem to re-
ceive an altogether disproportionate share of consideration within political science.
Other, equally important actors, institutions and developments in the realms of civil
society and culture, in contrast, suffer from relative inattention by political research-
ers. Russian uncivil society is one of them.
Third, Russia’s uncivil society’s main protagonist in my first article on this subject in
2002 was a man called Aleksandr Dugin. 3 Back then, he may have not yet been a
3
Andreas Umland, “Toward an Uncivil Society? Contextualizing the Recent Decline of
Parties of the Extreme Right Wing in Russia,“ Demokratizatsiya: The Journal of Post-
Soviet Democratization 10, no. 3 (2002): 362-391, available (without references) on the
WWW at URL (last accessed October 2006): http://www.24hourscholar.com/
ANDREAS UMLAND 14
figure known to every Western observer of Russian politics. But he is now probably
somebody whom many informed Western and most Russian analysts would recog-
nize as a political commentator with a certain profile. Although failing to enter the
State Duma, as he apparently desired in December 2003, Dugin has, since the publi-
cation of my 2002 paper, advanced further in gaining influence on the political think-
ing of mainstream elites, especially in politics and academia—a development that will
be outlined in detail. Having been earlier the subject of only few Western major
newspapers reports, including an account in the Financial Times (London), he has by
now been introduced in various major newspapers like, for instance, the Wall Street
Journal (New York) or Neue Züricher Zeitung (Zurich).4 Recently, Dugin managed to
place an article in Russia in Global Affairs, the Moscow partner journal of the influen-
tial US monthly Foreign Affairs.5 He has become an irregular contributor to the fore-
most Western source of daily political information on Russia, the Washington, DC
p/articles/mi_qa3996/is_200207/ai_n9119090, URL (last accessed October 2006):
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3996/is_200207/ai_n9119090. A draft for this
article appeared as a working paper as Andreas Umland, „Toward an Uncivil Society?:
Contextualizing the Recent Decline of Extremely Right-Wing Parties in Russia,“ Weath-
erhead Center for International Affairs Working Paper Series, no. 3 (2002), and is availa-
ble on the World Wide Web at: URL (last accessed October 2006):
http://www.wcfia.harvard.
edu/rsrchpapsum.asp?ID=555; URL (last accessed October 2006): http://www.fsumonitor.
com/stories/072802Russia.shtml; URL (last accessed October 2006): http://www.ciaonet.
org/wps/uma01/. It was kindly reviewed by Stephen Shenfield, „The Extreme Right: De-
cline or Transmutation?” JRL Research and Analytical Supplement, no. 9 (June 2002):
sec. 3, at: URL (last accessed October 2006): http://www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/6309.htm.
See also Andreas Umland, “Formirovanie fashistskogo ‘neoevraziiskogo’ intel-
lektual’nogo dvizheniya v Rossii: Put’ Aleksandra Dugina ot marginal’nogo ekstremista
do ideologa postsovetskoi akademicheskoi i politicheskoi elity, 1989-2001 gg.,“ Ab Im-
perio, no. 3 (2003): 289-304, reprinted in: V.I. Polishchuk, ed., Deyatel’nostnoe ponima-
nie kul’tury kak vida chelovecheskogo byta (Nizhnevartovsk: Nizhnevartovskii gosudar-
stvennyi pedagogicheskii institut, 2004), 160-171, and: Rossiiskii nauchnyi forum “Rossi-
ya. Kul’tura. Budushchnost’.” 2nd vol. (Chelyabinsk: Chelyabinskaya gosudarstvennaya
akademiya kul’tury i isskustv, 2005), 42-50; Andreas Umland, “Die rechtsextremistische
APO im heutigen Russland: Ultranationalistische Denkfabriken als Bestandteil der post-
sowjetischen ‘unzivilen Gesellschaft’,“ in: Vera Haney, Michael Wegner and Andrea
Jahn, eds., Russland: ein starker Staat? Europäisches Denken 3 (Jena: Thüringer Forum
für Bildung und Wissenschaft e.V., 2003), 123-143; Andreas Umland, “Kulturhegemonia-
le Strategien der russischen extremen Rechten: Die Verbindung von faschistischer Ideo-
logie und gramscistischer Taktik im ‚Neoeurasismus’ des Aleksandr Dugin,” Österreichi-
sche Zeitschrift für Politikwissenschaft 33, no. 4 (2004): 437-454.
4
Charles Clover, “Will the Russian bear roar again?” Financial Times, 2nd December 2000,
URL (last accessed October 2006): http://www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/4665.html##11;
Ilan Berman, “Ideologue of Empire,” Wall Street Journal, 3rd November 2005; Felix
Philipp Ingold, “Patriotisches Krisenmanagement: Thesen und Debatten um den
russischen Sonderweg,” Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 24th February 2006, URL (last accessed
October 2006): http://www.nzz.ch/2006/02/24/fe/articleDKT4H.html.
5
Aleksandr Dugin, “Kondopoga: A Warning Bell,” Russia in Global Affairs, no. 4 (2006),
URL (last accessed January 2007): http://eng.globalaffairs.ru/numbers/17/1061.html.
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 15
mailing group Johnson’s Russia List.6
Already in 1993, Victor Yasmann claimed that “[i]n today’s ‘Weimar Russia’ there is
no political concept, nor political force, which can intellectually challenge the new
Russian-Eurasian fundamentalism [principally represented by Dugin—A.U.].”7 Ana-
stasia Mitrofanova confirmed eleven years later: “Without any doubt, among the ex-
isting ideologies of political Orthodoxy [i.e. of Russian radical nationalism—A.U.],
Eurasianism [principally developed by Dugin—A.U.] is the one with the brightest pro-
spects.”8 In fact, one could argue, as I try to substantiate below, that Dugin now be-
longs to the political mainstream. Analyzing Dugin more thoroughly, contextualizing
his rise, as well as listing recent activities by, and introducing the latest scholarly and
other literature on, him should thus be no waste of paper.
A fourth, different motivation for extending here in detail my 2002 paper’s argument
on Dugin’s position in Russian uncivil society is that its subject matter may serve as
an illustration for the continuing relevance of studying the extreme right not only in
Russia, but in general. Why would such a demonstration be of interest?
There seems to be, in Western political analysis today, a tendency to regard the in-
tensive study of contemporary ultra-nationalist ideologies as a not entirely salient en-
deavour, and, in some cases, as not even quite a serious political science matter—
but, perhaps, rather a subject for cultural studies, psychology, or sociology.9 This is in
contrast to the approach to the current extreme right within the discipline of contem-
porary history where the general interest to the causes of World War II and the Holo-
6
URL (last accessed October 2006): http://russia.cdi.org.master.com/texis/master/search/
?q=Dugin¬q=.
7
Victor Yasmann, “Red Religion: An Ideology of Neo-Messianic Russian Fundamental-
ism,” Demokratizatsiya 1, no. 2 (1993): 20-40, here 36.
8
Anastasiya V. Mitrofanova, Politizatsiya “pravoslavnogo mira” (Moskva: Nauka, 2004),
135.
9
One of the few exceptions, i.e. a contemporary influential political scientist taking up the
subject of the extreme right, has been Herbert Kitschelt in collaboration with A.J. McGann,
The Radical Right in Western Europe: A Comparative Analysis (Ann Arbor: The University
of Michigan Press, 1995). However, Kitschelt’s study can be also seen as illustrating the
point made here: While he deals extensively with the issue of locating various radically right
wing parties within their countries’ peculiar political spectra, he has less interest in in-depth
research into, and adequate classification of, the mythic cores of the ideologies of these or-
ganizations. Among noteworthy monographs on the post-war extreme right by political sci-
entists interested, in contrast, as much in ideology as in party politics are Michael Minken-
berg, Die neue radikale Rechte im Vergleich: USA, Frankreich, Deutschland (Wiesba-
den: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1998) and Cas Mudde, The Ideology of the Extreme Right
(Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000). Especially important for the argument
below is the collected volume Cas Mudde and Petr Kopecký, eds., Uncivil Society? Con-
tentious Politics in Eastern Europe (London: Routledge, 2003).
ANDREAS UMLAND 16
caust is easily extended to the post-war period—as illustrated in the writings of such
eminent historians as Walter Laqueur,10 Aleksandr Galkin,11 Wolfgang Wippermann 12
and Roger Griffin, 13 or macrohistorically oriented political analysts like Roger Eat-
well14 or A. James Gregor.15 To be sure, there exists, in contrast to US political sci-
10
Walter Laqueur, ed., Fascism: A Readers Guide (Harmdondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin
1979); idem, Fascism: Past, Present, Future (New York: Oxford University Press 1997);
idem, Faschismus: Gestern, Heute, Morgen (München: Propyläen, 1997).
11
Alexander Galkin, „Capitalist Society and Fascism,“ Social Sciences: USSR Academy of
Sciences, no. 2 (1970): 80-85; Aleksandr A. Galkin, Sotsiologiya neofashizma (Moskva:
Nauka, 1971); idem, “O fashizme—vser’ez,“ Svobodnaya mysl’, no. 5 (1992): 13-23.
idem, “Ekonomicheskie predposylki gitlerizma,” Svobodnaya mysl’, no. 4 (1993): 21-24;
idem, “Fashizm: korni, priznaki, formy proyavleniya,” Politicheskie issledovaniya, no.
2(26) (1995): 6-15; idem, “Rossiiskii fashizm?” Sotsiologicheskii zhurnal, no. 2 (1994):
17-27; Alexander Galkin and Yuri Krasin, „Russische Wahlen in den Ruinen sowjetischer
Modernisierung: Informationen zum Nachdenken,“ Das Argument 36, no. 2(204) (1994):
199-209; Aleksandr Galkin and Iurii Krasin, “O pravom radikalizme v rossiiskom ob-
shchestve,” Obozrevatel', no. 12 (1995): 52-58; V. Tolstych, A. Galkin, V. Loginov, A.
Buzgalin, „Der russische Faschismus im Widerstreit,“ Utopie kreativ: Diskussion sozialis-
tischer Alternativen, no. 52 (1995): 65-72; Aleksandr A. Galkin, Zapadnya: rasskaz o
tom, chto prinës nemetskim rabochim natsional-sotsializm (Moskva: Russko-
amerikanskii fond profsoyuznykh issledovanii i obucheniya, 1995).
12
Wolfgang Wippermann, Faschismustheorien: Zum Stand der gegenwärtigen Diskussion
(Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1972); idem and Hans-Ulrich Thamer,
Faschistische und neofaschistische Bewegungen: Probleme empirischer Faschis-
musforschung (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1977); Wolfgang Wip-
permann, Europäischer Faschismus im Vergleich (1922-1982) (Frankfurt am Main: Suhr-
kamp, 1983); idem, Faschismustheorien: Die Entwicklung der Diskussion von den Anfäng-
en bis heute. 7th edn (Darmstadt: Primus, 1997); idem and Werner Loh, eds., „Faschis-
mus“—kontrovers (Stuttgart: Lucius & Lucius, 2002).
13
Roger Griffin, The Nature of Fascism (London: Pinter, 1991); idem, The Nature of Fas-
cism. 2nd edn (London: Routledge, 1993); idem, ed., Fascism (Oxford: Oxford University
Press 1995); idem, ed., International Fascism: Theories, Causes and the New Consen-
sus (London: Arnold, 1998); idem, “The Primacy of Culture: The Current Growth (or
Manufacture) of Consensus within Fascist Studies,” Journal of Contemporary History 37,
no. 1 (2002): 21-43; idem in collaboration with Matthew Feldmann, eds., Critical Con-
cepts in Political Science: Fascism. 5 Vols. (London: Routledge 2004).
14
Roger Eatwell, “Toward a New Model of Generic Fascism,“ Journal of Theoretical Politics
4, no. 2 (1992): 161-194; idem, „Fascism,“ in: A. Wright and R. Eatwell, eds., Contempo-
rary Political Ideologies (London: Pinter, 1993), 169-192; idem, Fascism: A History (Lon-
don: Chatto & Windus 1995); idem, “On Defining the ‘Fascist Minimum:’ The Centrality of
Ideology,” Journal of Political Ideologies 1, no. 3 (1996): 303-319; idem, “Towards a New
Model of the Rise of Right-Wing Extremism,” German Politics 6 (1997): 161-184; idem
und Anthony Wright, eds., Contemporary Political Ideologies. 2nd edn (London: Pinter,
1999); Roger Eatwell, “The Rebirth of Right-Wing Charisma? The Cases of Jean-Marie
Le Pen and Vladimir Zhirinovsky,“ Totalitarian Movements and Political Religion 3
(2002): 1-23; idem, „Zur Natur des ‚generischen Faschismus’—Das ‚faschistische Mini-
mum’ und die ‚faschistische Matrix’,“ in: Uwe Backes, ed., Rechtsextreme Ideologien in
Geschichte und Gegenwart (Köln: Böhlau, 2003), 93-122.
15
A. James Gregor, Contemporary Radical Ideologies: Totalitarian Thought in the Twenti-
eth Century (New York: Random House, 1968); idem, The Ideology of Fascism: The Ra-
tionale for Totalitarianism (New York: Free Press, 1969); idem, The Fascist Persuasion
in Radical Politics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1974); idem, Italian Fas-
cism and Developmental Dictatorship (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1979);
idem, “Fascism and the New Russian Nationalism,” Communist and Post-Communist
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 17
ence, a sizeable community of researchers of the contemporary extreme right in
Western Europe—with its largest section, appropriately, located in Germany. Howev-
er, apart from the elevated position of “extremism studies” in Germany (stemming
from the role of the related theory of totalitarianism as a founding myth for the Feder-
al Republic),16 comparative ultra-nationalism is not among the “big” subjects in West
European political studies, as one can easily see from the obligatory political science
curricula at universities, list of contents of the leading journals in the field, or primary
foci of the major national and European funding schemes.
If one were to evaluate the position of the Western study of the post-war extreme
right only within the context of Western Europe, its relative marginalization would be,
at least partly, understandable: Even a hypothetical rise of a more or less radical na-
tionalist into the office of head of state and/or government in a West European
state—for instance, in a country like France, Italy or Austria—would, probably, not
any longer lead to ethnic cleansing, totalitarianism, or war. The strictures of the vari-
ous pan-national institutions—e.g. those of the EU, NATO, OSCE, Council of Europe
etc.—covering Western Europe in general are such that a coherent implementation
of radically nationalist policies would be difficult to accomplish even if such a politi-
cian could rely on the support of the majority of his (less probable: her) people.
Moreover, the post-war economic boom in Western Europe as well as its “nuclear
umbrella” supplied by the United States have been major factors in providing long-
term affluence, international security and political stability. Even a major economic
crisis in Western Europe is, therefore, unlikely to immediately (or ever) lead to a dom-
ination of governmental offices of a West European state by extremely right-wing pol-
iticians as had been the case in large parts of the current EU territory in the early
1930s. Why—one may in view of such circumstances with considerable justification
ask—should one spend time and money on the study of an altogether relatively in-
consequential factor in EU high politics?
Things are different in Russia. For instance, one could argue that the rise of Vladimir
Zhirinovskii in December 1993 was a necessary—though, by no means, sufficient—
condition for Moscow’s intervention in Chechnya a year later. Arguably, without the
Studies 31, no. 1 (1998): 1-15; idem, Phoenix: Fascism in Our Time (New Brunswick, NJ:
Transaction Publishers, 1999); idem, The Faces of Janus: Fascism and Marxism in the
Twentieth Century (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000).
16
Uwe Backes, Politischer Extremismus in demokratischen Verfassungsstaaten: Elemente
einer normativen Rahmentheorie (Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1989); idem and
Eckhard Jesse, eds., Jahrbuch Extremismus & Demokratie 1-14 (Bonn & Baden-Baden:
Bouvier & Nomos, 1989-2002).
ANDREAS UMLAND 18
particular composition of the State Duma at that time and the gradual shift in main-
stream political discourse facilitated by Zhirinovskii’s ascent a year before, the “party
of war” within the Kremlin (Aleksandr Korzhakov, Oleg Soskovets, Nikolai Egorov,
Pavel Grachev, Vladimir Polevanov, Oleg Lobov, Mikhail Barsukov, and others)17
may not have managed to make El’tsin agree using force “to pacify” the Chechens in
December 1994.18 As is all too well-known, this adventure has led to two devastating
wars which have by now cost the lives of tens of thousands of innocent people—with
no end in sight. This major event in current Russian history with far-reaching reper-
cussions in Russian domestic politics and foreign affairs would, probably, not have
happened without Zhirinovskii’s rise in 1993.
The aim of this study is to underline further that, in Russia, the dividing line between
extremely right-wing and mainstream politics is less clear than in the West.19 Moreo-
ver, what we are now observing and what will be partly demonstrated below is the
continuous infiltration of cryptic and not so cryptic ultra-nationalist ideas into Russian
elite discourse. For example, there are a number of former high government officials
who, after leaving the government, have, to one degree or another, affiliated them-
selves with, and thus added to the reputation of, the extreme right. The most promi-
nent examples are the reputed economist and former Minister of Foreign Economic
Relations Sergei Glaz’ev, Army General and former Minister of Défense Igor’ Rodi-
onov, or former Press Minister Boris Mironov. While these examples of an inter-
penetration between the moderate and extreme right are relatively familiar, the con-
siderable osmosis that has recently also been happening between Russian civil and
uncivil society is a lesser known phenomenon. Chapter III of this study is an attempt
to illustrate this phenomenon with particular attention to Russia’s think-tanks.
17
On the “party of war” within the Kremlin, see Die Zeit 50, no. 2 (1995), and John B. Dun-
lop, “The ‘Party of War’ and Russian Imperial Nationalism,” Problems of Post-Communism
43, no. 2 (1996): 29-34. Dunlop counts Viktor Erin and Sergei Stepashin also among the
full members of this informal network. To me, they seem to have been more ambivalent
figures.
18
Such an opinion was voiced by, among others, Grigorii Yavlinskii during an NTV weekly
television show issue of Itogi on 18th December 1995. See also Elena Klepikova and Vla-
dimir Solovyov, Zhirinovsky: The Paradoxes of Russian Fascism. Transl. by Catherine A.
Fitzpatrick (Harmonsworth, Middlesex, Viking/Penguin Group, 1995), VII. A leading Rus-
sian specialist on contemporary Russian nationalism, Nikolai Mitrokhin, too has stated
that the 1993 elections (i.e. Zhirinovskii’s victory) exerted a principal impact on the “ide-
ology of Russian stateness,” and that the resulting processes led to, among other things,
the intervention into Chechnya. See his “Ot ‘Pamyati’ k skinkhedam Luzhkova: Ideologi-
ya russkogo natsionalizma v 1987-2003 godakh,” Neprikosnovennyi zapas, no. 5(31)
(2003): 37-46, here 40.
19
Michael McFaul, “Russian Centrism and Revolutionary Transition,” Post-Soviet Affairs 9,
no. 3 (1993): 196-222.
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 19
In the context of Western research into the international extreme right, it is not only of
interest that, in the case of Russia, the study of ultra-nationalism cannot be regarded
as being fixated on a subject matter only peripheral to the major concerns of political
science. What also becomes both fascinating and disturbing in this context is that the
political ideas, strategies and tactics of certain sectors of the Western extreme right
gain, in this context, an additional dimension. That is because of the well-known phe-
nomena of cross-country diffusion of ideas, and influence of international epistemic
communities on domestic politics. In our case, Western extreme rightists are linked in
various ways to their Russian counterparts and exert considerable impact on them—
as I shall try to show below.20
One could observe this peculiar phenomenon already in December 1993 when the
relatively close relations between Zhirinovskii’s so-called Liberal-Democratic Party
and Dr. Gerhard Frey’s dubious Deutsche Volksunion (German People’s Union), at
that point, led to the odd situation that a bizarre minor German nationalist organiza-
tion—smiled upon by many West German political commentators—had, unexpected-
ly, acquired a partner with some influence on Russian high politics. The money that
Frey—infamous in Germany for his expensive elections campaigns—has, probably,
spent on supporting Zhirinovskii during the State Duma campaign of 1993 may have
been the most effectual political action he has and will have ever undertaken.21
Something comparable has happened to some West European extremely right-wing
intellectuals. By way of being absorbed, adapted and used—as will be discussed in
some detail below—within structures like Dugin’s Eurasia Movement, the ideas of
such relatively obscure figures in post-war European political thought as Julius Evola,
Alain de Benoist or Claudio Mutti, all of a sudden, are entering the thinking of the po-
litical, cultural and academic elites of a nuclear superpower. 22 Whatever one may
think about the usefulness of studying in-depth the ideology of the post-war West Eu-
ropean extreme right by itself: In view of the—as I shall show below—continuing rel-
evance of Russian ultranationalism and its considerable debt to certain West Euro-
20
Thomas Parland, The Extreme Nationalist Threat in Russia: The Growing Influence of
Western Rightist Ideas (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2005).
21
G. Hirscher, “Schirinowskij und der deutsche Rechtsextremismus,“ in: Uwe Backes and
Eckhard Jesse, eds., Jahrbuch Extremismus und Demokratie 6 (Bonn: Bouvier, 1994):
162-179. More on the relations between Frey and Zhirinovskii at this point in Andreas
Umland, “Vladimir Zhirinovskii in Russian Politics: Three Approaches to the Emergence
of the Liberal-Democratic Party of Russia, 1990-1993,” unpublished Dr.phil. dissertation,
Freie Universität Berlin, 1997.
22
Parland, The Extreme Nationalist Threat in Russia.
ANDREAS UMLAND 20
pean models, attention to the margins of the political spectrum in many countries—
and not only in Russia—has gained legitimacy as a subject of topical, problem-driven
political research. The various ultra-nationalist subcultures in the West may, as such,
be, perhaps, left to be investigated by students of societal, historical or cultural af-
fairs. Yet, when these otherwise inconsequential subcultures, via their Russian coun-
terparts, inform the discourse of Russia’s political, administrative and intellectual
elites, they start to fall in the realm of “proper” political science—understood as a dis-
cipline concerned with recent and current issues in the authoritative allocation of val-
ues, and as an enterprise that may (or even should) have some impact on real poli-
tics.23 The below survey is too brief and sweeping to demonstrate exhaustively these
new tendencies in the comparative study of the contemporary international extreme
right. Yet, it might suggest some directions where future political research into con-
temporary Russian affairs and the international extreme right could go. 24
A final reason to attempt here a more extensive introduction to, and contextualization
of, the Dugin phenomenon in particular is a discussion I recently had on the ideology
and relevance of Dugin with the eminent specialist on comparative fascism A. James
Gregor, a professor of political science at the University of California at Berkeley. 25
Our controversy was a spin-off from an international debate of Roger Griffin’s ap-
proach to historical and neo-fascism in the German journal Erwägen Wissen Ethik
(EWE; Deliberation Knowledge Ethics). Gregor’s reply to my critique of his classifica-
23
Well-known examples of the latter aspect, i.e. of social scientists reaching beyond the
Ivory Tower of academia, are the US political researchers Zbigniew Brzezinski, Samuel
Huntington and Francis Fukuyama whose writings have, arguably, exerted some influ-
ence on the thinking of the elites of many countries, including Russia. See Andrei P.
Tsygankov, Whose World Order? Russia’s Perception of American Ideas after the Cold
War (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2004).
24
See also Mischa Gabowitsch, “Review of Mudde and Kopecký, Uncivil Society?,”
Neprikosnovennyi zapas, no. 28 (2003), at URL (last accessed October 2006):
http://www.nz-online.ru/index.phtml?aid=20010669.
25
A. James Gregor, „Roger Griffin, Social Science, ‚Fascism’ and the ‚Extreme Right’,”
Erwägen Wissen Ethik 15, no. 3 (2004): 316-318; idem, “Once Again on Roger Griffin
and the Study of ‘Fascism’,” Erwägen Wissen Ethik 15, no. 3 (2004): 387-390; Andreas
Umland, „Dugin kein Faschist? Eine Erwiderung an Professor A. James Gregor,“ Erwä-
gen Wissen Ethik 15, no. 3 (2004): 424-426; A. James Gregor, “Andreas Umland and the
‘Fascism’ of Alexander Dugin,“ Erwägen Wissen Ethik 15, no. 3 (2004): 426-429; Andre-
as Umland, “Some Addenda on the Relevance of Extremely Right-Wing Ideas in Putin’s
New Russia,“ Erwägen Wissen Ethik 15, no. 4 (2004): 591-593; A. James Gregor, “Re-
sponse to Dr. Andreas Umland,” Erwägen Wissen Ethik 15, no. 4 (2004): 594-595. The
original article by Griffin that triggered this debate may be found at URL (last accessed
October 2006): http://www.alphalink.com.au/~radnat/theories-right/theory6.html. The
whole debate has been re-printed in: Roger Griffin, Werner Loh and Andreas Umland,
eds., Fascism Past and Present, West and East: An International Debate on Concepts
and Cases in the Comparative Study of the Extreme Right. Soviet and Post-Soviet Poli-
tics and Society 35 (Stuttgart: ibidem-Verlag, 2006), 459-499.
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 21
tion of Dugin as definitely not fascist touched not only upon the nature of Dugin’s ide-
ology, but, somehow, also upon my intentions. Gregor suspected me of aiming to
censor Dugin. One of the three of my replies to Gregor was in German, and the sec-
ond and third, in English language, appeared only in a subsequent EWE issue, i.e.
separated from the main debate of Griffin’s concepts. This may have left Anglophone
readers of this exchange wondering what exactly my argument and motivations, a
topic brought up by Prof. Gregor, were. The below study addresses some of the is-
sues raised in this exchange. 26
26
At this point, I should also take the opportunity to mention that a German Evolian journal
published by the extremely right-wing Regin publishing house has, without my
knowledge, reprinted an edited section of a German-language paper of mine on Dugin
as: Andreas Umland, “Der Aufstieg Alexander Dugins,” Junges Forum, no. 1 (2004): 43-44,
URL (last accessed October 2006): http://www.regin-versand.de/bestellung/pd-
1158835944.htm?categoryId=5. Oddly, the list of contents of this issue of Junges Forum
has been reposted at one of Dugin’s WWW-sites (URL (last accessed October 2006):
http://www.evrazia.org/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1863). These publi-
cations may give the impression that I am sympathetic to the causes of Junges Forum or
Evraziya. As will become clear below, this is not the case.
I Introduction
I.1 The Purpose and Structure of this Study
This study does not attempt to falsify a hypothesis in the narrow sense of the word,
i.e. to disprove an argument about causes and effects. Rather, its purpose is to ques-
tion a particular interpretation of current Russian affairs that was indicated in the
foreword, and might be summarized in the following way:
Russian ultra-nationalism—as not only a popular mass media theme, but a
socially rooted and politically relevant movement—has been getting nowhere
in post-Soviet Russia. It might be currently prominent because it has become
an object of manipulation by Kremlin technologists, and of concern for Russian
and Western human rights groups. However, as one can see from the lack of
seriousness of such parties or blocs as Zhirinovskii’s “Liberal Democrats” or
Rogozin’s “Rodina” (as well as dozens of other contenders that never made it
into the Russian parliament), the Russian extreme right is pathetic. Though, as
recent skinhead activities suggest, not a negligible societal phenomenon, it
remains outside the Russian mainstream, and is as inconsequential a
macropolitical factor as a sober analyst would expect.
Variations of this view are widespread among especially Russian,27 but also some
non-Russian observers of current Russian affairs. To be sure, few Western commen-
tators might venture to formulate or support as outspoken an evaluation as the above
one. However, the impression of continuing disinterest among Western political sci-
entists for extremely nationalistic ideas and groups in Russia, as reflected by the sub-
ject’s relative under-representation in major REES journals and book series, emerges
from a cursory comparison of Russian ultra-nationalism’s prominence in relation to
27
See the comments of even such competent observers as Vyacheslav Likhachev, “My i
nash diagnoz: Radikaly nachinayut i proigryvayut,” Obshchaya gazeta, no. 24 (14 June
2001): 15 (I am grateful to Robert C. Otto for sending me this article), and Dmitry Shla-
pentokh, “The Illusions and Realities of Russian Nationalism,” The Washington Quarterly
21, no. 1 (1999): 173-186.
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 23
both, other themes in current Russian politics (leadership, federalism, political econ-
omy, etc.) and other international varieties of right-wing extremism (Front national,
Vlaams Bloc, Alleanza Nazionale, Nouvelle Droite, Islamic fundamentalism, etc.). It
suggests that an implicit opinion similar to the one stated here informs Western per-
ceptions of post-Soviet affairs. Below, I attempt to develop a case study designed to
indicate the inadequateness of such an assessment.
In doing so, my survey uses findings of research into non-Russian civil societies and
ultra-nationalisms as well as examples of non-party Russian right-wing extremism.
They are meant to illustrate that the relative decline in radically nationalist Russian
party politics in the late 1990s and the largely abortive attempts to form a stable uni-
fied ultra-nationalist bloc in the State Duma can, by themselves, not be seen as an
unequivocal indication that “anti-liberal statism”28 has lost its appeal in Russia. In par-
ticular, they suggest that the considerable growth of the non-governmental, not-for-
profit sector of Russian society since the mid-1980s29 cannot be regarded as exclu-
sively beneficial in terms of Russia’s transition to a polyarchy, and further democrati-
zation.30 Not only is a Russian “civic public”31 or “civic community”32 developing only
28
This is the (arguably improvable) concept used in the pioneering article by Stephen E.
Hanson and Jeffrey S. Kopstein, “The Weimar/Russia Comparison,” Post-Soviet Affairs
13, no. 3 (1997): 252-283.
29
For the early period, see Anne White, Democratization in Russia Under Gorbachev,
1985-91: The Birth of a Voluntary Sector (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1999). In the
words of Uhlin, “[m]any foreign researchers have probably underestimated the size of
civil society in Russia because they focus on NGOs with Western contacts, which are
probably a small minority of Russian groups.” See Anders Uhlin, Post-Soviet Civil Society:
Democratization in Russia and the Baltic States. BASEES/Routledge Series on Russian
and East European Studies 25 (London and New York: Routledge, 2006), 58. Fein stated
in late 2001: “Today the number of public organizations registered with the Russian Jus-
tice Ministry is approximately 300,000 of which, according to estimations by experts, cir-
ca 75,000 are active.” Elke Fein, “Zivilgesellschaftlicher Paradigmenwechsel oder PR-
Aktion? Zum ersten allrussischen ‘Bürgerforum’ im Kreml,” Osteuropa 52, no. 2 (2002):
158-179, here 160.
30
My taxonomy draws on the conceptualization, proposed by Robert A. Dahl, of democracy
as constituting not only an ideal-typical notion, but an ultimately utopian project. Dahl, in
my understanding, applies the term “polyarchy” to those regimes that, even if by necessi-
ty representing only incomplete implementations of the democratic ideal, are fundamen-
tally inspired by it. Democratization is, within this terminological scheme, seen as a con-
tinuous, potentially infinite process. Cf. Robert A. Dahl, Polyarchy: Participation and Op-
position (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1971). A democratization break-through that
marks a qualitative change from a non-polyarchic to a polyarchic regime might then have
to be labeled “polyarchization.” Whether or not Russia has already passed this stage or
not is a matter of dispute.
31
Larry Diamond, Developing Democracy: Towards Consolidation (Baltimore and London:
Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999), 221.
32
Robert D. Putnam with Robert Leonardi and Raffaella Y. Nanetti, Making Democracy
Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993).
ANDREAS UMLAND 24
slowly, and seems, in connection with various measures by the Putin administration,
to have come recently to a halt. Some of the more significant pre- and post-Soviet
groups, movements, and trends within the Russian voluntary sector are unsupport-
ive, or even explicitly critical of liberal democracy. A number of major non-state insti-
tutions and networks in Russian society contain ultra-nationalist, fundamentalist, and,
partly, fascist33 sub-sectors that question the adequacy of the construct “civil society”
to designate them. These organizations’ or groupings’ primary function is less—or
not at all—to enhance peoples’ inclination and ability to participate effectively in polit-
ical activities that could promote further democratization. Instead, they provide,
sometimes expressly so, a medium for the spread of radically particularistic world
views, ascriptive notions about human nature, and antiliberal or/and bellicose political
ideas, as well as an organizational training ground for potential political activists hold-
ing such views.34 As in the case of civil society organizations proper, such uncivil so-
ciety groups may “serve as a breeding ground for new political parties, by providing
the basis for future party organizations, or by supplying personnel for future political
parties.”35
33
For lucid definitions of fascism, and its proper and diminished sub-types, such as proto-
fascism, see Roger D. Griffin, The Nature of Fascism, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge, 1993).
As I have dealt with the issue of adequately classifying post-Soviet Russian extremely
right-wing ideologies with generic labels, and, in particular, which groups should be la-
beled fascist and which not in my previous publications extensively, these questions will
be touched upon only rarely in the below study. See Andreas Umland, “Neue ideologi-
sche Fusionen im postsowjetischen russischen Antidemokratismus: Westliche Konzepte,
antiwestliche Doktrinen und das postsowjetische politische Spektrum,“ in: Eckhard Jesse
and Uwe Backes, eds., Gefährdungen der Freiheit: Extremistische Ideologien im Ver-
gleich. Schriften des Hannah-Arendt-Instituts 29 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht,
2006): 371-406; Andreas Umland, “Tri raznovidnosti postsovetskogo fashizma: Kontsep-
tual’nye i kontekstual’nye problemy interpretatsii sovremennogo russkogo
ul’tranatsionalizma,” in: Aleksandr Verkhovskii, ed., Russkii natsionalizm: ideologiya i
nastroenie (Moskva: Sova, 2006), 223-262.
34
The construct “uncivil society” (a term that can, probably, be improved upon) was intro-
duced to the study of Russian ultra-nationalist tendencies seemingly by Jeffrey S. Kop-
stein and Stephen E. Hanson, “Paths to Uncivil Societies and Anti-Liberal States: A Re-
ply to Shenfield,” Post-Soviet Affairs 14, no. 4 (1998): 369-375. There is also a newslet-
ter called (Un)Civil Societies available via Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (URL (last
accessed October 2006): http://www.rferl.org/ucs/). The connotation of the term “uncivil”
here is, obviously, different from the meaning it has, for instance, for Richard Rose, “Us-
es of Social Capital in Russia: Modern, Pre-modern, and Anti-modern,” Post-Soviet Af-
fairs 16, no. 1 (2000): 33-57, here 37.
35
Cas Mudde, “Civil Society in Post-Communist Europe: Lessons from the ‘Dark Side,’” in:
Mudde and Kopecký, Uncivil Society? 157-170, here 159.
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 25
Table 1: The major extremely right-wing parties in the RF in the 1990s 36
Party Full Name Leaders Short Description
LDPR Liberal’no- 1990- Vladimir A misnamed ultra-nationalist,
demokraticheskaya Zhirinovskii populist parliamentary party, per-
partiya Rossii (Lib- haps, created by the KGB and
eral-Democratic constantly present in the State
Party of Russia) Duma since December 1993.
RNE Russko Natsion- 1991- Aleksandr A neo-Nazi, para-military organi-
al’noe Edinstvo 2000 Barkashov zation of, mainly, young males
(Russian National that, in the late 2000, split into six
Unity) regional grouplets.
KPRF Kommunistich- 1993- Gennadii The major successor party of the
eskaya partiya Zyuganov CPSU, and an important player in
Rossiiskoi Feder- the State Duma since December
atsii (Communist 1993. While not being ultra-
Party of the Rus- nationalist as a whole, many of its
sian Foundation) leaders clearly are (Makashov,
Ilyukhin, Kondratenko, etc.).
NBP Natsional- 1993- Eduard Li- A radical extra-parliamentary,
bol’shevistskaya monov (and counter-cultural and anti-systemic
partiya (National- Dugin in organization with a multitude of
Bolshevik Party) 1993-1998) ideological sources in Russia,
Western Europe and Asia.
36
By classifying all four of these parties as “extremely right-wing,” I, by no means, imply
that there are no important differences between them with regard to their organizational
structures as well as their agendas. The concept “extreme right,” as I use it here, com-
prises carriers of as divergent ideologies as fundamentalism, ultra-conservatism, and
fascism. In addition, the KPRF is not only a larger, but also a less homogeneous political
organization than the other three parties (which, to be sure, have different factions too).
Notwithstanding, “extremely right-wing”—though being too strong, or even wrong for cer-
tain trends within the KPRF-leadership—would still seem to be one of the less inappro-
priate generic concepts that have been suggested to capture Zyuganov’s political ideas
to which I briefly return below. On the various ideological camps in the Russian “com-
munist” movement, see Joan Barth Urban and Valerii Solovei, Russia’s Communists at
the Crossroads (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1997). I have dealt with the ideologies of
Barkashov, Zhirinovskii, Dugin and Zyuganov in: Umland, “Neue ideologische Fusionen
im postsowjetischen russischen Antidemokratismus.“
ANDREAS UMLAND 26
The study is divided into two parts. The first part (Chapter II) starts with arguing the
necessity of continuing attention to Russian right-wing extremist tendencies in gen-
eral, and to such trends in civil society, in particular—in spite of an apparent recent
decline of extremely right-wing parties. It does so by referring to both, certain particu-
lars of Russian politics today, and some analogies from contemporary West Europe-
an history. It specifically addresses the issue of an adequate interpretation of the al-
together paltry performance of the four major ultra-nationalist parties of the 1990s,
the LDPR, RNE, KPRF, and NBP (Table 1) and their frequent failures to achieve high
offices during elections in the 1990s. 37
It, in a first step, argues that their leaders’ party-building efforts have, from their in-
ception, been hindered by fundamental inconsistencies in these parties’ public im-
age. In assessing the temporary decline of extremely right-wing party politics in Rus-
sia in the late 1990s and first years of the new century, it refers, in a second step, to
the experience of late Imperial Germany that faced the disappearance of most of its
antisemitic parties, but not of antisemitism around 1900. It, in a third step, notes that
specific attention to non-party activities on the extreme right has been called for by
scholars of inter- and post-war Western ultra-nationalism. Finally, it introduces two
distinct permutations of uncivil society, the “New Right” and groupuscules, both of
which have become prominent in post-war international right-wing extremism, includ-
ing Russia’s.
The second part or Chapter III of the study contains a description and interpretation
of one particular sphere of Russia’s emerging uncivil society as an illustration for the
above issues—intellectual centres.38 It focuses on a realm that Anders Uhlin has
37
I refrain, at this point, for two reasons from further elaboration on the Blok Rodina
(Motherland Bloc) that entered the State Duma in December 2003 with a surprisingly
good result (9.02%). First, the origins and future of Rodina are unclear. The alliance
brought together an array of more or less prolific politicians who have split, in the mean-
time. If the bloc had indeed been merely a creation of the Kremlin, as many observers al-
leged, it might have been from the outset destined to be an ephemeral political organiza-
tion. A the moment of finishing this study, it seems that the bloc may disappear altogeth-
er as happened to other nationalist unions such as the Russkii Natsional’ny Sobor (Rus-
sian National Assembly), Front Natsional’nogo Spaseniya (National Salvation Front), or
Blok “Vlast’ narodu!” (“Power to the People” Bloc). Second, an unequivocal classification
of the whole bloc as ultra-nationalist could be misleading. While many prominent mem-
bers would fall under this category, others would not. In addition, none of Rodina’s lead-
ers has so far produced as large a body of literature as the main objects of this investiga-
tion: Zyuganov, Zhirinovskii, Limonov and Dugin. Whether Rodina will, after its various
splits, produce a nationalist successor organization, and how sustainable such an organ-
ization may be, is, in late 2006, still unclear.
38
For a recent study of a different subject, but with a somewhat similar inention, see Tobias
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 27
called “civil society elites,” 39 and briefly introduces various think tanks paying special
attention to the publishing, propagandistic, networking and similar activities by Ale-
ksandr Dugin. This overview will focus less on the substance of the ideas of these
groupings than on their organizational capacity, spread, political connections, and
increasing presence in Russian society in the late 1990s and early 21st century.
Some of Dugin’s ideas will, to be sure, be analyzed in detail. Yet, this is done less so
in order to explain their nature, than to show how his self-promotion is designed to
facilitate his acceptance by society, in general, and his entry into mainstream elite
discourse, in particular. My treatment of Dugin’s ideas is thus less motivated by an
attempt to classify his world view,40 than to illustrate how he adapts his official image
in a way that furthers his influence in Russian public and intellectual life. The conclu-
sions draw some inferences concerning the future of the Russian extreme right and
its scholarly study.
Bader, Neokonservatismus, Think Tanks und New Imperialism. Hochschulschriften 62
(Köln: PapyRossa, 2005).
39
Uhlin, Post-Soviet Civil Society, 176.
40
I have attempted to do that in Umland, “Tri raznovidnosti postsovetskogo fashizma,” 252-
261.
ANDREAS UMLAND 28
I.2 The Arguments, Foci and Limits of this Study
The first argument proposed in Chapter II of this study can be seen as ideographic-
hermeneutic as it will interpret some peculiar features of the Russian extreme right,
namely the failures of the major ultra-nationalist parties, throughout the 1990s in rela-
tion to certain fundamentals of Russia’s specific nationalist discourse. The second
argument of Chapter II reports first the relative decline of right-wing extremist elec-
toral support in the late 1990s. It then argues that the relative failure of Russian radi-
cally nationalist parties so far is insufficient to indicate that the post-Soviet extreme
right has lastingly lost its political relevance. It is historical-analogical in that it points
out some peculiarities in the development of German ultra-nationalism of the late 19th
century as being suggestive for an adequate assessment of current Russian trends.
The third section of Chapter II too tries to contribute to a better conceptualization of
the Russian extreme right in the light of non-Russian experiences. In particular, it re-
fers to some recent trends in the study of Western right-wing extremism, and sug-
gests that, for an adequate measurement of the strength and spread of ultra-
nationalist ideas in, especially post-war, modern societies, close attention has to be
paid to groupings and tendencies outside the narrowly electoral realm. For this rea-
son, the concept of the extreme right should be broadened so as to include not only
parties, but also various non-party social actors, i.e. to incorporate also—what has
come to be known as—“uncivil society.”
While the latter would strike students of Western ultra-nationalism as a common
place, the study of Russian politics, as indicated above, suffers from an excessive
focus on the Kremlin, governmental institutions and economic actors. Only rarely
have forces outside the major political institutions and narrow circle of so-called “oli-
garchs” received the attention they deserve by political scientists. Rather, this realm
remains, as mentioned in the Preface, a prerogative of contemporary historians, ge-
ographers, sociologists, and students of Russian cultural and sub-cultural life. As far
as I can see, the main protagonist of Chapter III, Aleksandr Dugin, for instance, has,
outside the community of students of the Russian extreme right by now become
known. However, Dugin is almost entirely ignored by post-Sovietology understood as
a political science sub-discipline. Instead, Dugin’s activities have been studied by
philologists (Hielscher, Parland, Laruelle, Höllwerth, etc.), geographers (Bassin, In-
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 29
gram), or historians (Luks, D. Shlapentokh, Wiederkehr, Hagemeister, Dunlop), but
been largely ignored within the community of political scientists interested in post-
Soviet Russia. As a leading specialist on post-Soviet civil society recently noted, with
implicit reference to political science, “[t]here is not much research on ethnic or na-
tional identities. Neither organizations focusing on the culture and/or political and civil
rights of ethnic minorities nor the more extreme nationalist and xenophobic organiza-
tions have received much scholarly attention [by political scientists—A.U.].”41
A Note on the State of Russian Right-Wing Extremism Studies
Though the small circle of students of Russian ultra-nationalism seems to agree on
the growing importance of its subject, in general, and of Dugin, in particular, there is,
so far little sustained collaboration between the various scholars spread across the
Northern hemisphere—a state of affairs I lamented already in 1997 (and the following
years), but which has changed little since.42 The exception to the rule so far has been
Stephen Shenfield’s path-breaking Russian Fascism (2001) which—unusually for the
discipline—used extensively English- and Russian-language, primary and secondary
sources, and is thus, by far, more informative than any other non-Russian book on
the subject. However, even Shenfield’s well-researched study does not include all the
relevant secondary sources. It, in particular, entirely ignores the considerable recent
German-language literature which—like for instance Markus Mathyl’s articles cited
frequently below—is, sometimes, superior to similar Anglophone publications. There-
fore, the footnotes of the below study have been filled with more rather than less lit-
erature, and, especially secondary, sources on the subject in Russian, English and
German in an attempt to draw the attention of the various scholars in our small field
to the work of their colleagues of which they seem to be, sometimes, unaware. The
study is as much an investigation into, as a report on international research on, the
Russian extreme right.
While Shenfield’s book would be the first I would recommend on the subject, it has
been justifiedly criticized for its weak conceptual basis. This concerns especially its
confusing usage of “fascism” for which four, partly conflicting definitions are present-
ed in his book. Though Shenfield seems to have consulted only a limited amount of
literature on comparative fascism, he chose to formulate his own definition of not only
41
Uhlin, Post-Soviet Civil Society, 65.
42
Umland, “The Post-Soviet Russian Extreme Right.”
ANDREAS UMLAND 30
Russian, but also generic fascism—an undertaking that was neither necessary nor
successful. He also does not make an explicit distinction between anti-democratic
political society, and uncivil society. In connection with this, Shenfield’s extensive
treatment of the above mentioned and below introduced neo-Nazi organization RNE
seems not in all respects helpful. His extensive survey of the RNE analysis draws too
much attention to a phenomenon the nature of which may have been more sub-
cultural, than political.43 Last but not least, Shenfield’s book is now somewhat out-of-
date.
Dugin’s Competitors
The following survey represents neither an intellectual biography of Dugin, nor an
extensive exegesis of his writings, both of which are sorely needed.44 I deal in some
detail with both of these aspects—the particulars of Dugin’s life and the peculiarities
of this ideology. Yet, I am interested in his CV only in as far as such information is
conducive to a better understanding of his continuing rise and peculiar position in
Russian politics as an actor who is not affiliated to any party, but, nevertheless, of
growing importance, and thus a good example for Russia’s rising uncivil society.45 My
43
I have extensively argued the para-political nature of contemporary Russian neo-Nazism
in general, and of the RNE, in particular, in Andreas Umland, “Tri raznovidnosti postso-
vetskogo fashizma.”
44
In as far as the study focuses on various repercussions, in intellectual and political life, of
Dugin’s ideas and rise as much as on the Dugin phenomenon itself, I rely here often on
secondary, rather than primary sources. This is meant to increase the inter-subjectivity of
my presentation, and to illustrate, by itself, the growing attention to Dugin among Rus-
sian and Western journalists as well as scholars of as different disciplines as philology,
history and geography. A meaningfull analysis of the texts of the various intellectuals and
publicists I introduce below would be a life-time project as their books and articles sum
up to tens of thousands of pages. In addition, Dugin—as will be discussed later—uses
tactics of obfuscation and political mimicry making an adequate interpretation of the con-
tradictory ideas in his dozens of books and articles a formidable challenge that could be
adequately met only in a separate, different long-term research project. In view of these
circumstances and of the fact that this is not a study of Dugin per se, but of his rise in the
context of Russia’s emerging uncivil society, it was often more interesting to note what
historians of Dugin’s intellectual evolution had to say on him, instead of reproducing
Dugin’s own, often inconsistent sentences. As I am not claiming to present here a history
of ideas, I feel justified to rely on those scholars who would, in contrast, be vindicated to
call themselves historians of classical and/or “neo-Eurasianism” and to use their conclu-
sions on these subjects, rather than my own references to, and impressions from, prima-
ry sources which—the reader can be assured—I did read, to a large extent.
45
Thus, this study will hardly represent the “last word” on Dugin’s biography. That is not
only because this is not the purpose of the below text, but also because Dugin (like his
teacher Evgenii Golovin, see below) likes to surround himself with various myths making
it, sometimes, hard to distinguish between truth and fiction in his autobiographical re-
ports. See Nikita Kaledin, “Terapiya okazalas’ bessil’noi pered maniei Dugina-mladshego
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 31
elaborations on Dugin’s ideas go only as far as is necessary to illustrate what his po-
litical strategy is about, and, in particular, what specific significance the term “neo-
Eurasianism” has for Dugin’s tactics of political mimicry.
The reason that, along with brief overviews of the activities of Aleksandr Prokhanov,
Sergei Kurginyan and Lev Gumilëv (see below), Dugin’s “neo-Eurasianism” was cho-
sen here for a lengthier illustration of the rise of Russian uncivil society has less to do
with Dugin’s particular ideas. As will become clear below, his writings—while making,
perhaps, interesting reading, if one likes fantasy literature—contain little more than
mixture of bizarre conspiracy theories, voluntaristic historical interpretations, and
more or less adequate reviews of numerous Western and Russian texts on such sub-
jects as occultism, international relations and religion. To be sure, for instance,
Dugin’s “ethnopluralist” ideas about on inter-ethnic relations—analyzed briefly below
and in the literature quoted—are still, in a number of ways, more sophisticated than
those of Lev Gumilëv (1912-1992)—another, somewhat similar publicist introduced in
a special “Excursus” below, and seen by many Russians as a serious scholar, if not a
contemporary “Russian Darwin.”46 Yet, even though his ideas may be less crude than
Gumilëv’s, many Western readers, when encountering Dugin’s alternative interpreta-
tion of world history, have been unwilling to believe that his abstruse claims enjoy
acceptance among important sections of Russia’s intellectual, academic and political
elite.
Dugin was also not chosen here because his views are especially radical, as one
may think when reading his many articles and books published during the 1990s.
One might have also taken for illustration of the point to be made here the dubious
writings and public perception of other prolific publicists, such as renowned mathe-
matician Igor’ Shafarevich,47 chemistry professor Sergei G. Kara-Murza,48 or journal-
pereustroit’ mir,” Stringer, 1st May 2003, URL (last accessed October 2006):
http://www.compromat.ru/main/dugin/podpolje.htm.
46
Hildegard Kochanek writes that „[c]ompared with the ideological conceptions of West
European intellectuals [heavily used by Dugin too—A.U.], the pseudo-scientific theses of
the Gumilëvian teaching on ethnies may look, to the Western reader, intellectually unre-
fined, anachronistic and rather too erroneous.” See her important paper “Die Ethnienleh-
re Lev N. Gumilevs: Zu den Anfängen neu-rechter Ideologie-Entwicklung im spätkom-
munistischen Rußland,“ Osteuropa 48 (1998): 1184-1197, here 1194.
47
On Shafarevich’s earlier writings see, John B. Dunlop, “The ‘Sad Case’ of Igor Shafare-
vich,” Soviet Jewish Affairs 24, no. 1 (1994):19-30; Andrei A. Znamenski, “In Search of
the Russian Idea: Igor Shafarevich’s Traditional Orthodoxy,” European Studies Journal
31, no. 1 (1996): 33-48. Among his more recent books are Igor’ Shafarevich, Russkii
narod v bitve tsivilizatsii (Moskva: Eksmo-Press, 2004); idem, Trëkhtysyachiletnyaya
zgadka (Moskva: Eksmo-Press, 2005); idem, Zachem Rossii Zapad? (Moskva: Eksmo-
ANDREAS UMLAND 32
ist Vladimir Kucherenko.49 The latter, for instance, is a graduate of Moscow State
University’s Faculty of History, former editor for the popular Russian online magazine
Stringer and correspondent for, among other periodicals, the Russian government’s
official daily Rossiiskaya gazeta. Kucherenko now writes books under the pseudo-
nym of “Maksim Kalashnikov.”50 He is, like Dugin (on whom he occasionally relies),
not afraid of admitting an interest in elements of Nazism.51 Kucherenko-Kalashinkov
is also fond of comprehensively re-interpreting Russian as well as world history and
of advising the Russian people, especially, the elites, on how to act in the future—
again reminding Dugin’s intentions. Going beyond Dugin, Kucherenko-Kalashnikov
has proposed to make the infamous antisemitic forgery The Protocols of the Elders of
Zion a part of the school curriculum.52 He dreams, in one of his recent books, For-
ward to the USSR-2, of a “Neuroworld” which would be a “structure” combining the
characteristics of a “church, huge media holding, as well as of a financial ‘empire’
added with a secret service.” He would like to see in Russia a “secret [parallel] state,”
“new empire,” “new species [poroda] of human beings,” a “team of programmers and
computer geniuses” who would, “on the other side of the ocean [i.e. in the US—
A.U.],” cause “chaos and catastrophes.” Kucherenko-Kalashnikov has proposed a
“[s]ystem of development and application of neuro- and psychotechnology” for mili-
Press, 2005).
48
Kara-Murza is affiliated with Shershnev’s below-mentioned Fond natsional’noi i mezhdu-
narodnoi bezopastnosti. For a short introduction to Kara-Murza, see Mitrofanova, The
Politicization of Russian Orthodoxy, 150-151, 161. Among his many books are Sergei G.
Kara-Murza, Sovetskaya tsivilizatsiya (Moskva: Algoritm, 2001); idem, Evrei, dissidenty i
evrokommunizm (Moskva: Algoritm, 2002); idem, Antisovetskii proekt (Moskva: Algoritm,
2001); idem, idem, Manipulyatsiya soznaniem (Moskva: Eksmo-Press, 2004); idem, Po-
teryannyi razum (Moskva: Eksmo-Press, 2005); idem, Oppozitsiya kak tenevaya vlast’
(Moskva: Algoritm, 2006).
49
E.g. Maksim Kalashnikov, Vpered, v SSSR-2 (Moskva: Yauza, Eksmo-Press, 2003);
idem, Slomannyi mech’ imperii (Moskva: Krymskii Most, 9d—Paleia, 1998); idem, Bitva
za nebesa (Moskva: AST, Astrel’, 2002); idem and Yurii Krupnov, Gnev orka (Moskva:
AST, Astrel’, 2003); Maksim Kalashnikov, Amerikanskoe igo: Zachem diade Semu russ-
kie raby (Moskva: Yauza, Presskom, 2005); idem, Genotsid russkogo naroda: Chto
mozhet nas spasti? (Moskva: Yauza, Presskom, 2005). My list of authors is by no means
complete, does, perhaps, not even include the, apart from Dugin, most important publi-
cists, and could be extended with many more names like Yurii Petukhov, Aleksandr Se-
vast’yanov, Yurii Mukhin, Oleg Platonov, Mikhail Nazarov, etc.
50
Victor Yasmann, “Analysis: The Clandestine Soviet Union,” URL (last accessed October
2006): http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2004/08/dd222d80-7963-4116-b079-
b34810075822.html. Perhaps, the pseudonym is a combination of the name of two of
Russia’s most well-known machine guns, the pulemët Maksim and avtomat Kalashnikov.
51
Evgenii Moroz, “Podnyavshii svastiku: Imperskii proekt Vladimira Kucherenko,” URL (last
accessed October 2006): http://xeno.sova-center.ru/29481C8/2948351.
52
Moroz, “Podnyavshii svastiku.”4
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 33
tary means.53 Not only seem Kucherenko-Kalashnikov’s views thus hardly less radi-
cal than Dugin’s outlined below. The 2003 book just quoted from is also noteworthy
because it has a circulation number of 10,000. Yasmann wrote in August 2004 that
the book “has gone through several editions over the last 18 months and its populari-
ty has become widespread.”54
Dugin is thus neither the most radical, nor the only widely read representative of ul-
tranationalist publicism in Russia today. However, in distinction to Shafarevich’s, Ka-
ra-Murza’s and Kucherenko-Kalashnikov’s recent efforts, Dugin’s enterprise seems,
as I will try to illustrate below, to be a more sustained, better thought-through and
organized, as well as more original and encompassing operation in terms of both, its
contents, sophistication and infrastructure. An aim of this study is to illustrate why
Dugin appears as an especially noteworthy actor within contemporary Russian uncivil
society, in general, and extremely right-wing intellectualism, in particular.
This said, the present study neither claims to be a definitive account of Dugin, nor
ventures to provide a comprehensive survey of the whole Russian extreme right. It is
focused less on the extreme right per se, than on its extra-parliamentary political or-
ganizations, networks, potential and influence. Dugin’s reinterpretation of classical
Eurasianism is dealt with here at considerable length. However, it is elaborated upon
in the context of Dugin’s strategies to achieve influence, rather than in terms of his
eventual aims for Russia, or location in the history of Russian thought. “Neo-
Eurasianism” is extensively treated here less to explain Dugin’s world view, than to
show how the concept serves him in his Gramscian strategy of achieving hegemony
in Russia’s cultural complexes—concepts that will be explained below. The study
does also not yet amount to a comprehensive estimation of the current strength and
reach of Russia’s uncivil society as a whole, and touches only en passant upon the
question of the spread of extremely right-wing attitudes among the population at
large. These issues either have been dealt with in other studies referred to in the
footnotes, or constitute large, separate themes that would demand a different and/or
lengthier investigation. A final reason for focusing here on intellectual centres which
try to influence mainstream political discourse is that one can easily paraphrase for
the study uncivil society Anders Uhlin’s remark concerning the study of civil society
proper, namely that “the important task of researchers interested in democratization
is not primarily to identify actors within civil society, but to identify politically relevant
53
Kalashnikov, Vpered, v SSSR-2, 380-388.
54
Yasmann, “Analysis: The Clandestine Soviet Union.”
ANDREAS UMLAND 34
actors.”55
The Major Concepts of this Study
Some of the less familiar concepts of this study, like “uncivil society,” “groupuscule”
and “Gramscianism” will be extensively introduced below. Some other, more general
concepts frequently appearing in the text will, however, only briefly or not at all be
elaborated upon. The latter concerns such terms as “Russian civil society,” “Russian
nationalism,” “Russian fascism,” or “the Russian extreme right.” These are concepts
that have been extensively dealt with in the literature quoted, including my own publi-
cations.
To be sure, concerning, for example, “Russian civil society” and “Russian national-
ism,” one could argue that an extensive discussion is needed because of their speci-
ficity. While being aware of some striking peculiarities of civil society and nationalism
in Russia as compared to other countries, I regard these idiosyncrasies, however, as
neither salient enough to make them subjects of separate sections, nor as sufficiently
under-researched to justify their separate treatment. Therefore, I refer here simply to
the literature on civil society and nationalism, in general, and the study of their Rus-
sian permutations, in particular.56 My own position within the conceptual struggles
within these fields, as far as this needs to be clarified for the purposes of my argu-
55
Uhlin, Post-Soviet Civil Society, 27-28, emphasis added.
56
In chronological order: Gail W. Lapidus, “State and Society: Toward the Emergence of
Civil Society in the Soviet Union,” in: Seweryn Bialer, ed., Politics, Society, and Nationali-
ty Inside Gorbachev's Russia (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1989), 121-148; Andrew
Arato, “Social Movements and Civil Society in the Soviet Union,” in: Judith B. Sedaitis
and Jim Butterfield, eds., Perestroika from Below: Social Movements in the Soviet Unio
(Boulder, CO: Westview, 1991), 197-214; Nicolai N. Petro, “Russia’s Alternative Political
Organizations: The Re-emergence of Civil Society,” in his The Rebirth of Russian de-
mocracy: An Interpretation of Political Culture (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 1995), 112-148; K.G. Kholodkovsky, ed., Grazhdanskoe obshchestvo v Rossii:
struktury i soznanie (Moskva: Nauka, 1998); A.G. Volodin, ed., Grazhdanskoe ob-
shchestvo: mirovoi opyt i problemy Rossii (Moskva: URSS, 1998); Marica A. Weigle,
Russia's Liberal Project: State-Society Relations in the Transition from Communism
(University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000); James Gibson, “Social
Networks, Civil Society and the Prospects for Consolidating Russia's Democratic Transi-
tion,” American Journal of Political Science 45, no. 1 (2001): 51-69; Marc M. Howard,
“Postcommunist Civil Society in Comparative Perspective,” Demokratizatsiya 10, no. 3
(2002): 285-305; Henry E. Hale, “Civil Society from Above? Statist and Liberal Models of
State-Building in Russia,” Demokratizatsiya 10, no. 3 (2002): 306-321; Alfred B. Evans,
Jr., “Recent Assessments of Social Organizations in Russia,” Demokratizatsiya 10, no. 3
(2002): 322-342; Marc M. Howard, The Weakness of Civil Society in Post-Communist
Europe (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003); Alfred B. Evans, Jr., Laura A.
Henry, and Lisa McIntosh Sundstrom, eds., Russian Civil Society: A Critical Assessment
(Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe 2005).
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 35
ment, will become clear in the chapters. Further deliberation would serve little more
than to document my reading of the literature in these fields. As I have published a
number of book reviews on both, historic and current Russian nationalism57 as well
as Soviet and post-Soviet state-society relations,58 I would hope that this is not im-
perative.
Certainly, to repeat here what previously has been written on nationalism and civil
society in Russia would be a good introduction to those not yet familiar with this liter-
57
In chronological order: Andreas Umland, “Book review of Michael Harms, ed., Fjodor
Tjutschew: Russland und der Westen,” Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft, vol. 43,
no. 7, 1995: 668-669; idem, “Book review of Ariel Cohen, Russian Imperialism,” The
Slavonic and East European Review, vol. 76, no. 3, 1998: 572-573; idem, “Book review
of Gerhard Gnauck, Parteien und Nationalismus in Rußland,” Osteuropa, vol. 49, no. 4,
1999: 425; idem, “Book review of Wayne Allensworth, The Russian Question,” Europe-
Asia Studies, vol. 51, no. 7, 1999: 1300-1301; idem, “Book review of Matthias Messmer,
Sowjetischer and postkommunistischer Antisemitismus,” Nationalism and Ethnic Politics,
vol. 5, no. 1, 1999: 154-155; idem, “Book review of Yitzhak M. Brudny, Reinventing
Russia,” Europe-Asia Studies, vol. 52, no. 1, 2000: 172-173; idem, “Book review of Frank
Golczewski and Gertrud Pickhan, Russischer Nationalismus,” Zeitschrift für
Geschichtswissenschaft, vol. 48, no. 1, 2000: 71-72; idem, “Book review of Hildegard
Kochanek, Die russisch-nationale Rechte von 1968 bis zum Ende der Sowjetunion,”
Osteuropa, vol. 51, no. 2, 2001: 223-224; idem, “Book review of Peter J.S. Duncan,
Russian Messianism,” Europe-Asia Studies, vol. 53, no. 7, 2001: 1122-1124; idem, “Book
review of Nikolai Mitrokhin, Russkaia partiia,” Europe-Asia Studies, vol. 56, no. 1, 2004:
166-167; idem, “Book review of Erik van Ree, The Political Thought of Joseph Stalin,”
Patterns of Prejudice, vol. 40, no. 1, 2006: 90-92; idem, “Book review of Alexandra Mey,
Russische Schriftsteller und Nationalismus 1986-1995,” Europe-Asia Studies, vol. 57, no.
3, 2005: 514-516; idem, “Book review of Eric Lohr, Nationalizing the Russian Empire,”
Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas, vol. 54, no. 2, 2006: 269.
58
In chronological order: Idem, “Book review of Michael McFaul and Sergei Markov, The
Troubled Birth of Russian Democracy,” Osteuropa, vol. 45, no. 9, 1995: 872-873; idem,
“Book review of Russische Presse '95,” Zeitschrift für Politik, vol. 43, no. 3, September
1996: 347-349; idem, “Book review of Leonid Ivanov, Rußland nach Gorbatschow,”
Osteuropa, vol. 48, no. 1, 1998: 100-101; idem, “Book review of Michael Urban, The
Rebirth of Russian Politics,” H-Net Reviews, September 1998, URL (last accessed October
2006): http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/reviews/
showrev.cgi?path=23721907340487; idem, “Book review of M. Steven Fish, Democracy
from Scratch,” Österreichische Zeitschrift für Politikwissenschaft, vol. 28, no. 2, 1999: 238;
idem, “Book review of Jerry Hough, Democratization and Revolution in the USSR, 1985-
1991,” Österreichische Zeitschrift für Politikwissenschaft, vol. 28, no. 4, 1999: 482-483;
idem, “Book review of Esther Kingston-Mann, In Search of the True West,” Europe-Asia
Studies, vol. 52, no. 2, 2000: 375-377; idem, “Book review of John Löwenhardt, ed., Party
Politics in Post-Communist Russia,” Osteuropa, vol. 50, no. 12, 2000: 1409-1410; idem,
“Book review of Karl Hinrichs, Herbert Kitschelt and Helmut Wiesenthal, eds., Kontingenz
und Krise,” Osteuropa, vol. 52, no. 6, 2002: 832-833; idem, “Book review of Archie Brown,
ed., Contemporary Russian Politics,” Osteuropa, vol. 53, no. 7, 2003: 1031-1033; idem,
“Book review of Peter Reddaway and Dmitri Glinski, The Tragedy of Russia’s Reforms,”
Neue Politische Literatur, vol. 48, 2003: 523-524; idem, “Book review of Richard Rose and
Neil Munro, Elections without Order,” Europe-Asia Studies, vol. 56, no. 2, 2004; idem,
“Book review of Andrew Wilson, Virtual Politics,” The Slavonic and East European Review,
2006, in print; idem, “Book review of Evans, Henry, and Sundstrom, Russian Civil
Society,” Europe-Asia Studies, 2006, in print; idem, “Book review of Anders Uhlin, Post-
Soviet Civil Society,” Europe-Asia Studies, 2006, in print.
ANDREAS UMLAND 36
ature. Moreover, reflecting upon, for instance, the Slavophile claim that the Russians
are destined to lead the world because of their alleged openness to other nations—
an idea expressed by many later Russian nationalist thinkers, among them Fedor
Dostoevskii—or elaborating on the structural similarities between Russian Orthodox
chiliasm and Bolshevik teleology would be fascinating endeavours.59 Equally, dis-
cussing, for example, the effects of the Russian tradition of synoptic thinking about
the world, or of the peculiar pathologies of post-totalitarianism on the formation of
civil society in post-Soviet Russia would be captivating enterprises.60 But, in as far as
other authors have done so with more competence than I could hope to achieve,
adding my elaborations on these issues would be superfluous for the purposes of this
study—i.e. for drawing attention to some aspects of Russian civil society and nation-
alism that, in contrast to the above issues, have been largely overlooked in publicistic
writing on Russian affairs so far, and be only rarely treated in-depth within scholarly
political research.
A general interpretative issue to be still worth mentioning here is that my outline of
the rise of Russian uncivil society below can be read as supporting arguments about
the peculiarity of Russian civil society, as proposed by authors like Oleg Kharkhordin
who, at one point, mentions the construct “uncivil society” without explaining what the
term, in his understanding, means.61 As will become clear in my brief review of uncivil
society in pre-Nazi Germany, a particularly strong uncivil society is, however, not
something unique to Russia. Thus, I would stick to the above-indicated position that,
though Russian affairs are indeed peculiar in a number of ways, similarly high con-
centrations or specific combinations of seemingly unique social and cultural features
can be found at other places, within other civilizations, and in other time periods too.
Whatever thus makes civil society and nationalism in Russia different from other
59
McDaniel, Tim. The Agony of the Russian Idea (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 1996); Manuel’ Sarkisyants, Rossiya i messianizm: K “russkoi idee” N.A. Ber-
dyaeva (Sankt-Peterburg: Izdatel’stvo Sankt-Peterburgskogo universiteta, 2005).
60
William Zimmerman, “Synoptic Thinking and Political Culture in Post-Soviet Russia,”
Slavic Review 54, no. 3 (1995): 631-632; John Gray, “Post-Totalitarianism, Civil Society,
and the Limits of the Western Model,” in: Zbigniew Rau, ed., The Reemergence of Civil
Society in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1991),
145-160; Samuel Charap, "In Search of Civil Society: An Analysis of Russian Associative
Life," unpublished BA thesis, Amherst College, 2002.
61
Olege Kharkhordin, “Civil Society and Orthodox Christianity,” Europe-Asia Studies 50,
no. 6 (1998): 949-968; reprinted in idem, Main Concepts of Russian Politics (Lanham
etc.: University Press of America, 2005), 41-65; see also E.V.D. Zweerde, “‘Civil Society’
and ‘Orthodox Christianity’: A Double Test-Case,” Religion, State and Society 17, no. 1
(1999): 23-45.
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 37
permutations of these phenomena is insufficient to see them as phenomena sui gen-
eris demanding an elaborate introduction within a study such as mine.
Conceptual Borders of Generic Civil Society and Nationalism
What might, notwithstanding, be worth clarifying here are a couple of definitional is-
sues in my conceptualization of generic civil society and nationalism. While my usage
of “civil society” is, perhaps, more narrow than in other studies, my usage of “nation-
alism” is broader than usual.
“Civil society” is here understood not only as an ideal type to denote a social realm
distinct from political society and private life, but also a concept to be separated from
all forms of businesses, profit making activity or “economic society” (though not from
those associations of businesses that are created to exert influence on the govern-
ment or society, rather than to directly increase profits). This is, for my particular
study, of importance in as far as it would—in contrast to a classification made recent-
ly by Louise Shelley62—exclude from the category of uncivil society the phenomenon
of organized crime. Within my particular conceptualization of civil society, crime
groups would constitute a perverted form of economic society, in as far as its pur-
pose too is making profit.63 Basically, the same reasons that are applied when mak-
ing an argument for not including businesses into the concept of civil society could be
made for not seeing organized crime as a permutation of uncivil society. To be sure,
Petr Kopecký, among others, has pointed out that
the sharp theoretical boundaries that are drawn […] between civil socie-
ty, political society […] and economic society are in empirical reality diffi-
cult to sustain. Organizations that operate between the state, the family
(individual, household) and the economic production (market, firms)—that
is, civil society—will often significantly overlap with one or more of these
62
Louise Shelley, “Organized Crime Groups: ‘Uncivil Society’,” in: Evans, Henry and
Sundstrom, Russian Civil Society, 95-109.
63
Henry and McIntosh Sundstrom seem to make the same argument in the introduction to
the paper collection in which Shelley’s article appeared when they exclude organized
crime groups from their notion of civil society not because of the bandits’ illegal status or
readiness to use violence, but explicitly because they “are profit-oriented.” Henry and
McIntosch Sundstrom, “Introduction,” in: Evans, Henry and Sundstrom, Russian Civil So-
ciety, 3-8, here 5. See also their concluding article “Russian Civil Society: Tensions and
Trajectories,” in: ibid., 305-325, here 315.
ANDREAS UMLAND 38
subsystems.64
However, for analytical reasons, civil society will be understood here as an ideal-
typical concept that is distinct from political and economic society as well as from pri-
vate life.
While my conceptualization of “civil society” might thus be narrower than those of
others, my notion of nationalism is broader. I would argue that the structural traits
and elements of the ideology of nationalism, narrowly defined, might be also found to
refer to communities not commonly recognized as proper nations. When right-wing
extremists speak affirmatively of the “Aryan nation,” “Eurasia,” or “nation of Europe”
(Nation Europa, as the title of a German right-wing journal goes), it seems legitimate
to admit an application of the concept of nationalism, more loosely defined, to these
ideologies too. While the “Aryans,” “Eurasians” or “Europeans” are not treated as na-
tions in the scholarly literature, extremist political actors using such terms define
these communities with the help of traits—culture, blood, religion, traditions, ances-
try, etc.—that are also applied in delineating nations from each other. In as far as na-
tions can be seen as “imagined” or even “invented” communities, the question arises
why one should make a principal conceptual differentiation between, for instance, the
familiar notion of Russian ethnic nationalism, on the one side, and the less familiar
idea of a “Eurasian nationalism,” on the other—apart from the fact that the former
notion might be more easily understood and popular.
While one might justifiedly argue that, for, among others, lexicological reasons, “na-
tionalism” should not be applied to ideologies that refer to such larger (pseudo-)
communities, it is still possible to locate their radical expressions within the realm of
the more general concept of the radical or extreme right. In the light of this, the an-
swer to the question of whether, for instance, radical “Eurasianism” should be seen
as a form of nationalism (“supra-nationalism”?) or not is, ultimately, inconsequential
for my purposes. It falls within the borders of the concept of the extreme right, in any
way. The same goes for other differences represented in various sections of the
Russian ultra-nationalist movement where there are numerous disagreements about
who can be called a russkii, rusak, velikoros, rossiianin, slavianin, etc. or how legiti-
mate each of these terms by itself is.
64
He adds: “[T]his also means that uncivil movements, and therefore uncivil society, are a
part of civil society […].” Petr Kopecký, “Civil Society, Uncivil Society, and Contentious
Politics in Post-Communist Europe,” in: Mudde and Kopecký, eds., Uncivil Society? 1-18,
here 14-15.
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 39
A Methodological Rationale of this Investigation’s Approach
If a particular methodology needs to be identified as guiding the below study, it would
be, as the study’s sub-title indicates, the case study method—with all the limitations
and benefits linked to it. Moreover, one of the purposes of the below survey is to
demonstrate that the rise of Dugin’s “neo-Eurasian” movement constitutes an im-
portant, if not critical case for an adequate interpretation of the political potential of
the post-Soviet Russian extreme right. This means that Dugin’s emergence not only
illustrates, but, to some extent, exemplifies the growing relevance of ultra-nationalism
in Russian mainstream political, academic and intellectual discourse.
The case study is an approach that, as listed by Orum, Feagin and Sjoberg, has a
number of advantages in comparison to other methods of investigation:
1. It permits the grounding of observations and concepts about social action
and social structures in natural settings studied at close hand.
2. It provides information from a number of sources and over a period of
time thus permitting a more holistic study of complex social networks and
of complexes of social action and social meanings.
3. It can furnish the dimensions of time and history of social life, thereby
enabling investigators to examine continuity and change in lifeworld pat-
terns.
4. It encourages and facilitates, in practice, theoretical innovation and gen-
eralization.65
While these are important advantages of the case study method that will benefit the
argumentation below, my approach here does also not proceed from an assumption
voiced by Schwartz and Ogilvy66 and applied to social sciences by Lincoln and Gu-
ba67 that an in-depth analysis of one case only is comparable to a piece of a holo-
gram, and that a single case is thus already sufficient for revealing all relevant char-
65
Anthony M. Orum, Joe R. Feagin and Gideon Sjoberg, “Introduction: The Nature of the
Case Study,” in: idem, eds., A Case for the Case Study (London: The University of North
Carolina Press, 1991), 1-26. here 6-7.
66
Peter Schwartz and James Ogilvy, The Emergent Paradigm: Changing Patterns of
Thought and Belief (Menlo Park, CA: SRI International, 1979).
67
Yvonna S. Lincoln and Egon G. Guba, “The Only Generalization Is: There Is no General-
izaion,” in: Roger Gomm, Martyn Hammersley and Peter Foster, eds., Case Study
Metod: Key Issues, Key Texts (London: SAGE, 2000), 27-44, here 40-43.
ANDREAS UMLAND 40
acteristics of the entire phenomenon that the case represents—i.e., here, of the Rus-
sian extreme right as a whole. Lincoln and Guba seem to believe that singular cases
are comparable to elements making up holograms and that they each exhibit all the
features of the complete phenomenon under scrutiny. They use the metaphor of the
hologram, in which every particle contains the whole picture, as an instrument to con-
fer to the case study an unusually high status.
In contrast, I do not think that this metaphor is apt, in general, and that my study has
the potential to comprehensively illustrate for the reader all the various characteristics
and implications that the rise of Russian ultra-nationalism may have, in particular.
What I report below about the ideology, strategy and tactics of Dugin can thus not be
seen as being fully representative of, or the last word on, the entire spectrum of Rus-
sian radically anti-Western actors. My text is merely what it claims to be—a study of
one and only one case in the rise of post-Soviet uncivil society.
On the other hand, Dugin’s movement is by now so important an element within this
spectrum that this investigation might still have the potential to count as an, in Eck-
stein’s sense, “crucial case study” and that its findings have thus implications going
beyond a mere illustration of the point to be made.68 What I claim is not that my in-
vestigation is sufficient for understanding the Russian extreme right in its entirety, but
that it is, nevertheless, suitable for debunking interpretations of current Russian poli-
tics such as the one stated above where the extreme right is dismissed as a marginal
phenomenon. I believe that my study, in and of itself, should be already enough to
show that the growing prominence of ultra-nationalism in daily media reports from
Russia cannot be as easily relegated to journalistic hyperbole, or as quickly ignored
as a result of manipulations by political technologists as holders of the above-
formulated opinion may think.
A Final Introductory Note
A last note to be made before starting the argument concerns Eduard Limonov’s Na-
tional-Bolshevik Party that would, in as far as Dugin was the NBP’s second in com-
mand in 1994-1998, be worth investigating in the context of this study in some depth.
However, as far as others have already written on the subject, 69 and, in particular, as
68
Harry Eckstein, “Case Study and Theory in Political Science,” in: Gomm, Hammersley
and Foster, Case Study Metod , 119-164, here 143-152.
69
Markus Mathyl, “The National-Bolshevik Party and Arctogaia: Two Neo-fascist Group-
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 41
Andrei Rogatchevski of the University of Glasgow is currently writing a book on the
NBP,70 I have chosen to limit my descriptions of the NBP in this study to the neces-
sary minimum. Dugin’s important role in the NBP in the mid-1990s is for the sake of
the argument of this study—his growing influence on the Russian establishment, and
not only youth culture—of limited relevance, in any way. The NBP was and is a factor
that, in contrast to the Dugin phenomenon, can be safely located at the margins of
Russian political, intellectual and public discourse.
What the present investigation thus tries to demonstrate, by way of introducing in
some detail one particularly relevant example of post-Soviet Russian uncivil society,
is the increasing sophistication, considerable organizational capacity, and already
deep infiltration into mainstream social institutions of certain groupings that are radi-
cally anti-Western and whose ideas amount to nothing less than a blueprint for a new
Cold War (if not more). Such an indication should be sufficient to suggest that, for the
foreseeable future, right-wing extremist ideas will continue to play a role in Russian
politics independently of the individual fates of its recently prominent political party
leaders such as Vladimir Zhirinovskii, Aleksandr Barkashov, or Eduard Limonov.
uscules in the Post-Soviet Political Space,” Patterns of Prejudice 36, no. 3 (2003): 62-76,
reprinted in: Roger Griffin in collaboration with Matthew Feldmann, eds., Fascism 5:
Post-war Fascisms. Critical Concepts in Political Science (London and New York:
Routledge 2004),185-200; Mikhail Sokolov, “Natsional-bol’shevistskaya partiya: ideolog-
icheskaya evolyutsiya i politicheskii stil’,” in: Verkhovskii, Russkii natsionalizm, 139-164.
70
Andrei Rogachevski, The National-Bolshevik Party. Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and
Society (Stuttgart: ibidem, forthcoming).
II Civil Society’s Relevance for Right-Wing
Extremism Studies
There is a multitude of factors that have inhibited the emergence of a fully-fledged
post-Soviet party system, in general, 71 and the growth and rise of ultra-nationalist
parties, in particular, in Russia.72 Among the reasons for the latter might be a factor
often invoked by Russian observers that there is a peculiarly Russian antipathy
against ultra-nationalist ideas. Whether this is an appropriate interpretation or not, the
relatively poor performance of many extremely right-wing individuals and parties in
Russia’s elections so far can, for the below reasons, not be seen as indicating that
the prospects of ultra-nationalist politics in Russia are principally negligible.
II.1 Some Peculiar Dilemmas of Russian Ultra-Nationalist
Politics in the 1990s
Concerning the limited electoral success of right-wing extremist parties or politicians
during the last decade of the 20th century in Russia, it is noteworthy that all four major
political organizations that promoted ultra-nationalist ideas of various types and took,
to various degrees, part in elections in this period, i.e. the LDPR, RNE, KPRF and
NBP, suffered from certain basic impasses rooted in their particular history or leader-
ship:
71
Michael E. Urban, “Party Formation and Deformation on Russia's Political Left,” in: R.T.
Hubert and D.R. Kelley, eds., Perestroika-Era Politics: The New Soviet Legislature and
Gorbachev's Political Reforms (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1991), 129-150; M. Steven
Fish, Democracy from Scratch: Opposition and Regime in the New Russian Revolution
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995), and idem, “The Advent of Multipartism
in Russia, 1993-1995,” Post-Soviet Affairs 11, no. 4 (1995): 340-383.
72
Robert W. Orttung, “The Russian Right and the Dilemmas of Party Organisation,” Soviet
Studies 44, no. 3 (1992): 445-478.
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 43
First, Vladimir Zhirinovskii, the supreme, dictatorial leader of the LDPR,73 has a Jew-
ish father,74 and is, at least to some Russians, recognizable as Jew.75 Though
Zhirinovskii cannot be regarded as being Jewish in any meaningful sense, and
though he sees himself as being fully Russian, his family background constituted a
principal predicament for Zhirinovskii’s acceptance by many right-wing extremist poli-
ticians, intellectuals, activists, and voters—among the latter also those not holding
ultra-nationalist views.76 In a survey presented by the Lev Gudkov in a volume of the
Moscow Carnegie Center in 1999, 64% of the respondents reacted negatively to the
question on whether a Jew could be President of the RF. 77 In a survey by the Levada
Center in June 2005, again, 65% of the respondents were “rather” or “definitely
against” an RF President of non-Russian nationality. 78 While not all of these re-
73
While there have been many journalistic investigations into the LDPR, there are still sur-
prisingly few scholarly studies of the Zhirinovskii phenomeon. Among the few exceptions
are Alexander Motyl, “Vladimir Zhirinovsky: A Man of His Times,” The Harriman Review 7,
no. 7-9 (1994): 11-18; Andreas Umland, “Wladimir Shirinowskij in der russischen Politik:
Einige Hintergründe des Aufstiegs der Liberal-Demokratischen Partei Rußlands,” Os-
teuropa 44, no. 12 (1994): 1117-1131; Alan J. Koman, “The Last Surge to the South: The
New Enemies of Russia in the Rhetoric of Zhirinovsky,” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 19
(1996): 279-327.
74
Yevgeniya Al’bats, Evreiskii vopros (Moskva: PIK, 1995). Though this had been common
knowledge in the Russian public since the early 1990s, it is significant that, in 2001,
Zhirinovskii himself admitted the fact in public. See Susan B. Glasser, “Russian Revises
His Heritage: Anti-Semitic Politician Zhirinovsky Admits Father Was Jewish,” The Wash-
ington Post, 17th July 2001, A13. I am grateful to Professor Marshall I. Goldman for bring-
ing this article to my attention.
75
See the quote from Andrei Sinyavskii in Shenfield, Russian Fascism, 95.
76
A further worth-mentioning source of confusion has been the name of Zhirinovskii’s Par-
ty: “Liberal-Democratic.” See Andreas Umland, “Ein Gespräch mit Wladimir Shirinowskij,”
Die Neue Gesellschaft: Frankfurter Hefte 41, no. 2 (1994): 114-117. This title, however,
is less related to Zhirinovskii’s views at any time of his political rise, as has sometimes
been implied, than to the party’s peculiar origins in 1990. See Julia Wishnevsky, “Multi-
party System, Soviet Style,” Report on the USSR, 23 November 1990, 3-6; John B. Dun-
lop, “The Leadership of the Centrist Bloc,” Report on the USSR, 8 February 1991, 4-6;
Galina Luchterhandt, “Der ‘zentristische’ Block,” Aktuelle Analysen des BIOst, no. 46
(1991); and, especially, John B. Dunlop, “The Party and the KGB Dabble in Democracy,”
in his important The Rise of Russia and the Fall of the Soviet Empire, 2nd edn. (Prince-
ton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995), 108-111. Later on, Zhirinovskii was at pains
to interpret the meaning of his party’s name. One such attempt was to translate “demo-
cratic” into “national” or “popular,” and “liberal” into “liberationist.” See Vyacheslav Likha-
chev, Politicheskii antisemitizm v Rossii (Moskva: Academia, 2003), 28. Thus, his organ-
ization would be a party struggling for national liberation of Russia from negative outside
influences (“Zionism,” “Southerners,” “American Jewish capital” etc.).
77
Lev Gudkov, “Antisemitizm v postsovetskoi Rossii,” in: Neterpimost’ v Rossii: Starye i
novye fobii (Moskva: Moskovskii tsentr Karnegi, 1999), 74, as quoted in Likhachev,
Politicheskii antisemitizm v Rossii, 8.
78
Leonid Sedov, “Problemy prezidentskikh vyborov 2008 goda,” URL (last accessed Octo-
ber 2006): http://levada.ru/press/2005080302.thml.
ANDREAS UMLAND 44
spondents might see Zhirinovskii as a half-Jew or not fully Russian, many of those
with a nationalistic outlook, probably, would label him according to his “blood.”
In addition, Zhirinovskii has been involved in numerous televised scandals—such as
physically attacking a woman and a fellow ultranationalist in the State Duma—since
he came to prominence in December 1993. 79 He has thus not only discredited him-
self and his party in the eyes of many, though—as recent election and polling results
show—by no means all Russians.80 He has also lost credit he and his followers had
in the nationalist mainstream. In an interview in late 1994 already, the leading Rus-
sian ultra-nationalist ideologist Aleksandr Prokhanov (introduced below) said:
“Zhirinovskii is a very extravagant politician, with very extravagant and unusual politi-
cal technologies. And his methods and his ideals distress, and in the end they will not
pay.”81
Some prominent figures in the extreme right, such as the former editor of the prestig-
ious Voenno-istoricheskii zhurnal (Military-Historical Journal) Viktor Filatov, to be
sure, did seemingly not regard Zhirinovsky’s ancestry or scandalous behaviour as
being by itself, or at all a problem, and co-operated or still co-operate with him. How-
ever, it seems not too far-fetched a speculation that a majority of Russia’s ultra-
nationalists would regard a Russian president with a Jewish father as undesirable (to
say the least), in general,82 and the rise of Zhirinovskii to such a position as unwel-
come, in particular.
Second, the party that came to occupy most of the lunatic fringe section, i.e. the ex-
plicitly anti-systemic, counter-cultural, violence-prone, outermost right niche, of the
Russian party spectrum in the mid- and late 1990s was the RNE.83 This party used
79
The negative PR effect of Zhirinovskii’s antics though has often been over-rated by
Western and Russian observers according to whom he, accordingly, should have disap-
peared from politics long ago. Zhirinovskii has been consciously playing the role of the
traditional Russian figure yurodiv (a clown expressing folk wisdom), and explicitly de-
fended his theatrical style as necessary to keep people’s attention. See Martin A. Lee,
The Beast Reawakens (Boston, MA: Little, Brown & Company, 1997), 323-325.
80
Aleksandr Dugin, for instance, has called Zhirinovskii’s electorate “mindless and rootless
Lumpen, oligophrenics [and] petty criminals.” As quoted in Oreshkin, “Spor Slavyan.”
81
As quoted in Sven Gunnar Simonsen, “Aleksandr Prokhanov: The Last Soldier of the
Empire,” in his, Politics and Personalities: Key Actors in the Russian Opposition (Oslo:
PRIO, 1996), 91-108, here 105.
82
A 1994 NBP document, for instance, speaks of the “Israelites of the LDPR.” See Vladimir
Pribylovskii, ed., Russkie natsionalisticheskie i pravoradikal’nye organizatsii, 1989-1995:
Dokumenty i teksty. 1st Vol. (Moskva: Panorama, 1995), 185.
83
John B. Dunlop, “Alexander Barkashov and the Rise of National Socialism in Russia,”
Demokratizatsiya 4, no. 4 (1996): 519-530; Sven Gunnar Simonsen, “Aleksandr Bar-
kashov and Russian National Unity: Blackshirt Friends of the Nation,” Nationalities Pa-
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 45
prominently (though not exclusively) some barely modified German Nazi symbols,
such as the swastika and Roman salute, as well as ideas, such as biological racism.
It is true that—as Russian neo-Nazis have argued frequently—no single of the exter-
nal trappings and ideological traits that make the RNE similar to the NSDAP was by
itself unique to Nazism, and some of them can be found in historic Russian national-
ism.84 However, their combination quite obviously was. 85 I shall not go here into the
details of the various problems that an as explicitly neo-Nazi profile as the RNE’s
would encounter everywhere in the world (including Germany), and did encounter in
Russia.86 It may suffice to say that this particular characteristic predestined the RNE,
from its creation, to political isolation, and, arguably, eventual failure. 87 Whereas, for
pers 24, no. 4 (1996): 625-639; Vyacheslav Likhachev and Vladimir Pribylovskii, eds.,
Russkoe Natsional’noe Edinstvo: Istoriya, politika, ideologiya. Informatsionnyi paket
(Moskva: Panorama, 1997, 2nd edn 2001); William D. Jackson, “Fascism, Vigilantism,
and the State: The Russian National Unity Movement,” Problems of Post-Communism
46, no. 1 (1999): 34-42; Vyacheslav Likhachev and Vladimir Pribylovskii, eds., Russkoe
Natsional’noe Edinstvo, 1990-2000: V 2-kh tomakh. Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and
Society 10 (Stuttgart and Hannover: ibidem, 2005).
84
Thus, it should be noted that racism was already present in the ideology of the pre-
revolutionary extreme right. For instance, the infamous Black Hundred—while proclaim-
ing that its ideology was identical with Orthodox Christianity—refused to accept baptized
Jews in their ranks. See Anastasiya V. Mitrofanova, Politizatsiya “pravoslavnogo mira”
(Moskva: Nauka, 2004), 110. In any way, the Black Hundred has played only a second-
ary role for the RNE as a role model.
85
Simonsen reports the following interesting discussion on the RNE with Aleksandr Pro-
khanov, a leading ideologist of the Russian extreme right (see below): “Late in 1994, in
an interview with this writer, Prokhanov said that he ‘sympathized with’ Barkashov and
did not in any way distance himself from the content of Barkashov’s ideology. ‘I see [in
Barkashov] many political shortcomings, as in a politician who is quite odious and ex-
travagant. I think Barkashov has to overcome some ideological formulas which became
inherent in this organization [i.e. the RNE] and became a problem in this organization. If
he can be capable of overcoming these problems, then Barkashov will be a quite out-
standing politician.’ When asked about which ‘formulas’ Barkashov had to overcome,
Prokhanov pointed out that the Russian National Unity leader had borrowed several ele-
ments of ideology from German radical nationalism. ‘He should be closer to Russian his-
tory,’ Prokhanov said.” Simonsen, “Aleksandr Prokhanov,” 103.
86
Andreas Umland, “The Pseudo-Threat of Russian Neo-Nazism: Symbolical and Ideologi-
cal Handicaps of the RNE,” Paper presented at the 33rd Annual Convention of the Ameri-
can Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, Arlington, Virginia, 15-18 No-
vember 2001. Shenfield, for instance, quotes the Don Cossack Ataman Nikolai Kozistyn
as saying that the Don Cossacks (like all Cossack groups—a more or less nationalistic
grouping) “will never stand together with those who wear the black uniform of the chas-
tisers.” Shenfield, Russian Fascism, 78. In more general terms, a major comparativist of
fascism and specialist on the Russian extreme right aptly observed: “Small groups in var-
ious parts of the world continue trying to revive the old Nazism and Fascism, embracing
their emblems and slogans and, of course, their ideas and programs. But even if these
corpses could be resurrected, they would still be irrelevant to today’s world. Just as
Communism in its Leninist-Stalinist incarnation cannot be resurrected, historical fascism
cannot have a second coming, either.” Walter Laqueur, Fascism: Past, Present, Future
(New Yorik: Oxford University Press, 1996), 4.
87
It is for these reasons that it seems that, in some surveys of the Russian extreme right,
ANDREAS UMLAND 46
instance, the prominent Russian nativist writer Valentin Rasputin had, in the late
1980s, publicly defended the then prominent, extremely anti-semitic Russian Pamyat’
group (where Barkashov began his political career), the same Rasputin, in 1993,
publicly denounced Barkashov and Russian neo-Nazism—apparently less so be-
cause of the substance of its ideology, but because of the symbols it uses.88 When,
in autumn 2000, the RNE finally fell apart, one of its major successor organizations,
the All-Russian Socio-Political Movement “Russkoe Vozrozhdenie” (Russian Rebirth),
demonstratively abandoned the swastika as its emblem. 89
Third, the political profile of the KPRF—here seen as a party to fall within the catego-
ry of ultra-nationalist organizations considered here90—remains fundamentally com-
promised by ideological inconsistencies stemming from its originally left-wing roots.91
This is in spite of the CPSU’s impregnation with crypto-nationalist ideas already un-
der Stalin,92 and the sophistication of the KPRF’s gradual switch to an increasingly
rather too much attention has been paid to the RNE. See, for instance, Stephen D. Shen-
field, “The Weimar/Russia Comparison: Reflections on Hanson and Kopstein,” Post-
Soviet Affairs 14, no. 4 (1998): 355-368; and idem, Russian Fascism, 113-189 and 264-
266.
88
Wayne Allensworth, The Russian Question: Nationalism, Modernization, and Post-
Communist Russia (Lanham, ML: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998), 284.
89
Vyacheslav Likhachev, “Chto predstavlyaet soboi Russkoe Natsional’noe Edinstvo kak
organizatsiya,” Paper presented (by Vladimir Pribylovskii) at the 33rd Annual Convention
of the American Associaton for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, Arlington, Virginia,
15-18 November 2001. In the meantime, Russkoe Vozrozhdenie has also fallen apart.
90
I have tried to show elsewhere in some detail that Zyuganov’s ideology should be classi-
fied as extremely right-wing (though ultra-conservative rather than fascist). See Umland,
“Neue ideologische Fusionen im postsowjetischen russischen Antidemokratismus.“ For
an interpretation that somewhat departs from such labeling, see Robert C. Otto, “Genna-
dii Ziuganov: The Reluctant Candidate,” Problems of Post-Communism 46, no. 5 (1999):
37-47.
91
Andreas Umland, “Post-Soviet Politics: A History Still Beginning,” Patterns of Prejudice
34, no. 2 (2000): 132-134. One might add that not only the ideologies informing the
course of the French Revolution after 1789, in particular Jacobinism, as well as some
ideas of the Western and Russian revolutionary movement of the 19 th century, in particu-
lar Blanquism and Sorelianism, but even Marxism itself already contained certain traits
that precipitated their later transmutation into ultra-nationalist and fascist ideologies. See
on this complicated issue, for instance, Michael Freund, Georges Sorel: Der revolu-
tionäre Konservatismsus (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann 1972); Zeev Sternhell,
The Birth of Fascist Ideology: From Cultural Rebellion to Political Revolution (Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press 1994); Erik van Ree, “Nationalist Elements in the Work of
Marx and Engels: A Critical Survey,” MEGA-Studien, no. 1 (2000): 25-49; idem, The Po-
litical Thought of Joseph Stalin: A Study in Twentieth-century Revolutionary Patriotism
(London: RoutledgeCurzon 2002); idem, “On Whose Shoulders Did Stalin Stand? Radi-
cal Nationalism of the Radical Left, 1789-1917,” Paper presented at the 5th European So-
cial Science History Conference “Shared Histories: Transnational Dimensions of Social His-
tory,” Berlin 24-27 March 2004.
92
Klaus Mehnert, Stalin versus Marx: The Stalinist Historical Doctrine (London: Allen &
Unwin 1952); Frederick C. Barghoorn, Soviet Russian Nationalism (New York: Oxford
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 47
explicit right-wing discourse represented by the ever more elaborate russophile ide-
ology developed in the numerous publications of its political leader and major ideolo-
gist, Gennadii A. Zyuganov.93 Zyuganov’s bold, undisguised adoption of the ideas of
prominent Russian and European right-wing thinkers, including, for instance, the
émigré monarchist political theorist Ivan A. Il’in (1883-1954),94 has led him to move
University Press, 1956); Robert C. Tucker, Stalin in Power: The Revolution from Above,
1928-1941 (New YorK: Norton 1992); David L. Brandenberger and A.M. Dubrovsky,
“‘The Peolple Need a Tsar’: The Emergence of National Bolshevism as Stalinis Ideology,
1931-1941,” Europe-Asia Studies 50, no. 5 (1998): 873-892; E.A. Rees, “Stalin and Rus-
sian Nationalism,” in: Geoffrey Hosking and Robert Service, eds., Russian Nationalism:
Past and Present (Houndsmills: Macmillan, 1998), 77-106; Maureen Perrie, The Cult of
Ivan the Terrible in Stalin’s Russia (Houndsmills: Palgrave, 2001); David Brandenberger,
National Bolsheivsm: Stalinist Mass Culture and the Formation of Modern Russian Na-
tional Identity, 1931-1956 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002).
93
Though now somewhat dated, the most valuable interpretation of Zyuganov’s ideology is
still Veljko Vujačić, “Gennady Zyuganov and the ‘Third Road’,” Post-Soviet Affairs 12, no.
2 (1996): 118-154. On the emergence of Zyuganov’s ideology, see, in chronological or-
der, J.C. Moses, “The Challenge to Soviet Democracy from the Political Right,” in: Hubert
and Kelley, eds., Perestroika-Era Politics, 105-128; Eberhard Schneider, “Die Konserva-
tiven im Volkskongress der UdSSR: Die Deputiertengruppe ‘Union',“ Bundesinstitut für
ostwissenschaftliche und internationale Studien: Aktuelle Analysen, no. 15 (1991); Eliza-
beth Teague, “The ‘Soiuz' Group,” Radio Liberty. Report on the USSR, 17 May 1991, 16-
21; Wendy Slater, “The Russian Communist Party Today,“ RFE/RL Research Report 3,
no. 31 (1994): 1-6; Nikolaj Krotow and Galina Luchterhandt, “Zwischen ‘Patriotismus’ und
‘Sozialdemokratie’: Der Kommunist Gennadij Sjuganow,” Osteuropa 44, no. 9 (1994):
855-861; Vesa Oittinen, “Ein populistischer Zwitter: Rußlands KP zwischen Leninismus
und Staatspatriotismus,” Blätter für deutsche und internationale Politik 40, no. 8 (1995):
946-955; Gerhard Simon, “Gennadij Sjuganow,“ Die politische Meinung 41, no. 318
(1996): 17-24; John T. Ishiyama, “Red Phoenix? The Communist Party of Post-Soviet
Russian Politics,“ Party Politics 2, no. 2 (1996): 147-175; Heinz Timmermann, „Die
Kommunistische Partei der Russischen Föderation,“ Bundesinstituts für ostwissenschaft-
liche und internationale Studien: Aktuelle Analysen, nos. 69 & 70 (1995); idem, „Renais-
sance der KP Rußlands: Programm, Struktur und Perspektiven der Sjuganow Partei,“
Europäische Rundschau 24, no. 2 (1996): 59-80; idem, „Die Wiederkehr der KP
Rußlands: Programm, Struktur und Perspektiven der Sjuganow Partei,“ Berichte des
Bundesinstituts für ostwissenschaftliche und internationale Studien, no. 12 (1996); idem,
„Rußlands KP: Zwischen angepaßtem Leninismus und Volkspatriotismus,“ Osteuropa
47, no. 8 (1997): 749-761; Evelyn Davidheiser, „The CPRF: Towards Social Democracy
or National Socialism?“ in: Matthew Wyman, Stephen White and Sarah Oates, eds.,
Elections and Voters in Post-Communist Russia (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar 1998), 240-
271; Simon Pirani, “State Patriotism in the Politics and Ideology of Gennday Zyuganov,”
Slovo (London) 10, no. 1-2 (1998): 179-197; Geir Flikke, „Patriotic Left-Centrism: The
Zigzags of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation,“ Europe-Asia Studies 51, no.
2 (1999): 275-298; Luke March, „For Victory? The Crisis and Dilemmas of the Com-
munist Party of the Russian Federation,” Europe-Asia Studies 53, no. 2 (2001): 263-290;
Jin-Sook Ju, Tschetschenienkrieg und natioinalistischer Diskurs in Russland: Am
Beispiel von KPRF und Jabloko. Forschungsstelle Osteuropa: Arbeitspapiere und Mate-
rialien 66 (Bremen: Universität Bremen, 2005). Recently, the “national-patriotic” wing in
the KPRF was further strengthened when the party choose to give the notorious anti-
semite Nikolai Kondratenko, formerly Governor of the Krasnodar Region, its second slot
(after Zyuganov himself) on the KPRF list for the State Duma elections of December
2003.
94
E.g. Ivan A. Il'in, O Rossii (Moskva: TRITE—Rossiiskii Arkhiv, 1991); idem, Nashi
ANDREAS UMLAND 48
the KPRF in a more and more obviously non- and even, implicitly, anti-communist
direction.95 One commentator observed concerning the post-Soviet Russian right’s
re-discovery of the inter-war Russian nationalist émigré movement of Eurasianism (to
be dealt with in more detail below): “While [Aleksandr] Dugin and [Aleksandr] Pro-
khanov [introduced below—A.U.] have emerged as Eurasianism's main ideologues,
the movement's greatest practitioner is Gennadii Zyuganov. Zyuganov has used Eur-
asianism to reinvent the Communist Party, and he has been fantastically successful
in doing so.”96 Another observer claimed that not Pravda 5 [Truth 5], the official KPRF
organ, but Aleksandr Prokhanov’s weekly Den’/Zavtra—also introduced below—
“represents the ideology of the communist mainstream.”97
This, notwithstanding, the party has not repudiated its role as the main successor
organization of the CPSU. It is thus seen by leading right-wing spokesmen (few
women are to be found in this spectrum), and, presumably, a considerable number of
zadachi: Istoricheskaya sud'ba i budushchee Rossii. Stat'i 1948-1954 godov, 2 vols.
(Moskva: Rarog, 1992); idem, “O pravoslavii i katolichestve,” Moskva, no. 3 (1993): 3-8;
idem, Rodina i my. Ed. by Yu.T. Lisitsy (Smolensk: Posokh, 1995); idem, Osnovy gosu-
darstvennogo ustroistva: Proekt Osnovnogo zakona Rossii (Moskva: Rarog, 1996).
There are only few analyses of Il’in so far, most of them not very critical. See, for in-
stance, Nikolai P. Poltoratskii, Ivan Aleksandrovich Il'in: Zhizn', trudy, mirovozrenie.
Sbornik statei (Tenaflay, NJ: Hermitage, 1989); V.A. Gusev, “Konservativnaya politologi-
ya Ivana Il'ina,” Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya, no. 4 (1992): 64-70; M.B. Zolina, “Prob-
lema totalitarizma v politologii I.A. Il'ina,” Sotsial'no-politicheskii zhurnal, no. 5 (1996):
183-191. Shenfield has characterized Il’in—a highly regarded political thinker in today
Russia—as falling under the category of “fellow-travellers of fascism.” Shenfield, Russian
Fascism, 32-35. A. James Gregor too has noted the sympathies that Il’in had for Italian
Fascism. See Gregor, The Faces of Janus, 125.
95
An important interpretation that, in contrast, emphasizes the clarity of Zyuganov’s agen-
da as important for his relative success in party-building is Stephen E. Hanson, Ideology,
Uncertainty, and the Rise of Anti-System Parties in Postcommunist Russia. Studies in
Public Policy Number 289 (Glasgow: Centre for the Study of Public Policy, University of
Strathclyde, 1997). Brief summaries of Zyuganov’s apocalyptic world view may be found
in his articles “Rossiya nad bezdnoi,” Nash sovremennik, no. 11 (1993): 182-191, and
“Rossiya v bor'be tsivilizatsii,” Nash sovremennik, no. 10 (1995): 102-110.
96
Charles Clover, “Dreams of the Eurasian Heartland: The Re-emergence of Geopolitics,”
Foreign Affairs 78, no. 2 (1999): 9-13; URL (last accessed October 2006):
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/19990301facomment963/charles-clover/dreams-of-the-
eurasian-heartland-the-reemergence-of-geopolitics.html, URL (last accessed October
2006): http://www.geocities.com/integral_tradition/heartland.html. Also quoted in Mark
Sedgwick, Against the Modern World: Traditionalism and the Secret Intellectual History
of the Twentieth Century (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 229. See further
Olga Koulieri, “Russian ‘Eurasianism’ and the Geopolitics of the Black Sea,” in: M.
Sheehan, ed., Security Dynamics of the Black Sea Region: Greek Geo-Political Perspec-
tives. Conflict Studies Research Centre Special Series 43 (Camberley, Surrey: The De-
fence Academy of the UK, 2003), 25-31, here 28, URL (last accessed October 2006):
http://www.da.mod.uk/CSRC/documents/Special/S43/S43.pt4.
97
Dmitry Shlapentokh, “‘Red-to-Brown’ Jews and Russian Liberal Reform,” Washington
Quarterly 21, no. 4 (1998): 107-126.
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 49
nationalist voters as being responsible for many of Russia’s misfortunes in the 20th
century. With reference to Zyuganov’s and others’ merger of ideas derived from Or-
thodox Christianity with communism Anastasia Mitrofanova has observed:
Orthodox Communists face the […] complex problem of trying to rec-
oncile Sovietism and Orthodoxy. Having suggested that the Soviet
Union inherited the geopolitical mission of Russia they need to recon-
cile the official Soviet atheistic doctrine with this mission to protect
world Orthodoxy. In their attempts to resolve the dilemma, modern
communists make the USSR a clandestine “Orthodox kingdom.”98
As a result of such curiosities, the KPRF is, correctly or not, perceived by many Rus-
sian rightists as not representing a genuinely anti-universalistic party that, moreover,
has an ideological heritage going back to the theories of a German half-Jew. At least,
as long as the party keeps the attribute “Communist” in its name, it will remain vul-
nerable not only to liberal, but—what is more important—nationalist critique referring
to its Marxist roots, and Soviet past.99
A fourth, lesser known, but temporarily important ultra-nationalist group that seemed
to be on the rise in the late 1990s,100 and will play some role below, is the National-
Bolshevik Party NBP. In the words of one of its former members, this party had, “in
late 1996 until early 1998, [its] period of intellectual and cultural apotheosis. The NBP
started to add not only quantitative, but also qualitative strength.” 101 In 2001, Stephen
Shenfield argued that the NBP had “demonstrated a pattern of steady growth, with
98
Anastasia V. Mitrofanova, The Politicization of Russian Orthodoxy: Actors and Ideas.
Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics & Society 13 (Stuttgart: ibidem, 2005), 62.
99
This vulnerability became relevant in the 1996 presidential campaign when Yel’tsin
(though being himself a former CPSU apparatchik) was able to launch a sophisticated
negative campaign against the KPRF-leader that referred to Russia’s Soviet past. See
Michael McFaul, The 1996 Russian Presidential Elections: The End of Polarized Politics
(Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 1997).
100
The pioneering analysis of the NBP-ideology is Markus Mathyl, “‘Die offenkundige Nisse
und der rassenmäßige Feind’: Die National-Bolschewistische Partei (NBP) als Beispiel
für die Radikalisierung des russischen Nationalismus,” Halbjahresschrift für südos-
teuropäische Geschichte, Literatur und Politik 9, no. 2 (1997): 7-15 and Ibid. 10, no. 1
(1998): 23-36. See also idem, “Hammer und Sichel in der Fahne Hitlers,” in: Roland Roth
and Dieter Rucht, eds., Jugendkulturen, Politik und Protest: Vom Widerstand zum Kom-
merz (Opladen: Leske+Budrich, 2000), 211-37. See also Andrei Rogachevskii, “The Na-
tional Bolshevik Party (1993-2001): A Brief History,” Paper presented at the 33rd Annual
Convention of the American Society for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, Arlington,
Virginia, 15-18 November 2001.
101
Arkadii Maler, “Natsional-bol’shevizm: konets temy,” URL (last accessed October 2006):
http://www.kprf.ru/projects/left/internal/31237.html.
ANDREAS UMLAND 50
the result that it is now one of the largest political organizations of fascist orientation
in Russia, with a membership estimated to be in the range 6,000 to 7,000.”102
The NBP belongs, as the RNE, to the counter-cultural, expressly anti-systemic cur-
rent in Russian ultra-nationalism, and has been labelled, by a leading Russian expert
on Russia’s extreme right, “the party of general extremism.”103 Nevertheless, the NBP
too is still bound to refrain from violating some basic strictures of the political niche it
aims to occupy in order to achieve larger support. In other words, in spite of its dis-
tinctly novitistic profile, the NBP too has to remain within some basic ideological fix-
points of right-wing extremism in order to gain wider acceptance among nationalist
voters.
The NBP faced, in this regard, not only the dilemma that its eccentric leader, the
novelist Eduard Limonov, had spent a large part of his adult life, 1974-1991, in the
West,104 been a French citizen, 105 called himself a “European” or “international writer”
as well as “of the West” or “non-Russian,”106 and reflected in his writings Western
influences.107 Limonov has an ambivalent relationship to his own nation, a feeling
that expressed itself, as Stephen Shenfield noted, in “diatribes against the weak and
102
Shenfield, Russian Fascism, 190.
103
Ibid., 209, 292, and personal communicaton with Likhachëv.
104
For details on Limonov’s biography, see Andrei Rogachevskii, “Dangerous Liaisons: Ed-
uard Limonov and Ataman Krasnov,” in: P. Pesonen, Yu. Kheinonen and G.V. Obatnina,
eds., Modernizm i postmodernizm v russkoi literature i kul’ture. Studia Russica Hel-
singiensa et Tartuensa 5 (Helsinki: Slavica Helsingiensa, 1996), 419-439; Andrei Roga-
chevskii, “The Doppelgänger, or the Quest for Love: Eduard Limonov as Vladimir
Maiakovskii,” Canadian American Slavic Studies 30, no. 1 (1996): 1-44; and, especially,
idem, Biographical and Critical Study of Russian Writer Eduard Limonov. Studies in Slav-
ic Language and Literature 20 (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen, 2004). Among the writer’s
earlier texts that deal especially intensively with political issues are Eduard Limonov, Po-
drostok Savenko: Povest' (Krasnodar: Zhurnal “Kuban’,” 1992); idem, Ischeznovenie
varvarov: Stat'i, esse. Glagol 9 (Moskva: Zhurnal “Glagol,” 1992); idem, “Izvrashcheniya
natsionalizma,” Novyi vzglyad, no. 117 (1993): 8; idem, Ubiistvo chasovogo (Moskva:
Molodaya gvardiya, 1993); idem, Limonov protiv Zhirinovskogo (Moskva: Nezavisimyi
al'manakh “Konets veka,” 1994).
105
Alexandra Mey, Russische Schriftsteller und Nationalismus 1986-1995: Vladimir
Solouchin, Valentin Rasputin, Aleksandr Prochanov, Ėduard Limonov. Dokumente und
Analysen zur russischen und sowjetischen Kultur 12/II (Bochum and Freiburg: projekt
verlag, 2004), 299.
106
Ibid., 335.
107
F. Dreizin, “Russian Style in Emigration: Edward Limonov's Anglicisms,” Wiener
Slawistischer Almanach 22 (1988): 55-67; Natalia Vesselova, “Edward Limonov: a
French Writer?” in: Thomas Bremer, Heike Dörrenbächer and Inken Dose, eds., ICCEES
VII World Congress: Europe—Our Common Home. Abstracts (Berlin: German Associa-
tion for East European Studies, 2005), 447-448. One of Limonov’s autobiographical nov-
els reflecting his feelings as he returned to Russia for a visit in 1989 was even called In-
ostranets (Foreigner)—not exactly a recommendation for the later ultra-nationalist politi-
cian. See Mey, Russische Schriftsteller und Nationalismus 1986-1995, 304.
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 51
useless sentimentality of the Russian psyche or ‘soul,’ and against Russians in gen-
eral, whom he excoriates as masochistic arse-lickers.”108 In a 1998 article for Mos-
cow’s dubious US-American expat weekly The eXile to which Limonov, for a while,
regularly contributed, the NBP leader, for instance, wrote:
I feel deep shame to be a Russian, deep shame to drag my fucking
Slavic face across the world. To be a Russian in 1998 it is like to ad-
mit that you are village idiot, having feeble brains. We Russians, when
we decide to be peaceful, instead we demonstrate to the world our
super-stupid masochism, because we always overdo things. […] That
fucking Russian soul!109
Moreover, before becoming involved in politics, Limonov had described homosexual
encounters in the United States in his, perhaps, most infamous autobiographical
novel Eto ya - Edichka (It’s me, Eddie).110 One observers even argued that Limonov’s
novel had contributed to making male homosexuality—a criminal offence in Russia
until 1994—acceptable in society.111 The issue at hand here was, for instance, illus-
trated in 1992 when Limonov, in an interview for the leading ultra-nationalist weekly
Den’ (Day), felt it necessary to defend his writings by way of speaking of himself in
the third person:
The journalist Limonov is burdened with the “sins” of all the heroes and
anti-heroes of Limonov, and he becomes, simultaneously, a drug-addict,
alcoholic, homosexual, Trotskyite, fascist, etc. As I have already told the
correspondent of Komsomol’skaya pravda [Truth of the Komsomol; a
major Russian daily newspaper—A.U.] […]: No, I am not homosexual,
108
Shenfield, Russian Fascism, 206.
109
Eduard Limonov, “We Will Eat You, Westerners, Dearest Yankees, and Arrogant Euro-
peans,” The eXile, no. 40 (1998), URL (last accessed October 2006):
http://www.exile.ru/vault/limonov/limonov40.html. Shenfield also uses parts of this quote
in his Russian Fascism, 206; yet his reference is to the wrong article by Limonov in the
eXile.
110
On this book, see A. Shukman, “Taboos, Splits and Signifiers: Limonov's Eto ya -
Edichka,” Essays in Poetics, no. 2 (1983); Olga Matich, “The Moral Immoralist: Edward
Limonov’s Èto Ja—Èdička,” Slavic and East European Journal 30, no. 4 (1986): 526-540.
Among the early activists of the NBP, there was also the “ideologist of militant homosex-
ualism, the journalist Yaroslav Mogutin.” Pribylovskii, ed., Russkie natsionalisticheskie i
pravoradikal’nye organizatsii, 177.
111
Aleksandr Shatalov, “A Revolution Delayed,” Index on Censorship, no. 1 (1995): 41-43,
here 42, as quoted by Mey, Russische Schriftsteller und Nationalismus 1986-1995, 306.
ANDREAS UMLAND 52
and no, I am not addicted to drugs. Thus, please, calm down gentle-
men...112
A comment of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn illustrates the dominant view in mainstream
Russian nationalist intellectual circles on Limonov: “a little insect who writes pornog-
raphy.”113
The above-listed characteristics constituted profound discrepancies in the profile of
post-Soviet Russia’s ultra-nationalist parties during El’tsin’s presidency. One should,
therefore, be cautious to infer from the relative electoral impotence of organized Rus-
sian political ultra-nationalism in the 1990s a general lack of prospects for extremely
right-wing groupings in Russia’s elections in the new century.
112
Eduard Limonov, “‘Nechistyi’ Limonov i ego ‘chistye’ kritiki: Interv’yu s samim soboi,”
Den’, no. 18 (1992): 6, as quoted in Mey, Russische Schriftsteller und Nationalismus
1986-1995, 326. See also Eduard Limonov and Andrei Vandenko, “Ne putaite menya s
Limonovym,” Novyi vzglyad, no. 12 (1992): 1 & 4, here 4.
113
As quoted in Lee, The Beast Reawakens, 313. For an, in contrast, sympathetic assess-
ment by a mainstream Russian nationalist publicist, see V.G. Bondarenko, Eduard Li-
monov (Moskva: Paleya, 1992).
II.2 Some Recent Developments in Russian
Ultra-Nationalist Party Politics
Not only was the Russian extreme right inhibited by the above intricacies from the
outset. Its political fortunes seemed, after reaching a certain peak in 1993-1995, to
be further dwindling in the late 1990s.
First, after the LDPR’s impressive results in the 1993 and 1995 State Duma elections
(22.92% and 11.18%),114 Zhirinovsky’s electoral support decreased in the 1996 pres-
idential (5.7%) and 1999 State Duma elections (6%). In the 2000 presidential elec-
tions, he received with 2.7% the lowest result in federal-level elections so far. In
2001, Shenfield saw the LDPR as “a force in rapid decline.” 115 Of course,
Zhirinovsky’s party made a surprising comeback in the proportional part of the voting
for the current State Duma, and received, in the December 2003 parliamentary elec-
tions, with 11.45% its second best result in federal-level elections ever. Yet, at the
same time, the LDPR also did not win any single-mandate districts in these elections,
and remains an isolated faction in the State Duma. In the December 2005 Moscow
City Council elections, the LDPR did not manage to pass the 10%-threshold for these
elections and will thus not be represented in the most important Russian regional
parliament.
Second, the nationalist Agrarian Party that was prominent in post-Soviet Russia’s
first parliaments, constituted, for most of its history, de facto a front-organization of
the KPRF, and received considerable support in the first post-Soviet multi-party par-
liamentary elections of 1993 (7.9%) has since then become an, at best, second-rate
political factor.116 It received 3.78% in the 1995 State Duma elections, did not partici-
pate in the 1999 elections, and reached only 3.64% in the 2003 State Duma elec-
tions.117 Moreover, it has recently loosened its ties to the KPRF, and associated itself
with the pro-Putin party Edinaya Rossiya (Unified Russia).
114
T.D. Clark, “The Zhirinovsky Electoral Victory: Antecedence and Aftermath,” Nationalities
Papers 23, no. 4 (1995): 767-778.
115
Shenfield, Russian Fascism, 86.
116
The Agrarian Party is included in these considerations not as a right-wing extremist force
by itself, but as a non-, rather than extremely anti-democratic grouping that could have
served as a coalition partner for an ultra-nationalist alliance in the 1990s and beginning
of the new century.
117
URL (last accessed October 2006): http://gd2003.cikrf.ru/WAY/76799135/sx/
art/76805049/cp/1/br/76799124.
ANDREAS UMLAND 54
Third, the large difference between unpopular Boris El’tsin’s and little-known Vladimir
Putin’s outcomes, on the one side, and Zyuganov’s results in the 1996 (second
round) and 2000 (first round) presidential elections, on the other, was already then
interpreted to signal the fading of a serious anti-liberal alternative in Russia. Since,
moreover, the KPRF has been relying heavily on elderly voters, a decline of the party
was, by many observers, in spite of some surprising gains in opinion polls in 2001
and 2002,118 always seen as a matter of time. 119 By 2005, finally, not only are the
prospects of the Russian “communist” movement ever reaching federal-level execu-
tive power looking increasingly unreal. The survival of the KPRF as a significant polit-
ical actor is under question. It received, in the December 2003 State Duma elections,
12.65%, i.e. only little more than half of its share of the 1999 elections when it had its
best result ever in federal-level parliamentary elections: 24.29%. “The KPRF’s dismal
performance in the 2003 election, in which it suffered sizable loss of votes and seats
on both halves of the Russian ballot [i.e. its proportional and majoritarian parts], has
led many Russia-watchers to […] expect the communists to slide into a marginal tier
on the domestic political scene.”120 In the opinion of William A. Clark, “the outcome of
the 2003 election provides [indeed] some basis for handicapping the future prospects
of the KPRF in Russian electoral politics.”121 While the KPRF remains a party that
will, probably, pass the 7%-barrier newly introduced for the proportional voting sys-
tem of the December 2007 (and all following) State Duma elections, it has, since the
height of its popularity in 1996-1999, lost its cloud of being the dominant political or-
ganization of Russia.
Fourth, the RNE split in autumn 2000 into several minor organizations.122 When still
unified, the RNE was perceived, at least, by some observers as a significant extra-
parliamentary force. This cannot be said of current organized Russian political neo-
Nazism, any more. Though the RNE’s split-offs continue to attract considerable atten-
118
For instance, in a ROMIR poll reported on 30 June 2001, 35% of those asked said they
would vote for the KPRF in elections. See URL (last accessed October 2006):
http://www.rferl.org/newsline/2001/07/1-rus/rus-030701.html.
119
Timothy J. Colton and Michael McFaul, “Russia’s Communist Opposition Becalmed: The
KPRF and the Election of 1999,” unpublished manuscript, Davis Center for Russian
Studies, Harvard University, 2001.
120
William A. Clark, “Communist Devolution: The Electoral Decline of the KPRF,” Problems
of Post-Communism 53, no. 1 (2006): 15-25, here 15.
121
Ibid., 16.
122
Likhachev, “Chto predstavlyaet soboi Russkoe Natsional’noe Edinstvo kak organizatsi-
ya.”
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 55
tion from the press and human rights watch-dogs, they are not any longer recognized
as a serious threat like the unified RNE of the 1990s.
Fifth, NBP-leader Limonov spent a considerable period of time in prison for illegal
ownership of weapons in 2001-2003.123 As a result, the NBP was weakened organi-
zationally and in terms of its public image. Since Limonov’s freeing from prison, the
natsboly (an abbreviation for natsional-bol’sheviki), have, like the RNE’s remnants,
been again attracting interest by the mass media. Yet, in spite or because of the
NBP’s frequent presence in newspaper headlines, the party seems to have become
further locked in the extra-parliamentary niche of the opposition, and continues to
disqualify itself among patriots with its numerous scandalous actions as a serious
political player. In contrast to most other Russian ultra-nationalists, Limonov and his
party remain in unmitigated opposition to the Putin administration, and are not afraid
of engaging in provocative actions against the government. While the natsboly have
earned a certain public reputation with their principled stance, they will have, under
Putin’s neo-authoritarian regime, difficulties to step outside their current identity as a
rabble-rousing youth gang. It seems not unlikely that, sooner or later, the Russian
authorities—having already attempted several times to shut down the organization—
will take resolute action against Limonov. The natsboly’s recent prominence in the
mass media even suggests that they may currently be left untouched as they are
playing a certain useful role for the Kremlin by, for instance, discrediting, with their
participation, protest actions of other political or civic actors.
Last but not least, one has to mention the new electoral bloc Rodina (Motherland)
that was created in 2003, and entered, in December of that year, the State Duma
with the surprisingly high result of 9.02%. It also managed to win eight further seats
in single-member district elections, and to attract another directly elected independ-
ent deputy to its faction—the notorious defender of the Soviet unitary state Viktor
Alksnis. While Rodina’s faction, when still unified, did include a number of prominent
ultra-nationalists,124 it remains unclear, as in the case of the KPRF, whether the
whole bloc should be categorized as a fully extremist right-wing force. One of its first
123
Andrey Mukhin and Natalya Rostova, “Eduard Limonov popal iz bani v ‘Lefortovo’,”
Segodnya, no. 82 (14 April 2001): 3.
124
Andreas Umland, “Der russische Rechtsextremismus nach den Wahlen 2003-2004:
Bestandsaufnahme und Perspektiven,” Russlandanalysen, no. 23 (2004): 1-4, URL (last
accessed October 2006):
http://www.russlandanalysen.de/content/media/Russlandanalysen23.pdf.
ANDREAS UMLAND 56
leaders, Sergei Glaz’ev, for instance, started his political career as a member of Egor
Gaidar’s team of liberal pro-Western reformers in 1992.
Although Rodina’s nationalism was, nevertheless, manifest, and linked in several
ways to the “lunatic fringe” of the Russian anti-Western spectrum, the bloc resembled
the KPRF in occupying an ambivalent position in the Russian ideological spectrum: It
supported the government in a number of ways; it opposed the Putin regime on cer-
tain issues; and it constituted an anti-systemic force in some other regards. Moreo-
ver, according to the perception of many observers, the Rodina bloc was merely a
creature of the Kremlin (i.e. the Presidential Administration) that had been formed to
draw votes away from both, the “communists” and the liberals, in the 2003 State Du-
ma elections. It was also perceived as a force unlikely to survive a withdrawal of sup-
port from the Kremlin—all the more so as there will be a new 7%-threshold in future
State Duma elections. The public conflicts between the three Rodina leaders Dmitrii
Rogozin, Sergei Glaz’ev and Sergei Baburin, and their splitting of the bloc into two
organizations also did not bode well for this branch of Russian nationalism. In any
way, as I am finishing this study, it appears that the bloc might, as a result of new
Kremlin machinations, disappear altogether. One of the successor organizations of
the original Rodina has become part of a new moderately nationalist and economical-
ly leftist Kremlin-creature, the bloc Spravedlivaya Rossiya (Just Russia).
Does this, in conclusion, mean that right-wing extremism is and will remain a minor
phenomenon in post-Soviet Russian politics, and that, as a competent Russian ob-
server commented already in summer 2001, “the time of the national-radicals is
over”?125 A glance on the history of ultra-nationalist movements elsewhere cautions
against a quick answer.
125
Likhachev, “My i nash diagnoz.”
II.3 Evaluating Declining Ultra-Nationalist Parties:
Some Lessons from German History
For instance, modern German political antisemitism is marked by a fundamental dis-
continuity—one could say, paradox—in its history that might be suggestive for an
evaluation of the recent relative decline of Russian radically nationalist parties. At the
end of the 19th century and early 20th century, the young German party system expe-
rienced a significant change by the downfall of its most explicitly antisemitic compo-
nents.126 Only a few years before, some seemingly vigorous ultra-nationalist parties,
founded during the 1870s-1880s, had been on the rise, and, together with the in-
creasingly antisemitic Conservative Party, won a majority in the 1893 Reichstag elec-
tions.127 Also, a multitude of antisemitic literature had been circulating in Germany for
more than two decades at this point. 128 Yet, “[t]he electoral fortunes of the antisemitic
parties, other than the Conservative Party, declined in the first decade of the twenti-
eth century.”129 Otto Kulka explains that
the diminishing importance of the antisemitic parties towards the end
of the nineteenth century [however] does not indicate a parallel de-
cline underlying their critique of Judaism. Rather it suggests the pen-
etration of this criticism into the ideologies of most of the large politi-
cal parties at the end of the imperial age and during the Weimar
era.130
What is even more relevant for the present analysis is that the latter development
was, in the words of Daniel Goldhagen, “true not only of political institutions but also
of the Tocquevillian substructures of society, the associations that provided the stag-
ing ground for people’s political education and activity.”131 Werner Jochmann writes
126
Richard S. Levy, The Downfall of the Anti-Semitic Political Parties in Imperial Germany
(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1975).
127
Daniel J. Goldhagen, Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust
(New York: Vintage Books, 1997), 75.
128
Jacob Katz, From Prejudice to Destruction: Antisemitism, 1700-1933 (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 1980), 245-272.
129
Goldhagen, Hitler’s Willing Executioners, 76.
130
Otto D. Kulka, “The Critique of Judaism in Modern European Thought: Genuine Factors
and Demonic Perceptions,” in: Robert S. Wistrich, ed., Demonizing the Other: Antisemi-
tism, Racism and Xenophobia (Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1999), 197-
209, here 204-205.
131
Goldhagen, Hitler’s Willing Executioners, 72.
ANDREAS UMLAND 58
that “a wealth of examples shows how, in the [18]90s, antisemitism infiltrated in this
way into every last citizens’ association, penetrating folk clubs and cultural socie-
ties.”132 For these and some other reasons, Peter Pulzer warns that an emphasis on
the overall meagre direct political influence of the German antisemitic parties and
their leaders until 1918 would miss the point:
Thirty years of incessant propaganda had been more effective than men
thought at the time; antisemitism was no longer disgraceful in wide so-
cial and academic circles […]. Insofar as they had impregnated wide
sections of the population with antisemitic ideas, the antisemitic parties
had not only succeeded in their object but also worked themselves out of
a job.133
In the words of Shulamit Volkov, “[w]hat in the [18]70s was created in the heat of
passion became in the [18]90s a common place. In the earlier period, antisemitism
was preached with true hate; at the end of the century, it became part and parcel of a
whole culture.”134
Goldhagen, in his otherwise debatable, but on the present issue illuminating study of
German popular anti-Semitism, concludes that
the decline of the antisemitic parties was therefore not symptomatic of a
decline in antisemitism, for these particular parties had already per-
formed their historic role of moving antisemitism from the street and the
beer hall’s Stammtisch into the electoral booth and the seat of parlia-
ment, into, in Max Weber’s formulation, the house of power. The anti-
semitic parties had rendered themselves moot. They could quietly dis-
appear, leaving the political terrain to more potent successors who were
fit for the next upsurge in antisemitic expression and activity.135
132
Werner Jochmann, “Structure and Functions of German Anti-Semitism, 1878-1914,” in:
Herbert A. Strauss, ed., Hostages of Modernization: Studies on Modern Antisemitism,
1870-1933/39 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1993), 52-53.
133
Peter G.J. Pulzer, The Rise of Political Antisemitism in Germany and Austria, rev. edn.
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988), 291 & 282.
134
Shulamit Volkov, Jüdisches Leben und Antisemitismus im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert: Zehn
Essays (München: C.H. Beck, 1990), 33.
135
Goldhagen, Hitler’s Willing Executioners, 76. Similar phenomena could be observed in
other countries and time periods. For instance, a century later, in the 1980s, “[t]he whole
spectrum of German politics moved somewhat toward the right […]. But this did not help
the [right-radical] Republicans; on the contrary, it tended to make them redundant.”
Laqueur, Fascism, 114.
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 59
It would be misleading to draw far-reaching parallels between the type, salience and
radicalness of antisemitism in late Imperial German and post-Soviet Russian society.
Nor would it be adequate to claim that exactly the same process of transfer of ultra-
nationalist ideas from waning fringe parties to the political mainstream as well as to
civil society sectors is taking place in Russia today. However, this example illustrates
that a deterioration of the electoral and organizational performance of right-wing ex-
tremist parties cannot, in every case, be seen as an unequivocal indication of a di-
minishing appeal of their ideas. It also indicates that attention to developments within
(un)civil—and not only political—society may assist in drawing a fuller picture of the
spread, nature, and radicalism of anti-democratic ideas in a given country.
II.4 Civil Society’s Role in Democratic Transition,
Consolidation and Breakdown
Not only can declining nationalist parties, in a certain context, create misleading im-
pressions about a population’s propensity to support anti-democratic politics. In some
recent research, there has also been questioning of the contribution of a strong civil
society to the creation and fortification of polyarchies. Whereas a mainstream ap-
proach—sometimes called “neo-Tocquevillian” and principally inspired by Robert
Putnam’s seminal book Making Democracy Work—assumes an important positive
effect of civil society on democratization, some dissenting voices have argued that a
strong third sector may have only limited relevance for certain attempts to establish
polyarchies, or may, in particular circumstances, even contribute to the break-down
of unconsolidated polyarchies. For instance, Omar G. Encarión showed in a recent
paper that “Spain constructed a viable and very successful new democracy with a
notable deficit in civil society development as reflected in the absence of the condi-
tions most conducive to the production of social capital.” 136 In as far as Spain consti-
tutes “the paradigmatic case for the study of democratic transitions,” 137 and as it has
been said that, for Eastern Europe, “the optimistic scenario is to retrace the path of
Spain,”138 this finding, if correct, should have significant consequences for our under-
standing of how polyarchies emerge.
II.4.1 German Vereinswesen in the Weimar Republic
What is even more relevant for the present context is that another paradigmatic case
for the comparative study of regime change, namely the fall of the German Weimar
Republic in 1930-1934, is marked by the presence and active involvement of a—by
both historical and comparative standards—exceptionally varied and thriving volun-
tary sector.139 As Sheri Berman has noted,
136
Omar G. Encarión, “Civil Society and the Consolidation of Democracy in Spain,” Political
Science Quarterly 111, no. 1 (2001): 53-79, here 55.
137
Juan J. Linz and Alfred Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation:
Southern Europe, South America and Post-Communist Europe (Baltimore: The Johns
Hopkins University Press, 1996), 87.
138
Adam Przeworski, Democray and the Market (New York: Cambridge University Press,
1991), 8.
139
Peter Fritzsche, Rehearsals of Fascism: Populism and Political Mobilization in Weimar
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 61
in contrast to what neo-Tocquevillian theories would predict, high
levels of associationism, absent strong and responsive national gov-
ernment and political parties, served to fragment rather than unite
German society. […] Weimar’s rich associational life provided critical
training ground for eventual Nazi cadres and a base from which the
National Socialist Workers’ Party (NSDAP) could launch its Machter-
greifung (seizure of power). Had German civil society been weaker,
the Nazis would never have been able to capture so many citizens
for their cause or eviscerate their opponents so swiftly. […] [T]he
NSDAP rose to power, not by attracting alienated, apolitical Ger-
mans, but rather by recruiting highly activist individuals and then ex-
ploiting their skills and associational affiliations to expand the party’s
appeal and consolidate its position as the largest political force in
Germany.140
The peculiarity of German civic associations of this time was that, instead of repre-
senting indicators for the depth of democratic inclinations within the German popula-
tion, they grew
during periods of strain. When national political institutions and struc-
tures proved either unwilling or unable to address their citizens’
needs, many Germans turned away from them and found succour
and support in the institutions of civil society instead. […] This growth
of associations during these years did not signal a growth in liberal
values or democratic political structures; instead, it reflected and fur-
thered the fragmentation of German political life and the delegitimi-
zation of national political institutions.141
A somewhat similar argument has been made for the case of Northern Italy where
the post-World War I Fascist movement too emerged from a relatively well-
developed network of civil society institutions and only later shifted its main bases of
support to the South142―thus calling into question Putnam’s famous thesis. 143
Germany (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990).
140
Sheri Berman, “Civil Society and the Collapse of the Weimar Republic,” World Politics
49, no. 3 (1997): 401-429, here 402, 408.
141
Berman, “Civil Society and the Collapse of the Weimar Republic,” 411, 413.
142
William L. Eubank and Leonard Weinberg, “Terrorism and Democracy within one Coun-
try: The Case of Italy,” Terrorism and Political Violence 9, no. 1 (1997): 98-108.
143
Putnam, Making Democracy Work. One should add though that, while “the fasci original-
ANDREAS UMLAND 62
These findings indicate that the role that civil society plays in a regime change is
conditioned by other circumstances, such as the strength of political institutions, indi-
vidual characteristics of the relevant non-governmental organizations, as well as the
degree of legitimacy of the existing political regime. Berman concludes that,
“[p]erhaps, therefore, associationism should be considered a politically neutral multi-
plier—neither inherently good nor inherently bad, but rather dependent for its effects
on the wider political context.” 144 In a broad survey of civil society’s ambivalent role in
democratic consolidation and development focusing on Weimar Germany, the United
States and Argentina, Ariel Armony too concludes that “[c]ivil society may or may not
lead to democracy because what matters is the context in which people associate,
not because association is inherently and universally positive for democracy.”145 Bob
Ewards and Michael Foley make the generalization that
social initiatives depend crucially on a context set jointly by state, market
and civil society; and the logic of organization in such initiatives often in-
termingles legal coercion, authoritative decision making and implementa-
tion, political manipulation, economic ends and the voluntary pursuit of
group and individual goals. But if this is the case, then it will be very diffi-
cult to specify in the abstract just which characteristics of civil society per
se […] contribute to healthy democracy and which do not, because the
specific roster of beneficial characteristics would vary cross nationally
and over time along with the socioeconomic and political context.146
II.4.2 Antiliberal Associationism
A partial solution to the dilemma of the simultaneously democratization-furthering and
-inhibiting role that civil society may play can be found in analyses that tried to distin-
guish between different types of non-state/not-for-profit institutions, i.e. between
ly appeared in northern Italy and only gradually spread to the South, [s]ubsequently […]
the south became a stronger bulwark of Fascism than the north, and this is true also with
regard to neofascism in the postwar era.” Laqueur, Fascism, 19. See also E. Spencer
Wellhofer, “Democracy and Fascism: Class, Civil Society, and Rational Choice in Italy,”
American Political Science Review 97 (2003): 91-106.
144
Berman, “Civil Society and the Collapse of the Weimar Republic,” 427.
145
Ariel C. Armony, The Dubious Link: Civic Engagement and Democratization (Stanford,
CA: Stanford University Press, 2004), 2.
146
Bob Edwards and Michael W. Foley, “Civil Society and Social Capital beyond Putnam,”
American Behavioral Scientist 42, no. 1 (1998): 128. Also quoted in Mudde and Kopecký,
Uncivil Society? VI.
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 63
those that have democratic and anti-democratic inclinations.147 For instance, the
most prominent among the rapidly growing organizations within the voluntary sector
of the Weimar Republic were the various nationalist associations that became popu-
lar after World War I. These nationalist associations are best viewed as “symptoms
and agencies of change. They were formed as distinctive organizations within a
space which the difficulties and obsolescence of an older mode of dominant-class
politics had opened up.”148 Non-party institutions such as these nationalist associa-
tions were not only peculiar in that they came to substitute political parties—a pattern
that, since World War II, has become again relevant in, among other countries, Ger-
many.149 They should also be seen as not representing manifestations of civil society
in its traditional meaning, but as constituting “uncivil groups,”150 or “uncivil organiza-
tions.”151 Thus, as Cas Mudde notes, “statements like ‘an active civil society is good
for democracy’ are invalid, as it depends on which groups within civil society domi-
nate.”152
Against the background of such circumstances, it is important that, in the words of
Neera Chandhoke, “our normative expectations about the sphere of civil society
should not derange our analysis of actually existing civil societies.”153 A similar note
of caution has been made by Thomas Carothers in 1999 with regard to the post-
Soviet context:
Extrapolating from the courageous role of civil groups that fought com-
munism in Eastern Europe, some civil society enthusiasts have propa-
gated the misleading notion that civil society consists of noble causes,
147
Ami Pedahzur, “The Potential Role of ‘Pro-Democratic Civil Society’ in Responding to
Extreme Right-Wing Challenges: The Case of Brandenburg,” Paper presented at the 97 th
Annual Convention of the American Political Science Association, San Francisco, 30 Au-
gust - 2 September 2001.
148
Geoff Eley, Reshaping the German Right: Radical Nationalism and Political Change after
Bismarck (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1994), XIX; as quoted in Berman,
“Civil Society and the Collapse of the Weimar Republic,” 411.
149
Kay Lawson and Peter H. Merkl, eds., When Parties Fail: Emerging Alternative Organi-
zations (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988).
150
Encarión, “Civil Society and the Consolidation of Democracy in Spain,” 67-68.
151
Göran Ahrne, “Civil Society and Uncivil Organizations,” in: Jeffrey C. Alexander, ed., Re-
al Civil Societies: Dilemmas of Intitutionalization (London: Sage, 1998), 84-95.
152
Mudde, “Civil Society in Post-Communist Europe: Lessons from the ‘Dark Side,’” 169,
italics in the original.
153
Neera Chandhoke, “The ‘Civil’ and the ‘Political’ in Civil Society,” Democratization 8, no.
2 (2001): 1-24, here 5, italics in the original; also quoted in Mudde, “Civil Society in Post-
Communist Europe: Lessons from the ‘Dark Side,’” 169.
ANDREAS UMLAND 64
and earnest, well-intentioned actors. Yet civil society everywhere is a
bewildering array of the good, the bad, and the outright bizarre.154
The issue was systematically addressed in, among others, a 2000 monograph by
Leigh Payne, a 2001 paper by Ami Pedahzur and Leonard Weinberg and in a 2003
collected volume by Mudde and Kopecký who have all proposed to introduce the
previously known, but hitherto insufficiently elaborated concepts of uncivil move-
ments or uncivil society into the comparative study of right-wing extremism.155 Leigh
Payne shows that “(un)civil movements […] employ the same mobilizational strate-
gies used by social movements within civil society: like social movements they claim
to identify and empower a new political constituency, conscious of its identity while
struggling to overcome its marginal status in the political system.” 156 Pedahzur and
Weinberg observe that, since the early 1970s, non-party forms of linkages between
state and society have become more prominent in general, and argue that not only
civil society proper has thus gained importance. 157 Non-party challengers of democ-
racy, i.e. various permutations of uncivil society, too—whether as substitutes for
strong right-wing extremist parties158 or as complementary players of anti-democratic
political actors—have become more relevant in established democracies.
Kopecký and Mudde, in their study on post-communist uncivil society, write that the
“normative underpinnings [of the bulk of recent literature on civil society in Eastern
Europe] obscure important aspects of the phenomenon and thereby understate the
importance of civil society in post-communist politics.” They maintain that their collec-
tion’s papers “show that the dominant claim of the weakness of civil society in East-
154
Thomas Carothers, “Civil Society,” Foreign Policy 117 (Winter 1999-2000): 20, also
quoted in Mudde and Kopecký, Uncivil Society? VI.
155
Leigh A. Payne, Uncivil Movements: The Armed Right Wing and Democracy in Latin
America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000); Ami Pedahzur and Leonard
Weinberg, “Modern European Democracies and Its Enemies: The Threat of the Extreme
Right,” Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions 2, no. 1 (2001): 52-72; Mudde and
Kopecký, Uncivil Society? For further elaborations on the concept, see Sheelagh Stew-
art, "Happy Ever After in the Marketplace: Non-government Organisations and Uncivil
Society," Review of African Political Economy 24, no. 71 (1997): 11-34; J. Abu-Lughod,
“Civil/Uncivil Society: Confusing Form with Content,” in: M. Douglass and J. Friedmann,
eds., Cities for Citizens: Planning and the Rise of Civil Society in a Global Age (Chiches-
ter: Wiley, 1998), 227-237; X. Li, “Democracy and Uncivil Societies: A Critique of Civil
Society Determinism,” in: R.K. Fullinwider, ed., Civil Society, Democracy, and Civic Re-
newal (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999); Richard Boyd, Uncivil Society: The
Perils of Pluralism and the Making of Modern Liberalism (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books,
2004).
156
Payne, Uncivil Movements, XIX.
157
Pedahzur and Weinberg, “Modern European Democracies and Its Enemies.”
158
Uwe Backes and Cas Mudde, “Germany: Extremism without Successful Parties,” Parlia-
mentary Affairs 53, no. 3 (2000): 457-468.
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 65
ern Europe is, in part, a consequence of the narrow bias of most scholars, who dis-
regard the ‘dark side’ of civil society.” 159
159
Mudde and Kopecký, “Editors’ Preface,” in: idem, Uncivil Society? XVI-XVII, here XVI. I
will not go here into discussing the related important and more complicated, but fascinat-
ing issue mentioned in the same volume, namely that “‘civil’ movements are not by defi-
nition good for democracy/democratization, and ‘uncivil’ movements are not by definition
bad for democracy/democratization.” Mudde, “Civil Society in Post-Communist Europe:
Lessons from the ‘Dark Side,’” 169. While this might, in and of itself, be true and would
seem to constitute a blow against Putnam’s thesis, even Mudde would, perhaps, agree
that uncivil society has a (probably, far) larger potential to hinder, inhibit or reverse de-
mocracy/democratization, than civil society proper. In any way, the question is too com-
plext to be elaborated here further.
II.5 Electoral vs. Non-Electoral Activities of the
Western Extreme Right Today
Already before these theoretical arguments were made, attention to the non-party
realm has been called for in empirical research on recent developments in German
and other Western ultra-nationalisms.
II.5.1 The Relevance of Post-War Extraparliamentary Ultra-Nationalism
In distinction to Herbert Kitschelt who focused in his path-breaking book on—what he
called—the “New Radical Right” in Western Europe of the 1970s-1990s mainly on
political parties,160 Michael Minkenberg in his subsequent comparative study of right-
wing radicalism in post-1968 Germany, France and the US, for instance, considers,
apart from parties, a wide variety of groups within uncivil society. 161 These include
intellectual circles, sub-cultural milieus, religious organizations, youth gangs, publish-
ing houses, and other formations. Minkenberg’s attention to these phenomena is not
only useful in that it provides the basis for a more adequate assessment of the pene-
tration of right-wing radical ideas into society—especially with regard to those coun-
tries that have not experienced as impressive surges of right-wing parties as, for in-
stance, Austria (Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs), Italy (Alleanza Nazionale), or
France (Front national). Minkenberg also addresses, more adequately than Kitschelt,
the fact that activists espousing such ideas have been using different strategies in
promoting their views depending on the particular socio-political contexts, cultural
traditions and legal-institutional settings within which they operate, and that party-
building is only one of several tactics to gain influence on society.162 Minkenberg, for
instance, notes that, in the US, certain xenophobic and fundamentalist groups have,
instead of forming their own parties, used Republican front organizations to penetrate
the state via the GOP.163 In Germany, a “New Right” intellectual discourse on nation-
160
Herbert Kitschelt in collaboration with Anthony J. McGann, The Radical Right in Western
Europe: A Comparative Analysis (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1995).
161
Michael Minkenberg, Die neue radikale Rechte im Vergleich: USA, Frankreich, Deutsch-
land (Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1998).
162
Andreas Umland, “Sravnitel’ny analiz krayne pravykh grupp na Zapade: Po povodu knigi
M. Minkenberga,” Politicheskie issledovaniya, no. 3(62) (2001): 174-179.
163
See also Michael Minkenberg, Neokonservatismus und Neue Rechte in den USA: Neu-
ere konservative Gruppierungen und Strömungen im Kontext sozialen und kulturellen
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 67
al history and identity has become influential in public debates. 164 Instead of engag-
ing in party-building, this section of the German radical right has had some success
in affecting German political culture in general,165 and the agendas of the moderate
right-wing parties, in particular.166 The “New Right” has done so, moreover, con-
sciously by way of adopting Antonio Gramsci’s well-known notion of the necessity for
an ideological group to achieve first “cultural hegemony” in a society in order to ac-
quire subsequently political power (more on this below).167 On the territory of the for-
mer GDR too, to the surprise of many observers, right-wing radical parties have, with
some notable exceptions,168 not fared well in elections so far. Yet, East German ul-
tra-nationalism has become disturbingly strong on the grass-roots and sub-cultural
levels, and, especially, in the youth scene. 169 With regard to the whole transition area
east of the former Iron Curtain, Cas Mudde, in his conclusions to a paper collection
Wandels (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 1990); idem, "Die Neue Rechte in den USA: Kulturelle
Dimension und politischer Prozeß," in: Jürgen Falter, Hans-Gerd Jaschke and Jürgen
Winkler, eds., Rechtsextremismus: Ergebnisse und Perspektiven der Forschung
(Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1996), 443-463; Michael Minkenberg, “Die amerikan-
ische konservative Revolution: Radikale Rechte und Republikanische Partei am Ende
des Jahrhunderts,” Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte B43 (1996): 45-53; idem, "Die Christ-
liche Rechte und die amerikanische Politik von der ersten zur zweiten Bush-
Administration," Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte B46 (2003): 23-32. A further case study is
Russ Bellant, Old Nazis, the New Right, and the Republican Party: Domestic Fascist
Networks, and their Effect on U.S. Cold War Politics (Boston, MA: South End Press,
1991)
164
Armin Pfahl-Traughber, Konservative Revolution und Neue Rechte: Rechtsextrem-
istische Intellektuelle gegen den demokratischen Verfassungsstaat (Opladen: Les-
ke+Budrich, 1998).
165
Wolfgang Gessenharter, Kippt die Republik? Die Neue Rechte und ihre Unterstützung
durch Politik und Medien (München: Knaur, 1994); Claus Leggewie, Druck von rechts:
Wohin treibt die Bundesrepublik? (München: Beck, 1993); Kurt Lenk, Rechts, wo die Mit-
te ist (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 1994).
166
See also Elmar Wiesendahl, “Verwirtschaftung und Verschleiss der Mitte: Zum Umgang
des etablierten Politikbetriebs mit der rechtsextremistischen Herausforderung,” in: Wil-
helm Heitmeyer, ed., Das Gewalt-Dilemma (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1994), 115-
137; and Hans-Martin Lohmann, ed., Extremismus der Mitte: Vom rechten Verständnis
deutscher Nation (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 1994).
167
Alex Demirovic, “Kulturelle Hegemonie von rechts: Antonio Gramsci—gesehen von der
‘nouvelle droite’,” Die neue Gesellschaft: Frankfurter Hefte 37, no. 4 (1990): 352-357;
Armin Pfahl-Traughber, “‘Gramscismus von rechts’?: Zur Gramsci Rezeption der Neuen
Rechten in Frankreich und Deutschland,” Blick nach rechts, no. 21 (28 September 1992):
3-5. It might be this openly admitted strategy rather than any particular ideological pre-
scription that constitutes the most important common denominator of the various sub-
groups within—what has become to be called—the “European New Right,” and deline-
ates it from other forms of right-wing extremism.
168
Andreas Umland, “A German Le Pen?” Patterns of Prejudice 35, no. 4 (2001): 91-93.
169
Burkhard Schroeder, Im Griff der rechten Szene: Ostdeutsche Städte in Angst (Reinbeck
bei Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1997); Bernd Wagner, Rechtsextremismus und kulturelle Sub-
version in den neuen Ländern (Berlin: Schriftenreihe des Zentrums Demokratische Kul-
tur, 1998).
ANDREAS UMLAND 68
on uncivil society, even maintains that “[i]n many ways, […] ‘uncivil movements’ […]
are more authentic representatives of civil society in post-communist Europe. [U]nlike
many prominent ‘civil’ organizations in Eastern Europe, which are elite-driven NGOs
detached from society, many ‘uncivil’ organizations are true social movements, i.e.
involved in grass-roots supported contentions politics.”170
II.5.2 The Groupuscule
An important sub-sector of post-war uncivil society—namely the multitude of minus-
cule and relatively closed ultra-nationalist and often fascist groupings across the
world—has, recently, been extensively conceptualized in a heuristically fruitful way
by Roger Griffin as “groupuscules.”171 Distancing himself from approaches that have
dismissed this spectrum of small extremist groups as hardly worth studying, 172 Griffin
argues that there is a certain sub-category of minor ultra-nationalist groupings that
should, in spite of their unimpressive magnitude, be taken seriously as objects of
study in their own right. This class would include such Western organizations as the
Groupe Union Défense, White Aryan Resistance, or European Liberation Front. 173
These groupings had been labelled as “groupuscules” before, but not been exten-
sively conceptualized until Griffin did so. They have either, after an unsuccessful per-
formance in electoral contests, left high politics, but continued to thrive as parochial
associations. Or they were never conceived to become fully-fledged parties in the
larger public realm, and constituted, from their inception, relatively clogged organiza-
tions serving mainly the small circle of its members and supporters. Although some of
these groupuscules call themselves “parties,” they should be understood as belong-
ing, at best, to a diminished sub-type of the generic political party. 174
170
Mudde, “Civil Society in Post-Communist Europe: Lessons from the ‘Dark Side,’” 164.
171
Roger Griffin, “Net Gains and GUD Reactions: Patterns of Prejudice in a Neo-fascist
Groupuscule,” Patterns of Prejudice 33, no. 2 (1999): 31-50; idem, “From Slime Mould to
Rhizome: An Introduction to the Groupuscular Right,” unpublished manuscript, Oxford
Brookes University, 2002, URL (last accessed October 2006):
http://ah.brookes.ac.uk/history/staff/griffin/slimemould.pdf, draft for a paper that later ap-
peared in Patterns of Prejudice 36, no. 3 (2002): 27-50.
172
Martin Blinkhorn, Fascism and the Right in Europe, 1919-1945 (Harlow: Pearson, 2000),
112.
173
The NBP spoke highly, and later apparently became a member of the international net-
work of the European Liberation Front. See Pribylovskii, Russkie natsionalisticheskie i
pravoradikal’nye organizatsii, 186-187.
174
On the concept of “diminished sub-type,” David Collier and James Mahoney, “Conceptu-
al ‘Stretching’ Revisited: Adapting Categories in Comparative Analysis,” American Politi-
cal Science Review 87 (December 1993): 845-855; and David Collier and Steven Levit-
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 69
[T]he term “groupuscule” is being used […] to refer to a political or-
ganization which by the standards of national party politics has minute
active membership, and may have an extremely low or non-existent
public profile, yet is a fully ripened fruit within its own ideological vine-
yard. […] Its diminutive size, marginality, and relative inconspicuous-
ness bestow on it qualities which suit the purposes of its organiz-
ers.175
The form of the groupuscule has been chosen for their organization by many ex-
tremely right-wing activists in the West, as they had to adapt to an increasingly depo-
liticized and “de-nationalized” public in the post-World War II context. The groupusc-
ules thus largely define themselves by their “renunciation of any aspirations to create
a mass membership base, appeal to a wide political constituency in the general pub-
lic, or to enter into alliances or compromises with other political actors in the pursuit
of maximum influence.”176 Instead, groupuscules have taken the form of cadre organ-
izations run by small elites of activists, which keep
alive the prospect of having an impact on society by remaining open
to linkages with kindred spirits on the extreme right and publicizing its
existence through effective propaganda directed at the chosen few.
[The Internet, moreover] allows the creation of a “virtual community”
[…] cocooning its members against contacts with the outside world
[…]. [E]ach groupuscule, no matter how small, [can] act as a nodal
point in a vast, constantly evolving network of extremist organizations
of far greater significance than the sum of its parts: the groupuscular
right. […] [P]erhaps the most important aspect of the groupuscular
right for political science lies [thus] in the structure it has come to
adopt in order to act not as a single corporate body, but as a network
of ideological formation and activist coordination made up of self-
contained grouplets. […] Cumulatively these “groupuscules” can be
conceived as constituting a new type of political subculture or actor,
the “groupuscular right,” which has an aggregate substance, influ-
sky, “Democracy with Adjectives: Conceptual Innovation in Comparative Research,”
World Politics 49 (April 1997): 430-451.
175
Griffin, “From Slime Mould to Rhizome,” 3.
176
Griffin, “From Slime Mould to Rhizome,” 8.
ANDREAS UMLAND 70
ence, and longevity disproportionate to the size, impact, and stability
of any of its components.177
It is thus not useful to consider groupuscules solely as remnants of abortive attempts
of party-building. Instead, they should be regarded either as a peculiar sub-sector of
uncivil society, or as representing hybrid phenomena fluctuating between political
and civil society—the latter, shifting pattern being typical of a number of voluntary
sector organizations in modern societies, in general. 178
The importance of the individual groupuscule stems not only from being embedded in
a larger network of similarly oriented entities, but also—resembling the function of
many other civil society organizations—from its potential as a training ground and
school for future political activists. The Groupuscule
can have a formative impact on the careers of particular individuals in
search of grand narratives and total truth by playing a crucial role in
transforming ill-defined resentments into a personal sense of higher
mission to “do something about it.” In extreme cases the groupuscule
has made decisive contributions to turning a disaffected loner into a
fanatical “lone wolf” ready to carry out ruthless acts of terrorism at
symbols of society’s decadence whatever the cost in human life, as
Timothy McVeigh and David Copeland dramatically illustrate.179
For the case of Russia, this category of groupings within the ultra-nationalist spec-
trum is clearly relevant too (more on this below). It was gaining importance when, in
July 2001, a new Law on Parties was adopted. The law required that political parties
that wished to register as such with the Justice Ministry had to document, among
others, significant organizational capacity across Russia such as an overall member-
ship of at least 10,000, and 100 or more members in more than half of Russia’s 89
regions. As official registration was indispensable to take fully part in high politics,
and especially in elections, the high threshold for registration created by the new Law
on Parties pushed dozens of political organizations that had regarded themselves as
power-seeking organizations into the non-electoral realm where most of those that
continued to exist as organized groups have remained locked.
177
Ibid., 2, 8-9.
178
Diamond, Developing Democracy, 224.
179
Ibid., 9.
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 71
A second amendment to the law introduced in December 2004 has aggravated the
situation for smaller parties further: The minimum membership number for a party to
be registered is now 50,000, and, in more than half of the subjects of the Russian
Federation, a registered party has to have at least 500 members. In addition, the
electoral system has been changed into an exclusively proportional one with an in-
creased threshold of 7%. These regulations add further problems, to say the least, to
the political ambitions of leaders of minor parties, including the ultra-nationalist
ones.180 Adopting a back-stage/groupuscular, rather than front-stage/electoral strate-
gy may thus constitute a pragmatic option for many extremist organizations if they
want to continue having, at least, a minor impact in today Russia. Above all, it might
be a way to survive organizationally, and remain prepared for situations that would
allow them to re-enter high politics.
Already before these reforms of the Russian electoral system were made, the Rus-
sian extreme right had experienced groupuscularization. Nikolai Mitrokhin—not yet
knowing of Griffin’s conceptualization of the groupuscule—observed in 2003 that,
after the defeat of the armed opposition in October 1993,
the marginal nationalists of a racist orientation left big politics for a long
time. The disillusionment they had experienced forced them to leave
their hope to “find truth” in the political realm. Taking over from the
church fundamentalists the rule “save yourself and many will save them-
selves before you,” they found themselves in the frameworks of church
structures—among them in the role of monks and popes. They also
started forming rural and urban closed communities of those believing in
the same ideas who tried to have as little as possible contacts with the
outer world.181
Also in 2003, Markus Mathyl made the first—not entirely successful—attempt to ap-
ply the concept of the groupuscule to Russian conditions in an article for Patterns of
Prejudice.182
Griffin’s concluding remark in his first publication on this issue concerns the Western
context, but is, at least, equally relevant for Russia. The groupuscular right
180
URL (last accessed October 2006): http://www.rg.ru/printable/2004/12/24/partii.html.
181
Mitrokhin, “Ot ‘Pamyati’ k skinkhedam Luzhkova,” 39.
182
Mathyl, “The National-Bolshevik Party and Arctogaia.”
ANDREAS UMLAND 72
is a political force which guarantees that if conditions of profound so-
cio-economic crisis were ever to emerge again in the West’s demo-
cratic heartland to make mass support for revolutionary nationalism
a realistic possibility, then many countries would have not only the
dedicated cadres prepared to lead it, but a plentiful reserve of ideo-
logical resources to fuel it. 183
II.5.3 The European “New Right”
Another peculiar strategy of extreme nationalists in the post-war period has been that
of the above-mentioned so-called European New Right (ENR) which possesses
some peculiarities that are both theoretically and empirically relevant within the con-
text of the present study. Here the concept of uncivil society gains an additional di-
mension in as far as the European New Right, in distinction to other forms of uncivil
society, pursues a strategy that, based on self-critical reflection, purposefully at-
tempts to utilize the infrastructure of a polyarchy’s civil society in order to attack and
eventually undermine a democratically oriented polity. Research on this specific ap-
proach has so far been mainly done concerning contemporary Western Europe. But,
as in the case of the groupuscular right, the issue is, for reasons that will become
clear below, at least as relevant for contemporary Russia.
The novel ultra-nationalist intellectual movement that, in Germany, became known as
the “Neue Rechte” (“New Right”) has not only—like the groupuscules—for reasons of
tactical expediency refrained from direct involvement in party-building and everyday
politics. It has followed this course consciously, on the grounds of a specific long-
term strategy briefly mentioned in the above review of Minkenberg’s book. This strat-
egy can be termed as “right-wing Gramscianism,” and is also a relevant phenomenon
in contemporary Russia. It will, therefore, explained here in some detail.
The forerunner of the contemporary New Right discourse in Germany, and Europe in
general, was a diffuse group of anti-democratic publicists, writers and scholars in in-
ter-war Germany that has become known by its oxymoronic name “Conservative
Revolution.”184 This tendency included, among others, such prominent publicists and
183
Griffin, “Net Gains and GUD Reactions,” 46.
184
For a short critique of “New Right” and “Conservative Revolution” as political science
concepts, see Andreas Umland, “Review of Pfahl-Traughber, Konservative Revolution
und Neue Rechte,” Politische Vierteljahresschrift 41, no. 2 (2000): 12-13, and idem,
“‘Konservativnaya revolyutsiya:’ imya sobstvennoe ili rodovoe ponyatie?” Voprosy filsofii,
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 73
academics Ernst Jünger, Arthur Moeller van den Bruck, Edgar Julius Jung, Carl
Schmitt, Oswald Spengler, Othmar Spann, and Ernst Niekisch (see Appendix).185
These influential intellectuals were in radical opposition to liberalism in general, and
to the Weimar Republic, in particular, but remained largely outside everyday party
politics (though some, like Jung, also took up political appointments, at one time or
another). Their goal was an ideational subversion of the normative foundations of the
Weimar Republic that would lead to its delegitimization, a democratic break-down,
and the subsequent creation of a new post-liberal nationalistic order.186 According to
some observers, that is exactly what the “conservative revolutionaries” achieved. In
1939, the Russian historian and publicist Georgii Fedotov, for instance, wrote that it
was not the “rise of the masses,” as had been often assumed, but the rebellion of the
intellectual elites that stroke the fatal blow to humanism in the inter-war period.187
These ideas and tactics have been revitalized in Europe since the late 1960s, at first
in France where a vigorous new intellectual movement describing itself as the
Nouvelle Droite, and led by the influential proto-fascist publicist Alain de Benoist (b.
1943) emerged. Many of the New Right’s spokesmen are graduates of prestigious
grand écoles.188 The Nouvelle Droite is, perhaps, less novel in terms of its peculiar
ideology as this body of ideas constitutes largely an adaptation of German “Con-
servative Revolutionary,” “National-Bolshevik,” “Third Way,” Euro-fascist as well as
other older extremely right-wing theories to contemporary West European condi-
tions.189 Instead, the French, and later other European sections of the, New Right
no. 2 (2006): 116-126.
185
The construct “Conservative Revolution” was introduced in a seminal study by a scholar
who himself is a follower of the ideas of the group of thinkers he labeled this way. See
Armin Mohler, Die Konservative Revolution in Deutschland 1918-1932: Ein Handbuch
(Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1989 [1st edn 1950]). On Mohler (b.
1920), see Norbert Hilger, “Armin Mohler und der Neokonservatismus,” Die Neue Ge-
sellschaft: Frankfurter Hefte 38, no. 8 (1991): 718-724, and Armin Pfahl-Traughber, “‘Ich
bin ein Faschist:’ Armin Mohlers offenes Bekenntnis,” Blick nach Rechts 13, no. 13
(1996): 4-5.
186
Stefan Breuer, Anatomie der Konservativen Revolution (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche
Buchgesellschaft, 1993).
187
Leonid Lyuks, “Evraziistvo i konservativnaya revolyutsiya: Soblazn’ antizapadnichestva v
Rossii i Germanii,” Voprosy filosofii, no. 3 (1996): 57-69, here 60.
188
Laqueur, Fascism, 99.
189
For a comprehensive presentation of the various permutations of fascist ideology, see
Roger D. Griffin, ed., Fascism (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1995). Though one might
see the “New Right’s” eager incorporation of some recent (pseudo-) scientific findings in
their theories as representing another significant advance distinguishing it from the “Con-
servative Revolution.” See Iris Weber, “‘Wissenschaftliche Grundlagen:’ Soziobiologie,
Verhaltensforschung und Psychologie,” in her Nation, Staat und Elite: Die Ideologie der
Neuen Rechten. PapyRossa Hochschulschriften, 15th Vol. (Koeln: PapyRossa-Verlag
ANDREAS UMLAND 74
innovated intellectual right-wing extremism by, above all, explicitly introducing the
idea that a gradual right-wing cultural change is a necessary preliminary stage for
achieving political power. In a first step, “cultural hegemony” would have to be se-
cured and civil society impregnated with right-wing ideas. Only then an attempt to
attain actual power over the state would have a chance of success.
This strategy was by itself not original as the inter-war German “Conservative Revo-
lutionaries” had, intuitively, been following a similar approach. What still was an inno-
vation in the late 1960s was, firstly, that a “cultural struggle strategy” was overtly
adopted as an official key prescription for action, and even as a marker of identity by,
initially, the French, and later, most of the West European, including the German,
New Right.190 Second, this was done with unashamed reference to the ideas of the
Italian Communist Party’s co-founder, one-time General Secretary, and principal the-
oretician Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937).191 According to Gramsci, the power of the
state in developed societies is based on not only its institutions, but also or even
more so on its “società civile”—i.e. on the norms, attitudes, as well as thought and
emotional patterns which are transmitted by the “cultural complex” (schools, universi-
ties, mass media, etc.), and which legitimize the current power relations. A movement
that wants to take political power would, therefore, first have to acquire dominance
over the ruling concepts of the cultural super-structure. As a result of adopting this
approach, the Nouvelle Droite has come to conceive of itself, quite literally, as a
“school of thought” that aims to change the existing mentalities and norms in order to
create the preconditions for political change.192
This peculiar feature of the New Right highlights the importance of cultural complex-
es and civil society as constituent parts of research into contemporary European
right-wing extremism. If this branch of ultra-nationalism explicitly announces that it
regards not (yet) the state, but civil society—and, only in the second instance, politi-
cal society—as its primary medium for inducing change, than it would, for an exhaus-
tive evaluation of the strength of right-wing extremist tendencies, be of interest to see
how sophisticated, industrious, and successful the New Right has been in doing so,
1997), pp. 25-31.
190
Pfahl-Traughber, Konservative Revolution und Neue Rechte, 132-134.
191
Alex Demirovic, “Kulturelle Hegemonie von rechts: Antonio Gramsci—gesehen von der
‘nouvelle droite,’” Die neue Gesellschaft: Frankfurter Hefte 37, no. 4 (1990): 352-357;
Armin Pfahl-Traughber, “‘Gramscismus von rechts’? Zur Gramsci Rezeption der Neuen
Rechten in Frankreich und Deutschland,” Blick nach rechts, no. 21 (1992): 3-5.
192
Weber, Nation, Staat und Elite, 32.
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 75
and not only to measure the extreme right’s electoral performance.
This is apt not only in terms of the New Right’s own perception of its role in a certain
socio-political system. It is also relevant in view of Western social science findings
concerning the role of non-party social institutions for sustaining certain political sys-
tems. There seems to be considerable overlap between Gramsci’s idea of the rele-
vance of the support of “cultural complexes” for regimes, and the Tocquevillian em-
phasis on a thriving civil society as the foundation of stable democracy as proposed,
for instance, in Robert Putnam’s work 193—or, at least, in culturalist interpretations of
its findings.194 In other words: The strength of uncivil society—i.e. of social actors la-
tently or manifestly opposed to democracy, but not operating in the party-political
realm—might be as important for an evaluation of the chances for a successful con-
solidation of a young polyarchy as the strength of civil society proper.
193
Robert D. Putnam with Robert Leonardi and Raffaela Y. Nanetti, Making Democracy
Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy (Pinceton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993).
194
David Laitin, “The Civic Culture at Thirty,” American Political Science Review 89, no. 1
(1995): 168-176; Sidney Tarrow, “Making Social Science Work Across Space and Time:
A Critical Reflection on Robert Putnam’s Making Democracy Work,” American Political
Science Review 90, no. 2 (1996): 389-397.
III Ultra-Nationalist Intellectual Centres in
Contemporary Russia
“Nothing is so popular in Russia today as disliking America.”
Aleksandr Dugin195
Below, I survey briefly one specific sphere of Russia’s uncivil society: Its theory cir-
cles and think-tanks—in Russian, mozgovye tsentry (brain-centres)—and their prop-
aganda, publishing and educational activities in Russia.196
III.1 Other Manifestations of Uncivil Society
in Contemporary Russia
There are a number of further phenomena in Russian uncivil society that would be
also worth considering in connection with the argument of this study. These include,
among others:
(a) the infiltration of established civil society institutions, such as the trade un-
ion movement, with anti-democratic ideas of various kinds,197
195
Aleksandr Dugin, “Byt’ russkim—znachit’ byt’ anti-amerikanskim, ili pochemu my lyubin
Shtaty,” Komsomolskaya pravda, 25 March 2003, as quoted in Stefani Hoffman, “No
Love from Russia,” in: Barry Rubin and Judy Colp Rubin, eds., Loathing America (Herzli-
ya: The Global Research in International Affairs Center, 2004), 23-41, here 23.
196
See also, Andreas Umland, „Die rechtsextremistische APO im heutigen Russland.“ For
general introductions to the study of think-tanks, see J.A. Smith, The Idea Brokers: Think
Tanks and the Rise of the New Policy Elite (New York: Free Press, 1991); D. Stone,
Capturing Political Imagination: Think Tanks and the Policy Process (Portland, OR:
Frank Cass, 1996); Endryu [Andrew] Rich and Kent R. Uiver [Weaver], “Propagandisty i
analitiki: ‘mozgovye tsentry’ i politizatsiya ekspertov,” Pro et Contra 8, no. 2 (2003): 64-
89.
197
Vladimir Marakasov, “Cherepovetskii poligon,” in: Vladimir Ilyushenko, ed., Nuzhen li
Gitler Rossii?: Po materialam Mezhdunarodnogo foruma “Fashizm v totalitarnom i
posttotalitarnom obshchestve: ideynye osnovy, sotsial’naya baza, politicheskaya ak-
tivnost’,” Moskva, 20-22 yanvarya 1995 goda (Moskva: PIK, 1996), 60-62; Shenfield,
Russian Fascism, 142-143. On the NBP’s influence on the “independent” students’ trade
union Sashchita, see Mathyl, “‘Die offenkundige Nisse und der rassenmäßige Feind’,”
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 77
(b) the emergence of a number of new volunteer, grass-roots and self-help
organizations, such as various ecological groups, anti-drug initiatives, or
child-support organizations,198 that—in spite of owing their existence to lib-
eral democracy—do not promote, or even explicitly reject its normative
foundations,199
(c) certain tendencies in the Russian Christian-Orthodox churches, especially
within the Moscow Patriarchy, 200
(d) many of the new or revived Russian Orthodox brotherhoods,201
(e) the ultra-nationalist sections of the neo-pagan movement,202
13-14, 35.
198
Dvizhenie “V zashchitu detstva”: My v otvete za budushchee. Materialy vserossiiskoi
konferentsii “Ispolnit’ dolg pered budushchim” (8 aprelya 2000 g.) (Moskva: Mysl’, 2000).
199
Stephen D. Shenfield, “The Movement ‘In Defense of Childhood’,” JRL Research and
Analytical Supplement, no. 4 (January 2002): 2-3.
200
Paul D. Steeves, “Russian Orthodox Fascism After Glasnost,” Paper presented at the
Conference on Faith and History, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, 8 October 1994, URL (last
accessed October 2006): http://www.stetson.edu/~psteeves/rusorthfascism.html; John B.
Dunlop, “The Russian Orthodox Church as an ‘Empire Saving’ Institution,” in: Michael
Bordeaux, ed., The Politics of Religion in Russia and the New States of Eurasia (Ar-
monk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1995), 15-40; Leonid Stonov, “The Role of the Russian Ortho-
dox Church in Promoting Antisemitism and Religious Persecution,” in: Nickolai But-
kevich, ed., Antisemitism, Xenophobia and Religious Persecution in Russia’s Regions,
1998-1999 (Washington, DC: Union of Councils for Soviet Jews, 1999), 23-25; Shenfield,
“The Russian Orthodox Church,” in his Russian Fascism, 60-72; Aleksandr Verkhovskii,
“Religioznaya ksenofobiya,” in: Aleksandr Verkhovskii, Vladimir Pribylovskii and Yekate-
rina Mikhaylovskaya, Natsionalizm i ksenofobiya v rossiiskom obshchestve (Moskva:
Panorama, 1998),168-89; idem, “Tserkov’ v politike i politika v Tserkvi,” in: Aleksandr
Verkhovskii, Yekaterina Mikhaylovskaya and Vladimir Pribylovskii, Politicheskaya
ksenofobiya: Radikal’nye gruppy. Predstavleniya liderov. Rol’ tserkvi (Moskva: Panora-
ma, 1999), 60-122; idem, “Russian Orthodoxy in the Russian Ultra-Nationalist Move-
ment,” Paper presented at the 33rd Annual Convention of the Association for the Ad-
vancement of Slavic Studies, 15-18 November 2001; Aleksandr Verkhovskii, Politich-
eskoe pravoslavie: Russkie pravoslavnye natsionalisty i fundamentalisty, 1995-2001 gg.
(Moskva: Panorama, 2003).
201
Oxana Antic, “Revival of Orthodox Brotherhoods,” RFE/RL Research Report 1, no. 11
(13 March 1992): 62; Stella Rock, “‘An Aggressive Faith’: Extreme Nationalism in the
Russian Orthodox Brotherhood Movement,” Paper presented at the 33 rd Annual Conven-
tion of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, Arlington, Virgin-
ia, 15-18 November 2001.
202
Viktor Shnirel’man, Neoyazychestvo i natsionalizm: Vostochnoevropeyskii areal. Issledo-
vaniya po prikladnoi i neotlozhnoi etnologii 114 (Moskva: Institut etnologii i antropologii
RAN, 1998); Victor A. Shnirelman, Russian Neo-Pagan Myths and Antisemitism. ACTA
13 (Jerusalem: The Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism,
1998); Viktor Shnirel’man, “Gde lezhat istoki ‘Mirovogo zla’?: Neonatsizm v rossiiskoi
massovoi literature,” Diagnoz: Antifashistskoe obozrenie, no. 4 (May 1999): 14-15; idem,
ed., Neoyazychestvo na prostorakh Evrazii (Moskva: Bibleysko-bogoslovskii institut sv.
Apostola Andreya, 2001); A. Shcheglov, Vozvrashchenie bogov: Politicheskaya
sotsiologiya neoyazychestva (Moskva: Probel, 1999); Vladimir Pribylovskii, “Russkoe
neoyazychestvo—kvazireligiya natsionalizma i ksenofobiya,” in: Verkhovskii, Mikhay-
ANDREAS UMLAND 78
(f) a large part of the Cossack movement containing some primary examples
of, in Payne’s terms, “uncivil movements,”203
(g) the ultra-nationalist hard-rock and punk scene,204
(h) the fast growing skinhead movement,205
lovskaya and Pribylovskii, Politicheskaya ksenofobiya, 123-133; idem, “Neoyazycheskoe
krylo v russkom natsionalizme,” Paper presented at the 33rd Annual Convention of the
American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, Arlington, Virginia, 15-18
November 2001; Evgenii Morozov, Istoriya “Mertvoi vody”—ot strashnoi skazki k real’noi
politike: Politicheskoe neoyazychestvo v postsovetskoi Rossii. Soviet and Post-Soviet
Politics and Society 17 (Stuttgart: ibidem, 2005).
203
As defined by Payne, Uncivil Movements. See A.P. Andreev and E.V. Panasyuk, “Ka-
zach’e dvizhenie,” Politicheskie issledovaniya, no. 3 (15) (1993): 57-61; Aleksandr
Mukhin and Vladimir Pribylovskii, Kazach’e dvizhenie v Rossii i stranakh blizhnego za-
rubezh’ya (1988-1994 gody), 1st Vol. (Moskva: Panorama, 1994); T.V. Tabolina, Pano-
rama sovremennogo kazachestva: istoki, kontury, tipologizatsiya. Issledovaniya po pri-
kladnoi i neotlozhnoi etnologii 58 (Moskva: Institut etnologii i antropologii RAN, 1994);
Aleksandr Verkhovskii, Anatoly Papp and Vladimir Pribylovskii, “Irkutskoe kazach’e
voysko,” “Kubanskoe kazach’e voysko,” “Soyuz kazakov voyska donskogo,” and “Soyuz
kazach’ikh voysk Rossii i zarubezh’ya,” in their Politicheskii ekstremizm v Rossii (Mos-
kva: Panorama, 1996), 97-102, 175-185; Georgi M. Derlugian and Serge Cipko, “The
Politics of Identity in a Russian Borderland Province: The Kuban Neo-Cossack Move-
ment, 1989-1996,” Europe-Asia Studies 49, no. 8 (1997): 1485-1500; Shenfield, “The
Cossack Revival Movement,” in his, Russian Fascism, 74-81;
204
A. Troitsky, Rock in Rußland: Rock und Subkultur in der UdSSR. Transl. by M. Sax
(Wien: Hannibal-Verlag, 1989); Thomas Cushman, Notes from the Underground: Rock
Music Counterculture in Russian Society (Albany: State University of New York Press,
1995); Leonid J. Ivanov, “Die patriotische Gegenkultur,” in his, Rußland nach Gor-
batschow: Wurzeln-Hintergründe-Trends der sich formierenden Gruppierungen—
Perspektiven für die Zukunft (Passau: Wissenschaftsverlag Rothe, 1996), 88-91; Mathyl,
“‘Die offenkundige Nisse und der rassenmäßige Feind’;” Markus Mathyl, “Das Entstehen
einer nationalistischen Gegenkultur im Nachperestroika-Rußland,” Jahrbuch für Antisem-
itismusforschung 9 (2000): 68-107; Aleksandr Aksel’rod, Lev Krichevskii and Vyacheslav
Likhachev, “Antisemitizm i ksenofobiya v molodezhnoi kul’ture,” Antisemitizm i
ksenofobiya v Rossiiskoi Federatsii: Informatsionno-analiticheskii byulleten’, no. 7 (Octo-
ber 2000) (URL (last accessed October 2006):
http://www.panorama.ru:8101/works/patr/bul/bul07.zip).
205
Hilary Pilkington, “Farewell to the Tusovka: Masculinities and Feminities on the Moscow
Youth Scene,” in: idem, ed., Gender, Generation and Identity in Contemporary Russia
(London: Routledge, 1996), 236-263; Verkhovskii, Mikhaylovskaya and Pribylovskii,
“Skinkhedy (britogolovye),” and “‘Skiny’,” in their, Politicheskaya ksenofobiya, 40, 56-59;
Aleksandr Tarasov, “Offspring of Reforms—Shaven Heads Are Skinheads: The New
Fascist Youth Subculture in Russia,” Russian Politics and Law 39, no. 1 (January-
February 2001): 43-89; Valery Solovei, “Zuby drakona: Molodezhnyi radikalizm—rezerv
‘bol’shoy’ politiki,” Vek, no. 17, 27 April 2001; Shenfield, “The Skinheads,” in his, Russian
Fascism, 81-84; N.N., “Molodezh’ i natsional-ekstremizm,” at: URL (last accessed Octo-
ber 2006): http://www.aha.ru/~ofa/9_1_vstupl1.htm; Aleksandr Aksel’rod, Lev Krichevskii
and Vyacheslav Likhachev, “Skinkhedy (britogolovye): Neonatsistskoe molodezhnoe
dvizhenie,” Antisemitizm i ksenofobiya v Rossiiskoi Federatsii: Informatsionno-
analiticheskii byulleten’, no. 12 (supplement) (April-May 2001) (URL (last accessed Oc-
tober 2006): http://www.panorama.ru:8101/works/patr/bul/bul12dop.zip).
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 79
(i) various newspaper, magazines, and publishing houses with a distinctly an-
ti-Western profile, like Paleya or Russkaya ideia,206 as well as their book
series, like Yauza Publishers’ series Russkii revansh (Russian Revanch) or
Put’ Rossii (Russia’s Path), in which, among others, the above mentioned
Kucherenko-Kalashnikov and Dugin have published their books,207
(j) a number of more or less nationalist TV shows, like Moskoviya Channel’s
weekly program Russkii vzglyad (Russian View) moderated by the popular
anchorman Ivan Demidov,208
(k) the multitude of ultra-nationalist World Wide Web sites,209
(l) ultra-nationalist tendencies in visual arts;210
(m) the, under both the Czarist and Soviet rule, important nationalist literary
scene with its well-known “thick journals;”211 and
206
E.g. Mikhail Nazarov, Zhit’ bez strakha iyudeiska! O prichinakh, tselyakh i pervykh re-
zul’tatakh “Pis’ma 500-5000-15000” (Moskva: Russaya ideya, 2005).
207
Kalashnikov, Vpered, v SSSR-2; Dugin, Proekt “Evraziya.” Yauza Press has been coop-
erating with the large Russian publisher Eksmo-Press (www.eksmo.ru) which had to
apologize for Yauza’s publications (see URL [last accessed October 2006]:
http://resheto.ru/speaking/news/news696.php), but appaently continues to cooperate
with Yauza.
208
URL (last accessed October 2006): http://www.religare.ru/monitoring7321.htm; URL (last
accessed October 2006): http://www.panorama.ru/info/demo/TEXTS/17282.html; Mitro-
fanova, The Politicization of Russian Orthodoxy.
209
Aleksandr Verkhosvky, “Ekstremisty i radikaly v russkoi seti,” at: URL (last accessed Oc-
tober 2006): http://www.panorama.ru:8101/works/patr/extr.html; Henrike Schmidt, “‘Kein
betrüblicher Systemfehler’? Zum Phänomen des künstlerisch-politischen Extremismus in
der russischen Internetkultur,” in: Birgit Menzel, ed., Kulturelle Konstanten im Wandel:
Zur Situation der russischen Kulture heute. Dokumente und Analysen zur russischen und
sowjetischen Kultur 28 (Bochum: projektverlag, 2004), 211-244; Mitrofanova, The Politi-
cization of Russian Orthodoxy, 110-113.
210
E.g. Michael Hagemeister, “Anti-Semitism, Occultism, and Theories of Conspiracy in
Contemporary Russia—The Case of Il’ia Glazunov,” in: Vladimir Paperni, ed., Philo-
Semitism and Anti-Semitism in Modern Russia and Eastern Europe (Haifa-Jerusalem:
Hebrew University, 2004), 235-241.
211
Katja Lebedeva and Hans-Jürgen Lehnert, “Neoslawophile contra Westler: Neue alte
Polarisierungen in der russischen Kultur,” Berliner Debatte: Initial, no. 6 (1992): 11-16;
Andreas Umland, “Die Sprachrohre des russischen Revanchismus,” Die Neue Gesellschaft:
Frankfurter Hefte 42, no. 10 (1995): 916-921; Kathleen Parthé, “Chto delaet pisatelya
‘russkim’?: ‘Rusifikatsiya’ russkoi literatury posle 1985 goda,” Voprosy literatury, no. 1
(1996): 83-120; idem, “The Empire Strikes Back: How Right-Wing Nationalists Tried to
Recapture Russian Literature,” Nationalities Papers 24, no. 4 (December 1996): 601-
624; Henrietta Mondry, “‘Political Philology’: Nationalism in the Russian Literary Press
(1993-1996),” in: Vladimir Tikhomirov, ed., In Search of Identity: Five Years Since the
Fall of the Soviet Union (Melbourne: Centre for Russian and Euro-Asian Studies, Univer-
sity of Melbourne, 1996), 133-142; Ivanov, “Die Patrioten und die Kultur,” in his, Rußland
nach Gorbatschow, 63-88; David Wells, “War and National Memory: Nationalism in Con-
temporary Russian Literature,” Political Crossroads 6, no. 1/2 (1998): 129-138; Wendy
ANDREAS UMLAND 80
(n) a number of organizations calling themselves “parties” that should, how-
ever, be conceptualized as hybrids between proper political parties, on the
one side, and groupuscules (as introduced above) on the other, including
the RNE,212 and NBP,213 and that thus fulfil both functions in this political
spectrum (with the groupuscular one often being the more, or even only
important aspect of their activities), as well as some further groupings con-
stituting proper groupuscules (as defined above) that do not fall into any of
the other categories listed here.214
These certainly significant phenomena are largely ignored here not only in view of
lack of space, but also because they have, partly, been subject to scholarly scrutiny
before. In a number of cases, already considerable research has been done on these
phenomena. That seems to be less the case with regard to the intellectual centres, in
general, and their institution-building, networking and propaganda efforts, in particu-
lar. The overview of some activities in the latter realm below is meant to complement
previous content analyses and interpretations of the publications of these centres,
and to suggest stronger attention to the issue of how industrious, successful and in-
fluential organizations they actually constitute (and not only what their ideas are
about), in future research.215
Slater, “The Patriots’ Pushkin,” Slavic Review 58, no. 2 (1999): 407-427.
212
Likhachev, “Chto predstavlyaet soboi Russkoe Natsional’noe Edinstvo kak organizatsi-
ya.”
213
Mathyl, “‘Die offenkundige Nisse und der rassenmäßige Feind;’” idem, “Hammer und
Sichel in der Fahne Hitlers;” and Rogachevskii, “The National-Bolshevik Party (1993-
2001).” The groupuscular rather than party-character of the NBP is documented in Edu-
ard V. Limonov’s autobiographical Anatomiya Geroya (Smolensk: Rusich, 1998). See al-
so Mathyl, “The National-Bolshevik Party and Arctogaia;” and A. Toporova, “‘Natsboly’ v
Sankt-Peterburge: obrazy i povsednevnost’,” in: V.V. Kostyusheva, ed., Molodezhnye
dvizheniya i subkul’tury Sankt-Peterburga (sotsiologicheskii i antropologicheskii analiz)
(Sankt-Peterburg: Norma, 1999), 117-127. I am grateful to Andrei Rogachevskii for send-
ing me the latter article.
214
Perhaps, some of the well-researched various Pamyat’ groups, as well as their succes-
sor organizations would, apart from a number of other similar groupings such as the
Right-Radical Party of Sergey Zharikov, fall in this category. Brief English-language sur-
veys that list further putative groupuscules are Alexander Verkhovsky, “Ultra-Nationalists
in Russia at the Onset of Putin’s Rule,” Nationalities Papers 28, no. 4 (2000): 707-726;
Vyacheslav Likhachyov, “Nationalist Radicals in Contemporary Russia: Ideology, Activi-
ties, and Relationship to the Authorities,” in: T. Lokshina, ed., Nationalism, Xenophobia
and Intolerance in Contemporary Russia. Transl. by MBS Intellect Services Inc. (Moskva:
Moscow Helsinki Group, 2002), 259-281.
215
The prominent Russian ultra-nationalist publicist Aleksandr Sevast’yanov once correctly
identified a reason for paying attention to intellectuals and think-tanks: “The practice has
shown that our common adversaries are not so much afraid of nationalists in boots and
black blouses […]. A nationalist with a bowtie—a sholar, a writer, a banker, a top-
administrator, a lawyer—horrifies them.” See NDPR—partiya russkogo naroda (Moskva:
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 81
III.2 Post-Soviet Right-Wing Think Tanks
There have been several networks of nationalist intellectuals in post-war Soviet Rus-
sia within the dissident scene, and around the semi-official “thick-journals.”216 Some
articles and books published in these frameworks gained relevance for the formula-
tion of the programs of the newly emerging nationalist parties in Russia in the late
1980s and early 1990s.217 However, eventually many writings of the Soviet-era publi-
cists and novelists became outdated when the Russian political system and society
transmuted ever more deeply. Although most of the important Soviet “thick journals”
kept and keep appearing, some new initiatives by often, until then, unknown intellec-
tuals have since 1990 gained prominence. Among these more recent institutions are:
- Aleksandr Podberezkin’s Center for International and Strategic Research,
publishing company RAU-korporatsiya (Russian-American University Cor-
poration), and Foundation/Movement Dukhovnoe nasledie (Spiritual Herit-
age; perhaps, the most important set of institutions in this list),218
- Yevgenii Troitsky’s Association for the Complex Study of the Russian Na-
tion,
- Sergeii Shatokhin’s and Yevgenii Morozov’s International Institute of Geo-
politics,
Natsional’naya gazeta, 2005), 63, as quoted in Mitrofanova, The Politicization of Russian
Orthodoxy, 119. It might be also worth adding that Anders Uhlin has found that not only
“[t]he level of education among the interviewed civil society elites [in Russia and the Bal-
tics] is impressively high,” but that it is highest (89% with higher education) among the
leaders of those NGOs which have an ethnic or nationalist orientation. Uhlin, Post-Soviet
Civil Society, 67. Another important finding in this context would be that local elites in Rus-
sia are “quite elitist in their orientation.” Ibid., 159.
216
Brudny, Reinventing Russia.
217
Robert Horvath, “The Specter of Russophobia,” The Soviet and Post-Soviet Review 25,
no. 2 (1998): 199-222.
218
For a useful collection of various assessments of the impact of these institutions, see
Aleksandr Podberezkin, Russkii put’: sdelai shag! 3rd edn. (Moskva: RAU-Universitet,
1998), 300-314. The most extensive treatment of RAU-korporatsiya so far can be found
in Peter Reddaway and Dmitri Glinski, The Tragedy of Russia’s Reforms: Market Bolshe-
vism Against Democracy (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press , 2001).
See also Aleksandr M. Verkhovskii, Ekaterina V. Mikhailovskaya and Vladimir V. Pribylov-
skii, Politicheskaya ksenofobiya: Radikal’nye gruppy. Predstavelniya politikov. Rol’ Tserkvi
(Moskva: Panorama, 1999), 23-24.
ANDREAS UMLAND 82
- the Moscow Historical-Politological Center attached to the ultra-nationalist
party Russkii obshchenatsional’nyi soyuz (Russian All-National Union),219
- General-Major Konstantin Petrov’s so-called Popular Movement “K bo-
goderzhaviyu” (Towards God’s Rule), or Kontseptual’naya partiya “Edi-
nenie” (Conceptual Party “Unificatioin”),220 and its Academy of Manage-
ment,221
- General Leonid Ivashov’s Akademiya geopoliticheskikh problem (Academy
of Geopolitical Problems) and its affiliated Center for Ethnopolitical and Is-
lamic Studies led by Den’ga Khalidov,222
- Igor Dëmin’s Orthodox-Monarchic Analytical Center “Al’fa & Omega,”223
219
Ivanov, Rußland nach Gorbatschow, 347-363.
220
Verkhovskii, Mikhaylovskaya and Pribylovskii, Politicheskaya ksenofobiya, 28; Morozov,
Istoriya “Mertvoi vody.” The “K bogoderzhaviyu” group has been also calling itself the “In-
ternal Predictor of the USSR,” and included (and, possibly, still includes) former LDPR
State Duma Deputy Yuri P. Kuznetsov and the former theorist of the Russian Communist
Labor Party E.G. Kuznetsov. See, Umland, “Vladimir Zhirinovskii in Russian Politics,”
sec. I.3.5 & sub-sec. III.5.4.2; and Shnirelman, Russian Neo-Pagan Myths and Antisemi-
tism, 26. An anonymous Elementy (see below) book reviewer of this group’s main text,
Mërtvaya voda (Dead Water, edited by E.G. Kuznetsov), while pointing to its numerous
pathologies, also reports “the serious approach that [this book] encounters not only in
patriotic circles, but among rather highly placed figures of the state too.” See Vnutrennyi
Prediktor SSSR, Mërtvaya voda. 3 vols. (Sankt-Peterburg: Kitezh - Derzhavnyi grad
Rossii, 1992); N.N., “Monstruositas,” Elementy, no. 8 (1996/97): 110. Another book by
this group that has seemingly gained some readership, and somewhat resembles Ale-
ksandr Dugin’s major publication project “The Foundations of Geopolitics” (see below) is
Yu. Kuznetsov and V. Nikol’skii, Vvedenie v teoriyu natsional’noi bezopasnosti: Problemy
bezopasnosti russkogo naroda i sovremennost’ (Almaty: Vernyi, 1999). The early publi-
cations of this group include also Mikhail Ivanov, “Novaya elita konceptual'noi vlasti,”
Sokol Zhirinovskogo, no. 3 (1992): 10-12; P. Sokolov, M. Ivanov and Yu. Kuznetsov,
eds., Liberal'no-demokraticheskaia partiia: Teoreticheskaya platforma partii - kontseptsi-
ya obshchestvennoi bezopastnosti Rossii v global'nom istoricheskom protsesse. Odo-
brena na 3-em s''ezde partii 18-19 aprelia 1992 g. (Sankt-Peterburg: LDPR, 10 April
1992); Rabochaya gruppa Vnutrennogo prediktora Rossii, “Shpiral' istorii: kuda vedut
‘dorogi na Moskvu.’ Paragraf iz rukopisii, podgotovlennoi Vnutrennym prediktorom Ros-
sii, ‘Razgermetizatsiia’ (1990 g.),” Rossiyanin: Spetsial’nyi vypusk Sankt-Peterburgskogo
otdeleniia Russkogo natsional'nogo sobora (Sankt-Peterburg: ONTO “Genez,” 18 Octo-
ber 1993); Vnutrennyi Prediktor Rossii, “Kratkii kurs...,” Biznes i uchët v Rossii: Spetsi-
al'nyi vypusk, no. 5-6 (1994): 3-65, reprinted in: Slovo Zhirinovkogo: Spetsial'nyi vypusk
(December 1994).
221
Mitrofanova, The Politicization of Russian Orthodoxy, 162.
222
Mitrofanova, The Politicization of Russian Orthodoxy, 64-65.
223
“Alpha & Omega’s” major activity in 1994 constituted the publication of the book series
“Ethnic History” that included historic and contemporary antisemitic and racist pamphlets
with suggestive titles including V.A. Prussakov’s “Fascism and the Jews,” “New Empire,”
and “Portraits Against the Background of the Swastika,” S.G. Antonenko’s “Aryan Rus-
sia,” Ya. Davis’s “Judaism,” A. Shmakov’s “The Secret International Government,” A.P.
Pyatkovskii’s “A State in the State,” A. Lipardin’s “Equal Rights and the Jewish Ques-
tion,” A. Mel’skii’s “At the Roots of the Big Hate,” and P. Tulaev’s “The Conservative
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 83
- Gen.(ret.) Leonid Shershnev’s Fond natsional’noi i mezhdunarodnoi be-
zopastnosti (Foundation for National and International Security) and its
bimonthly bulletin Bezopastnost’ (Security),224
- the Analytical Center NAMAKON—Nezavisimoe agentstvo, marketing i
konsalting (Independent Agency, Marketing and Consulting),225
- Mikhail Leont’ev’s (see below) Serafimovskii klub (Serafim Club),226 and
- Arkadii Maler’s Vizantiiskii-evraziiskii klub “Katekhon” (Byzantine-
Eurasianist Club “Katekhon”) or simply Byzantine Club founded in 1999 at
Moscow’s Institute of Philosophy, and the Philosophical and Political Cen-
ter Severnyi Katekhon (Northern Katekhon).227
These centres are not only peculiar for their relative novelty. They are also distinct for
being under-researched so far—an omission that, especially with regard to Podbe-
rezkin’s influential Foundation/Movement Dukhovnoe nasledie and productive pub-
lishing house RAU-Korporatsiya,228 constitutes an unfortunate state of affairs.229
Revolution in Spain.” For some reason, the series also included Theodor Herzel’s “The
Jewish State.” See, Sergei G. Antonenko, Rus’ ariiskaya (Neprivychnaya pravda). Et-
nicheskaya istoriya 2 (Moskva: Pallada, 1994), 90-94.
224
Mitrofanova, The Politicization of Russian Orthodoxy, 56, 160-161.
225
Mitrofanova, The Politicization of Russian Orthodoxy, 161-162, 214. See URL (last ac-
cessed October 2006): http://www.namakon.ru.
226
URL (last accessed October 2006): http://serafim-club.ru; Aleksandr Verkhovskii, “Ser-
afimovskii klub: Romantika liberal’nogo konservatizma,” Neprikosnovennyi zapas, no.
5(37) (2004): 26-35.
227
Mitrofanova, The Politicization of Russian Orthodoxy, 163, 208, 213. See URL (last ac-
cessed October 2006): http://www.katehon.narod.ru.
228
For some basic information, see Oksana Antonenko, New Russian Analytical Centers
and their Role in Political Decisionmaking (Cambridge, MA: Strengthening Democratic
Institutions Project, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, 1996).
229
A leading specialist in the field has recently aptly noted that, in general, “English-
language scholarly sources on fascist tendencies and movements in post-Soviet Russia
are meager.” Shenfield, Russian Fascism, 299.
III.3 Sergei Kurginyan’s ETTs
Among the first of the new intellectual centres that did, in contrast, attract some at-
tention by scholars was the International Foundation Eksperimental’nyi tvorcheskii
tsentr ETTs (Experimental Creative Center) established, in February 1989, by the
USSR Council of Ministers. The ETTs was headed by Sergei Ervandovich Kurginyan
(b. 1949)—geophysicist, Candidate of Physical-Mathematical Sciences, former re-
search fellow of the Moscow Oceanology Institute and Geological Institute, certified
theatre director, one-time advisor to CPSU Moscow organization head Yuri Prokof’ev,
and 1990 Patriotic Bloc candidate. 230 In 1989-1991, the Center represented “the most
serious attempt to revise official ideology into a nationalist creed.” 231 Russian journal-
ists described the ETTs as “the think tank of the [ultra-conservative] deputy group
‘Soyuz’” in the USSR’s Congress of People’s Deputies,232 and Kurginyan as the
“mysterious advisor for the Kremlin leaders”233 as well as “the last mystical hope of
the neo-Bolsheviks, saviour of the CPSU, [and] theoretician of communism as a new
religion.”234 Ignatow called him “a kind of post-communist Cagliostro.”235 John Dunlop
observed that
Kurginyan has been assailed by Russian “democrats” as “a political
shaman,” “a charlatan,” and “the new Rasputin.” Yet despite such often-
expressed contempt for Kurginyan, the “democrats” could scarcely deny
the extraordinary influence that he exerted on Russian and Soviet poli-
tics during the period from 1989 through 1991. Among those he report-
edly counselled were the Soviet president Gorbachev, two Soviet prime-
ministers—Nikolai Ryzhkov and Valentin Pavlov—Ivan Polozkov, head
230
Jeff Gleisner, “Russia’s Post-Industrial Patriots,” Russia and the World, no. 17 (1990):
19-24; Yasmann, “Red Religion;” Alla Černych, “Sergej Kurginjan: Das siebente Szenari-
um,” Berliner Debatte: Initial, no. 3 (1994): 61-64; John B. Dunlop, “Sergei Kurginyan,” in
his The Rise of Russia and the Fall of the Soviet Empire, 165-169.
231
Brudny, Reinventing Russia, 252.
232
Nezavisimaya gazeta as quoted in Sergei Kurginyan, Sed’moi stsenarii: Do putcha. 1st
vol. (Moskva: ETTs, 1992), 6.
233
As quoted in Alexander Yanov, Weimar Russia—And What We Can Do About It (New
York: Slovo-Word, n.d.), 274.
234
As quoted in Kurginyan, Sed’moi stsenarii, 6.
235
Assen Ignatow, “Das postkommunistische Vakuum und die neuen Ideologien: Zur
gegenwärtigen geistigen Situation in Rußland,” Osteuropa 43, no. 4 (1993): 311-327,
here 316.
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 85
of the Russian Communist party, and Vladimir Kryuchkov, chairman of
the KGB.236
In October 1990 and February 1991, the Ryzhkov and Pavlov governments respec-
tively issued decrees granting ETTs international status as well as broad preroga-
tives at home, and directing the USSR Ministries of Défense and Internal Affairs. The
KGB was ordered to assign to the Center high-ranking officers from their active re-
serve.237 The think-tank had, according to one source, in 1991, a yearly budget of
approximately seventy million roubles, and about 2,000 employees among whom
there were, apart from up to one hundred political analysts,238 “mainly programmers,
physicists, biologists, and constructors.”239
The Center apparently reached the peak of its political influence in the late summer
and fall of 1990 in connection with the discussion, in the USSR’s leadership, of Gri-
gory Yavlinsky’s and Stanislav Shatalin’s “500 days” plan of transition to a market
economy. According to Dunlop, in August-September 1990, Kurginyan’s Center ad-
vised Prime Minister Ryzhkov in his resistance against the adoption and implementa-
tion of the “500 days” plan. The authors of this plan were described by Kurginyan, at
a brainstorming session of the USSR Council of Ministers, as objectively acting as
“agents of [Western] imperialism.”240
In late 1990, ETTs presented its own vision for the Soviet Union’s post-communist
future—and it was telling that the pamphlet of Kurginyan’s Center was titled Post-
perestroika.241 Subsequently, ETTs developed geopolitical models, reform programs,
and schemes for the fight against increasing crime. Among other things, it published
a draft proposal for a new CPSU platform in July 1991, and contributed to the eco-
nomics section of the program of the ultra-nationalist National-Republican Party of
Russia of Nikolai Lysenko. Later, Kurginyan created special appendices for the
spread of ETTs’s ideas: in 1992, the Inter-Regional Club “Postperestroika,” and, in
1994, the elite club “Soderzhatel’noe edinstvo” (Substantive Unity) that included
236
Dunlop, The Rise of Russia and the Fall of the Soviet Empire, 165.
237
Ibid., 166.
238
Kurginyan, Sed’moi stsenarii, 116.
239
Yanov, Weimar Russia, 274.
240
As quoted in Dunlop, The Rise of Russia and the Fall of the Soviet Empire, 166.
241
Sergei E. Kurginyan et al., Postperestroyka: Kontseptual’naya model’ razvitiya nashego
obshchestva, politicheskikh partii i obshchestvennykh organizatsii (Moskva: Izdatel’stvo
politicheskoi literatury, 1990); Victor Yasmann, “Elite Think Tank Prepares ‘Post-
Perestroika’ Strategy,” Report on the USSR, 24 May 1991: 1-6; Paul Bellis and Jeff
Gleisner, “After Perestroika: A Neo-Conservative Manifesto,” Russia and the World, no.
19 (1991): 19-24.
ANDREAS UMLAND 86
among its more than hundred members such prominent figures as Valerii Zorkin,
Oleg Shenin, Vladimir Kryuchkov, Nikolai Ryzhkov, and Aleksandr Sokolov.242 Since
1993, Kurginyan’s ETTs has been publishing, apart from books and brochures,243 the
high-brow journal Rossiya XXI (Russia in the 21st Century) with contributions from a
variety of, mainly, nationalist authors including the prominent publicist Ksenya Mya-
lo.244
The basic idea of Kurginyan’s grouping, in the early 1990s, seemed to be that the
world is divided into individualistic and collectivistic civilizations with Russia belonging
to the latter type. The Communist Party would need to ally itself with the Orthodox
Church, re-centralize the state, lead the country on a developmental path modelled
on the Japanese or Chinese examples, create a “religion of science,” and reject the
introduction of Western institutions enslaving the USSR to Western economies. 245
Kurginyan wanted, as he announced in 1991, to make his contribution to this process
by way of “creating an alternative national elite.”246 Some noteworthy peculiarities in
Kurginyan’s approach have been his gloomy warnings about the possibility of a fa-
scistization of Russia,247 his radical critique of Dugin (see below), 248 and his negative
attitude towards Germany—a country that, at least, in the 1990s, was seen as the
preferred partner for Russia by most Russian nationalists, whether moderate or ex-
treme.249
At the beginning of the 1990s, Kurginyan’s Center constituted the most significant
clearly nationalist think-tank, and publishing house (along with the older “thick jour-
nals”). However, while Kurginyan still occasionally appears in the media, ETTs has,
242
S.B. Chernyshev, “Ot ‘penovedeniya’ k institutu budushchego: Sergei Ervandovich
Kurginyan,” in: S.B. Chernyshev, ed., Inoe: Khrestomatiya novogo rossiiskogo samosoz-
naniya (Moskva: Argus, 1995), 52-54.
243
E.g. Sergey Kurginyan, Rossiya: Vlast’ i oppozitsiya (Moskva: ETTs, 1993).
244
Ivanov, Rußland nach Gorbatschow, 349-350.
245
Dunlop, The Rise of Russia and the Fall of the Soviet Empire, 167-169; Brudny, Rein-
venting Russia, 253-254.
246
As quoted in Yanov, Weimar Russia, 274.
247
One should not be misled by such a stance of Kurginyan as his ideas can be interpreted
as being close to proto-fascism themselves. See A. James Gregor, “Fascism and the
New Russian Nationalism,” Communist and Post-Communist Studies 31, no. 1 (1998): 1-
15.
248
There are, nevertheless, a number of fundamental similarities in Kurginyan’s and Dugin’s
world-views. See V.L. Tsymburskii, “‘Novye pravye’ v Rossii: Natsional’nye predposylki
zaimstvovanniya ideologii,” in: Tatyana I. Zaslavskaya, ed., Kuda idet Rossiya?
Al’ternativy obshchestvennogo razvitiya, 2nd Vol. (Moskva: Aspekt Press, 1995), 472-
482, here 478 & 481.
249
Yanov, Weimar Russia, 273, 296.
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 87
since the early 1990s, lost its nimbus among Moscow’s elite and impact on Russian
politics.
III.4 The Role of Aleksandr Prokhanov
A more steadily influential institution on the far right fringe among the new think-
tanks, throughout the 1990s, was the Analytical Center of the most important post-
Soviet ultra-nationalist weekly Den’ (The Day) which was founded in November 1990,
and later re-named into Zavtra (Tomorrow).250 The weekly also called itself “Organ of
the Spiritual Opposition” and “A Newspaper of the State of Russia.” 251 It has since its
creation been edited by the well-known journalist and novelist, and one-time rocketry
engineer, forester, KGB agent,252 Asia-Africa correspondent of the high-brow weekly
Literaturnaya gazeta (Literature newspaper), and secretary of the RSFSR Writer’s
Union Aleksandr Andreevich Prokhanov (b. 1938). Prokhanov is a writer, editor and
ideologist of the Russian extreme right who has attracted considerable Western at-
tention, and does thus not need a detailed introduction here. 253 For his previous glori-
fication of the Soviet Afghanistan adventure, and general militarism Prokhanov was
labelled the “nightingale of the [Army] General Staff,”254 and has been compared to
Rudyard Kipling.255 In the mid-1980s, he “came under increasing fire from literary
critics for the crude militarism and lacking literary qualities of his writings.” 256 Igor’
Klyamkin noted already in mid-1988 the growing political influence of the writer.257
Prokhanov’s core ideas are summarized in his programmatic essay “The Ideology of
Survival” published in 1990. 258 There Prokhanov claims that, in 1942 (when the Nazis
stood at the gates of Moscow and the Comintern broke down), the Communist Party
250
The recent issues of this most important weekly of the extreme Right may be found at
URL (last accessed October 2006): http://www.zavtra.ru/.
251
Mitrofanova, The Politicization of Russian Orthodoxy, 109.
252
Novyi vzgl’yad, no. 19 (1994).
253
E.g. Stephen Shenfield, “Making Sense of Prokhanov,” Détente, no. 5 (1987): 28-29, 51;
Karla Hielscher, “Konturen der ‘geistigen Opposition’ im heutigen Rußland: Alexander
Prochanow und die Zeitung der Neuen Rechten Djen,” Die Neue Gesellschaft: Frankfur-
ter Hefte 39, no. 5 (1992): 443-449; Riitta Pittman, “Writers and Politics in the Gorbachev
Era,” Europe-Asia Studies 44, no. 4 (1992): 665-685; John B. Dunlop, “Aleksandr Pro-
khanov,” in his The Rise of Russia and the Fall of the Soviet Empire, 169-177; Gordon
M. Hahn, “Opposition Politics in Russia,” Europe-Asia Studies 46, no. 2 (1994): 305-335;
and Simonsen, “Aleksandr Prokhanov;” Allensworth, The Russian Question, 244-248.
254
As quoted in Dunlop, The Rise of Russia and the Fall of the Soviet Empire, 169.
255
Allensworth, The Russian Question, 245; Pribylovskii, Vozhdi, 84.
256
Simonsen, “Aleksandr Prokhanov,” 97.
257
Dunlop, The Rise of Russia and the Fall of the Soviet Empire, 171. See also Allensworth,
The Russian Question, 246.
258
Aleksandr Prokhanov, “Ideologiya vyzhivaniya,” Nash sovremennik, no. 9 (1990): 3-9.
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 89
became the party of the people. 259 This essay illustrates a trend in parts of the Rus-
sian extreme right in showing the ambivalent relationship of many ultra-nationalists to
Russia’s Soviet past. On the one hand, original Bolshevism (in some instances in-
cluding Lenin) is rejected, and often equated with the post-Soviet democrats (who, in
turn, are frequently portrayed as “criminals”). On the other hand, the “achievements”
(sometimes including the purges) of Stalin who, though being Georgian, is seen as a
Russian national hero, rather than an Old Bolshevik, are greatly appreciated. 260 In
Mitrofanova’s words, “Aleksandr Prokhanov simply equates ‘anti-liberal,’ ‘Soviet’ and
‘Orthodox.’ For him not only Kim Jong Il and [Slobodan] Milosevic are [Christian] Or-
thodox, but also Fidel Castro, Yasser Arafat and even European nationalists Jean-
Marie Le Pen and Jörg Haider.” 261
With the gradual break-up of the Soviet Union in 1990-91, Prokhanov’s major focus
of activity switched from that of a writer, to that of an editor for, and organizer of, the
extreme right. This process eventually led to the regular publication of his weekly
Den’ from January 1991 onwards, and the gathering of a distinguished circle of ultra-
nationalist analysts as the newspaper’s regular contributors. Among the Analytical
Centre’s aims were and are to introduce via Den’/Zavtra to nationalist intellectuals
new trends in Russian and foreign right-wing thought, and to analyze the current
power structures as well as to provide interpretations of their activities from a “patriot-
ic” point of view.262 Mitrofanova writes that “[i]n many aspects, Zavtra is an ‘anti-
newspaper.’ It publishes no fresh or exclusive information: only interpretations and
explanations of current events.”263
Prokhanov’s aim, in particular, was and is to use the newspaper Den’/Zavtra to bring
together various brands of Russian ultra-nationalism, and induce their coordination
and unification. Prokhanov has been a driving force behind various broad alliances
of, and ideological innovations―including the spread of Eurasianism―in, the Rus-
sian extreme right.264 He became “the far Right’s unofficial minister of propagan-
da.”265 Den’/Zavtra included, at one point or another, most major Russian opposition
figures of the 1990s (with the notable exceptions of Zhirinovsky, Barkashov and Li-
259
Simonsen, “Aleksandr Prokhanov,” 100.
260
For a succinct summary of Prokhanov’s article see Dunlop, The Rise of Russia and the
Fall of the Soviet Empire, 172-174.
261
Mitrovanova, The Politicization of Russian Orthodoxy, 63.
262
Ivanov, Rußland nach Gorbatschow, 350-351.
263
Mitrofanova, The Politicization of Russian Orthodoxy, 109.
264
Verkhovskii, Papp and Pribylovskii, Politicheskii ekstremizm v Rossii, 284-286.
265
Laqueur, Fascism, 192.
ANDREAS UMLAND 90
monov) on its editorial board, including Dugin and Zyuganov.266 Victor Yasmann re-
ported in 1993 that Prokhanov had secured contributions to Den’ by “the former rec-
tor of Moscow State University, the director of the thermo-nuclear centre in Protvino,
academician Anatolii Logunov, and the director of the Institute of Socio-Political Re-
search of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Gennadii Osipov.”267 In mid-1994, Pro-
khanov claimed that his newspaper was influencing Moscow’s elite groups and be-
coming a factor in the formation of post-Soviet ideology.268 According to Michael
Specter, “[p]erhaps more than any man in Russia, [Prokhanov] helped for […] the
powerful alliance of Communists and nationalist groups that [made] Gennady A.
Zyuganov […] the main challenger for the Russian presidency [in 1996].” 269 In Wayne
Allensworth’s words,
Prokhanov has engineered the various concrete forms the [communist-
nationalist] coalition has taken since the collapse of the Soviet Union
(the National Salvation Front and the People’s Patriotic Union that
backed Zyuganov’s 1996 presidential candidacy, for example). The
founder of the most influential nationalist publication in Russia has
worked diligently to promote opposition unity and is perhaps the only
nationalist figure who has remained on good terms with his comrades
across the political spectrum.270
In 1994, Prokhanov had announced: “I limit my activities to the publication of a news-
paper and the creation of ideological and propagandistic fields and energy.”271 How-
ever, having indeed devoted most of his energies to editorial and organizational work
for the extreme right during the 1990s, Prokhanov, in 2001, made himself again wide-
ly known as a notable ultra-nationalist writer in his own right. He published, under the
imprint of the respected Moscow press Ad Marginem, a best-selling political novel
called Gospodin Geksogen (Mr. Hexogen) fictionalizing the 1999 apartment-block
bombings in Moscow and other cities.272 In May 2002, the notorious book won him
266
Pribylovskii, Vozhdi, 84-85.
267
Yasmann, “Red Religion,” 35.
268
Inform—600 sekund, no. 4 (1994), as quoted in Simonsen, “Aleksandr Prokhanov,” 93.
269
New York Times, 2nd May 1996, AI, as quoted in Sedgwick, Against the Modern World,
331.
270
Allensworth, The Russian Question, 261.
271
Inform—600 sekund, no. 4 (1994), as quoted in Simonsen, “Aleksandr Prokhanov,” 93.
272
Vladimir Bondarenko, “Prokhanovskii proryv: O romane ‘Gospodin Geksogen’,” So-
vetskaya Rossiya, 27 April 2002, at: URL (last accessed October 2006):
http://www.geksogen.veshnyaki.ru/p70.html.
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 91
the prestigious 2001 National Bestseller Prize. 273 Prokhanov promptly donated the
$10,000 prize-money to the defence of NBP-leader Eduard Limonov who was then
awaiting his trial on charges of illegal arms ownership and attempting to overthrow
the constitutional order.274
273
Oleg Proskurin, “Natsional’nyi bestseller-2001, ili apofeoz Prokhanova,” Russkii zhurnal,
4 June 2002, at: URL (last accessed October 2006):
http://www.geksogen.veshnyaki.ru/p72.html; and Aleksandr Gavrilov, “Radi krasno-
korichnevogo slova,” Grani, 4 June 2002, at: URL (last accessed October 2006):
http://www.grani.ru/bookprize/articles/prochanov/print.html. I am grateful to Robert C. Ot-
to for alerting me to these articles.
274
Victor Yasmann, “Book on 1999 Apartment-block Bombings Wins National Award,”
RFE/RL Newsline 6, no. 107 (10 June 2002), at: URL (last accessed October 2006):
http://www.rferl.org/newsline/2002/06/100602.asp.
III.5 The Dugin Phenomenon275
“Time has come for Russia to find a clear-cut ideology, as well as a tough
and understandable line in both, domestic and foreign affairs.”
Aleksandr Dugin276
One of Den’/Zavtra’s Analytical Centre’s most prolific early contributors, erudite theo-
rists, and industrious publicists has been the mysticist Aleksandr Gel’evich Dugin (b.
1962).277 Dugin became first known in Russian ultra-nationalist circles through his
publications in Den’/Zavtra’s in 1991-1992. In Alexander Yanov’s words, “having
nearly monopolized the central periodical of the opposition, Den’, Dugin was [in mid-
1992] halfway to elbowing [Sergey] Kurginyan out of the opposition’s intellectual
leadership.”278 Later on, he edited the weekly’s sections Vtorzhenie: national-
bol’shevistskaya territoriya (Invasion: The National-Bolshevik Territory) and Evraziis-
koe vtorzhenie (Eurasian Invasion).279
He seems to have had considerable influence, not the least, on Prokhanov himself:
The latter reproduced a core idea of Dugin’s early manifesto “The War of the Conti-
nents” (1991-1992) published first in Den’, namely the idea of a confrontation be-
tween a pro-Western KGB and Russian patriotic GRU, in the above-mentioned 2001
novel Gospodin Geksogen.280 Dugin, in turn, had been earlier influenced by older
275
See also, Umland, “Formirovanie fashistskogo ‘neoevraziiskogo’ intellektual’nogo
dvizheniya v Rossii.” The most important autobiographic text by Dugin on his intellectual
formation and entry into Russian politics, which will be quoted below and has only re-
cently become available, is: Aleksandr Dugin, “Pravye lyudi—sovremennye pravye:
Dugin Aleksandr Gel’evich (r. 1962),” Pravya.ru, 22 February 2006, URL (last accessed
October 2006): http://www.pravaya.ru/ludi/451/6742. I am grateful to Prof. John Dunlop
for bringing this revealing interview to my attention.
276
Rossiiskaya gazeta, 27th January 2005.
277
Among the first and best analyses of the Dugin phenonemon are Karla Hielscher, “Der
Eurasismus: Die neoimperiale Ideologie der russischen ‘Neuen Rechten’,” Die Neue Ge-
sellschaft: Frankfurter Hefte 40, no. 5 (1993): 465-469; idem, “Die Eurasien-Ideologie:
Geschichtsmythen der russischen ‘Neuen Rechten’,” Glaube in der 2. Welt, no. 7/8
(1993): 25-30. Among the best English-language analyses of the phenomenon are Al-
lensworth, The Russian Question, 243-262, and Shenfield, “Dugin, Limonov, and the Na-
tional-Bolshevik Party,” in his, Russian Fascism, 190-220.
278
Yanov, Weimar Russia, 279.
279
Mitrofanova, The Politicization of Russian Orthodoxy, 109.
280
Mitrofanova, The Politicization of Russian Orthodoxy, 92-93.
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 93
writings of Prokhanov, as documented by the various references to Prokhanov in
“The War of the Continents.”281
In spite of Dugin’s, already in the early 1990s, notable publicistic successes within
the far right, the study of the ideas, entourage and activities of this non-conformist
writer has, until recently, been seen as the domain of an exclusive group of students
of Russian sub-cultures, lunatic fringe politics, and occultism with a taste for the bi-
zarre.282 However, the establishment, in 2001, of the Socio-Political Movement “Eur-
asia,” that will be described below, under Dugin’s leadership represents merely the
latest peak in a chain of consequential initiatives by him throughout the 1990s. Per-
haps, counter-intuitively to many observers of Russia, the content, spread and recep-
tion of Dugin’s quixotic ideas had, already in the 1990s, become relevant for an ade-
quate assessment of mainstream Russian political, social and cultural trends too.283
III.5.1 Dugin’s World View
Dugin’s numerous writings have become the subject of several content analyses. 284
Although Dugin has, especially recently, tried to present his agenda as a variety of,
or, even, as mainstream, “Eurasianism” or “neo-Eurasianism” (a tendency to be scru-
tinized below),285 his ideas constitute not only and not so much permutations of these
281
Dugin, Konspirologiya, 115.
282
This is, to be sure, not a problem peculiar to contemporary Russian studies. As Roger
Griffin mentions in his introduction to the groupuscular right: “Scholarship of this type [i.e.
research into groupuscules] requires a passion for the recondite, the arabesque and the
Byzantine which is not part of the staple qualities of the university-trained political scien-
tist.” Griffin, “From Slime Mould to Rhizome,” 4.
283
Clover, “Dreams of the Eurasian Heartland;” and Markus Mathyl, “Grenzenloses Eura-
sien,” Jungle World, no. 45 (2002), Ilan Berman, “Slouching Toward Eurasia?” at: URL
(last accessed October 2006): http://www.bu.edu/iscip/voll2/berman.html.
284
E.g., Nikolai von Kreitor, “Dugin, Russian Geopolitics and the New World Order,” in:
Dugin Aleksandr Gel’evich: Diskussiya, at: URL (last accessed October 2006):
http://www.zhurnal.ru:8085/5/d.duginbio.htm (25 September 1999): 3-8; Andrei Mishin,
“Geopolitika i ezoterika: Kto vy gospodin Dugin,” at: URL (last accessed October 2006):
http://www.raven.kiev.ua/DOSSIER/7.2000/dugin.htm; Dmitrii Shlapentokh, “Russian Na-
tionalism Today: The Views of Alexander Dugin,” Contemporary Review 279, no. 1626
(2001): 29-37; Alan Ingram, “Alexander Dugin: Geopolitics and Neo-Fascism in Post-
Soviet Russia,” Political Geography 20, no. 8 (2001): 1029-1051; Markus Mathyl, “Alex-
ander Dugin and the National-Bolshevik Party: Between the Search for a ‘Russian So-
cialism’ and International Fascism,” Paper presented at the 33 rd Annual Convention of
the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, Arlington, Virginia, 15-
18 November 2001. The following outline is based on these texts, and further works by
Mathyl and others cited below.
285
See Françoise Thom, “Eurasianism: A New Russian Foreign Policy?” Uncaptive Minds 7,
no. 2 (26) (1994): 65-77; Petra Gebhard, “Eine Brücke zwischen Europa und Asien: Die
Lehre der Eurasier in der gegenwärtigen Diskussion um die russische Identität,” unpubli-
ANDREAS UMLAND 94
schools of thought. Rather, as will be detailed below, Dugin’s views are comparable
to the German inter-war “Conservative Revolution,” and owe much to various interna-
tional schools of geopolitical, proto-fascist and conspirological thought including, for
instance, Julius Evola or Jean Parvulesco as well as to the post-1968 West Europe-
an “New Right.”286 In the words of one observer, Dugin’s theories are a “delirious
combination of [Lev] Gumilëv [see below—A.U.], [Vladimir] Solovëv, [Friedrich] Nie-
tzsche and theorists of fascism, contemporary and historical.” 287 In addition, there is
an influence of mystical and occultist theories and writings like those of Hermann
Wirth, Gustav Meyrink and Aleister Crowley reflecting a generally high interest in eso-
tericism in post-Soviet Russia.288 Walter Laqueur has observed that “[i]f the Arioso-
phists of Germany and Austria had a presence in the early days of Nazism (until Hit-
ler purged them), the purveyors of occultism have assumed an even greater role in
the genesis of Russian fascism and the extreme Right.”289
shed M.A. thesis, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, 1994, 35-71; Michael Hage-
meister, “The Revival of Eurasianism,” Paper presented at the 5th World Congress of the
International Council for Central and East European Studies, Warsaw, 6-11 August 1995;
idem, “Eurasiertum und Nationalismus,” Paper presented at the workshop “Der russische
Nationalismus im europäischen Kontext: Wurzeln und Erscheinungsformen,” Internatio-
nale Forschungszentrum Kulturwissenschaften, Vienna, 15-16 December 1995; Jens Fi-
scher, Eurasismus: Eine Option russischer Aussenpolitik? (Berlin: Arno Spitz, 1998). For
critique of Dugin’s claim to have, as a „neo-Eurasian,“ merely developed further classical
Eurasianism, see Ilya Vinkovetsky, “Eurasianism in Its Time: A Bibliography,” in: Ilya
Vinkovetsky and Charles Schlacks, Jr., eds., Exodus to the East: Forebodings and
Events. An Affirmation of the Eurasians (Idyllwild, CA: Charles Schlacks, Jr., 1996), 143-
155; Stefan Wiederkehr, “‘Kontinent Evraziia’: Alexander Dugin’s Reading of Classical
Eurasianism and Geopolitics,” Paper presented at the 33 rd Annual Convention of the
American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, Arlington, Virginia, 15-18
November 2001; Umland, “Kulturhegemoniale Strategien der russischen extremen
Rechten.”
286
Leonid Lyuks, “‘Tretii put’,’ ili Nazad v Tretii reikh?” Translated by A.V. Markin, Voprosy
filosofii, no. 5 (2000): 33-44; Assen Ignatow, “Geopolitische Theorien in Rußland heute,”
Berichte des Bundesinstituts für internationale und ostwissenschaftliche Studien, no. 17
(1998); Yu.V. Tikhonravrov, “Russkaya geopolitika,” and “Zaklyuchenie” in his Geopoliti-
ka: Uchebnoe posobie (Moskva: INFRA-M, 2000), 230-258; Vladimir Kolossov and Ros-
tislav Turovsky, “Russian Geopolitics at the Fin-de-siecle,” Geopolitics 6, no. 1 (2001):
141-164; Tsymburskii, “‘Novye pravye’ v Rossii;” Jean Cremet, „Für eine Allianz der ‚Ro-
ten’ und der ‚Weißen.’ Zwischen Metapolitik und Geopolitik: Zur Durchdringung Osteuro-
pas durch die ‚Neue’ Rechte,“ in: Jean Cremet, Felix Krebs and Andreas Speit, Jenseits
des Nationalismus. Ideologische Grenzgänger der „Neuen Rechten“: Ein Zwischenber-
icht (Hamburg/Münster: Unrast 1999), 91-120.
287
Judith Devlin, Slavophiles and Commissars: Enemies of Democracy in Modern Russia
(New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1999), 53.
288
Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal, “Political Implications of the Early Twentieth-Century Occult
Revival,” in: idem, ed., The Occult in Russian and Soviet Culture (Ithaca: Cornell Univer-
sity Press, 1997), 379-418. On Meyrink, Antoine Faivre, The Eternal Hermes: From
Greek God to Alchemical Magus (Grand Rapids, MI: Phanes, 1995).
289
Laqueur, Fascism, 194.
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 95
Dugin thus writes not merely about certain contradictions between Western civiliza-
tion and Russia as, for instance, above-mentioned Kucherenkov-Kalashnikov or
Kurginyan do. Instead, he draws, in his otherwise contradictory writings, the recurring
picture of an ancient conflict between
- free-market, capitalist, Atlanticist sea powers (“thallasocracies”) that go
back to the sunken world of Atlantis, 290 continue the behaviour of the an-
cient states of Phoenicia and Carthago, and are now headed by the
“mondialist” United States, on the one side, and
- autarkic, etatistic, Eurasian continental land powers (“tellurocracies”), origi-
nating with the mythic country of “Hyperborea,” preserving the tradition of
the ancient Roman Empire, and now having as its most important compo-
nent Russia, on the other.
According to the above-mentioned series of articles writing by Dugin in February
1991 until January 1992, the secret orders or “occult conspiracies” of these two an-
tagonistic civilizations—Eternal Rome and Eternal Carthago—have been in an age-
old struggle, an occult Punic war, that has, often, remained hidden to its participants
and even its key figures, but has, nevertheless, determined the course of world histo-
ry. The confrontation is now entering its final stage, the “Great War of the Conti-
nents,” demanding Russia’s rebirth via a “conservative,” “Last” and “permanent revo-
lution.”291 This will be “the greatest Revolution in history, continental and universal,
[…] the return of the angels, the resurrection of the heroes, and the uprising of the
heart against the dictatorship of reason.”292 The new order to be created would be
informed by the ideology of “National Bolshevism” and an exclusively “geopolitical”
approach to international relations. A victory in this Endkampf (final fight) against At-
lanticism would create a “New Socialism,” and imply territorial expansion as well as
the formation of a Eurasian bloc of fundamentalist land powers (including, perhaps,
290
Moroz, “Podnyavshii svastiku.”
291
Dugin, Konspirologiya, 91-131; Aleksandr Dugin, “Velikaya voina kontinentov,” Den’, no.
4(32) (1992): 2, also quoted in Stefan Wiederkehr, “‘Kontinent Evrasija’—Klassischer
Eurasismus und Geopolitik in der Lesart Alexander Dugins,” in: Markus Kaiser, ed., Auf
der Suche nach Eurasien: Politik, Religion und Alltagskultur zwischen Russland und Eu-
ropa (Bielefeld: transcript, 2004), 125-138, here 129; Aleksandr Sherman, “Vstupim v re-
al’nost’ stol’ udivitel’nuyu, chto malo ne pokazhetsya: Interv’yu is Aleksandrom Duginym
(Natsional-bol’shevistskaya partiya),” at: URL (last accessed October 2006):
http://www.zhurnal.ru:8085/5/duginsh.htm, 5.
292
Aleksandr Dugin, Osnovy geopolitiki: Geopoliticheskoe budushchee Rossii (Moskva:
Arktogeya, 1997), 26, as quoted and translated by Shenfield, Russian Fascism, 195.
ANDREAS UMLAND 96
even a traditionalist Israel) against intrusive, individualist Anglo-Saxon imperialism. 293
Writes Dugin in the early 1990s,
[b]oth Orders [the Eurasianists and Atlanticists] have the deepest
ontological and sacral roots; they possess metaphysical reasons
that make them what they are. To regard one of these Orders a
historical accident means rejecting the secret logic of human and
cosmic cycles. The choice of the geopolitical path reflects the
choice of a metaphysical path, an esoterical path, the path of the
Spirit through the world’s building. Therefore, there is no guaran-
tee; therefore, one can, strictly speaking, not claim that Eurasia is
good, and Atlantica—bad, that Rome is virtue, and Carthago—evil,
and vice versa. But everybody called upon by his [sic] Order has
to make a decided step and serve indeed his [sic] Order. The laws
of our times are such that the result of the Great Battle are not
predetermined, the outcome of the drama “Eurasia against Atlanti-
ca” depends on the sum of planeterian solidarity of all called upon
the service, of all soldiers of geopolitics, of all secret agents of the
Land and secret agents of the Sea. The end result of the cosmo-
logical war of Apollo against the Snake Python depends on every-
body among us—whether he [sic] realizes this or not.294
As will be shown below, ideas such as these should not lead one to dismiss lightly
Dugin as hardly constituting a relevant political phenomenon. Walter Laqueur has
commented:
Sometimes one suspects a black sense of humour behind the gro-
tesque fantasies. But the fanatics of the extreme Right lack a
sense of humour. They know that the last judgment is at hand, that
the Russian people are about to be exterminated. People in such
a frame of mind are not likely to engage in frivolous jokes. 295
Mark Sedgwick has, in his study of the impact of Dugin’s Traditionalism in Russia,
noted that “Dugin’s ideas seemed less eccentric to their Russian than to their West-
293
Dugin, Konservativnaya Revolyutsiya, 14-15, 129. See also Andrei Tsygankov, “Hard-
line Eurasianism and Russia’s Contending Geopolitical Perspectives,” East European
Quarterly 32 (1998): 315-324.
294
Dugin, Konspirologiya, 128. For an excellent summary of further aspects of Dugin’s world
view, see Allensworth, The Russian Question, 248-262.
295
Laqueur, Fascism, 130.
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 97
ern audience.”296 Igor Vinogradov, editor of the reputed Russian émigré magazine
Kontinent, observed on Dugin and his followers, already in 1992:
They are undertaking a noisy galvanization of a reactionary utopia
that failed long ago, an attempt to revive through the injection of a
new vaccine—a combination of “Orthodoxy” and “Islam” in the
name of combating insidious “Zionism,” putrid Western “Catholi-
cism” and any kind of Jew-Masonry whatever […]. For all their [in-
tellectual] ineptitude, they are very dangerous. After all, the temp-
tation of religious fundamentalism in our century of unbelief and
general spiritual corruption is attractive to many desperate people
who have lost their way in this chaos.297
III.5.2 The Rise of Dugin
Dugin’s Origins
Most reports agree that Dugin grew up in a privileged family as the son of a GRU of-
ficer, either a general or a colonel, and that his grand-father and great-grandfather
had also been army officers.298 One biography alleges that his father died when
Dugin was still a child.299 According to another report, he entered, after finishing high
school with mediocre results, the Moscow Aviation Institute, on the insistence of his
father.300 He interrupted his education, however, either because of insufficient study
results, on his own will, 301 or because of an arrest connected to dissident activities.
According to Mark Sedgwick who bases his report on an interview with Dugin,
[i]n 1983 the authorities learned of a party in a painter’s studio where
Dugin had played the guitar and sung what he called “mystical anti-
Communist songs,” and Dugin was briefly detained. The KGB found
296
Sedgwick, Against the Modern World, 230.
297
Elena Yakovich, “Kontinent v Moskve [an interview with Igor Vinogradov],” Literaturnaya
gazeta, 22 July 1992, 5, as quoted in Sedgwick, Against the Modern World, 230. It is tell-
ing that, recently, Dugin has, as will be detailed later, become a regular contributor to the
same Literaturnaya gazeta [Literary Newspaper].
298
Shenfield, Russian Fascism, 191.
299
E.g. Polyannikov, “Po tropam Khimery, ili razmyshlenniya o evraziistve i ‘novom mirovom
poriadke.’”
300
Kaledin, “Terapiya okazalas’ bessil’noi pered maniei Dugina-mladshego pereustroit’ mir.”
According to the same source, Dugin’s father, allegedly, put his son for a while into a
psychiatry.
301
Kaledin, “Terapiya okazalas’ bessil’noi pered maniei Dugina-mladshego pereustroit’ mir.”
ANDREAS UMLAND 98
forbidden literature in this room, principally books by Aleksandr Sol-
zhenitsyn and [Yurii] Mamleev […]. Dugin was expelled from the
[Moscow] Institute of Aviation, where he was studying. He found
employment as street sweeper and continued reading in the [Soviet
Union’s largest] Lenin Library with a forged reader’s card. 302
In contradiction to this report, another biography of Dugin says that, after his expul-
sion from the Aviation Institute, he started working in a KGB archive where he gained
access to, and read large amounts of, forbidden literature on Masonry, fascism and
paganism.303
At about the same time, if not before, Dugin must have become involved in a secre-
tive group of esoteric intellectuals interested in European and Oriental mysticism,
black magic, occultism, and alchemy. At one point, this circle called itself “Black Or-
der of the SS,”304 and its leader Evgenii Golovin (see Appendix) Reichsführer SS.305
Most sources agree that the circle had, originally, been founded in the 1960s at the
flat of the writer Yurii Mamleev (see Appendix). The most important Russian refer-
ence work on late Soviet independent groupings called this circle in 1991 the
“Movement of Intellectuals-Conservatives.” The hand-book states that the circle of
approximately 10 people had been founded in 1966, and, apparently in the late
1980s, proclaimed, as its aim,
an attempt to found an ideology uniting all patriotic creative forces of
the State [Derzhava], on the basis of uniform metaphysical traditions
and values. [It is] an attempt to transform politics from a fight for power
into an instrument of harmonizing the imperial ethnie.306
In 1975, Mamleev was expelled from the USSR after his circle and its samizdat litera-
ture were discovered by the KGB.307 According to Berezovskii, Krotov and
Chervyakov, it was then that Golovin became the circle’s leader until 1978.308 After
302
Sedgwick, Against the Modern World, 223.
303
Kaledin, “Terapiya okazalas’ bessil’noi pered maniei Dugina-mladshego pereustroit’ mir.”
304
See Vyacheslav Likhachev, Natsizm v Rossii (Moskva: Panorama, 2002), 101.
305
Polyannikov, „Po tropam Khimery, ili razmyshlenniya o evraziistve i ‘novom mirovom
poriadke.’”
306
As quoted in V.N. Berezovskii, N.I. Krotov and V.V. Chervyakov, Rossiya: Partii, as-
sotsiatsii, soyuzy, kluby. Tom 1. Chast’ 1. Spravochnik (Moskva: RAU-Press, 1991), 42.
Two of the authors of this exceptionally informative handbook, Vladimir Berezovskii and
Valerii Chervyakov, helped me collecting material for my research in the mid-1990s, and,
tragically, died in a car-accident in the late 1990s.
307
Kaledin, “Terapiya okazalas’ bessil’noi pered maniei Dugina-mladshego pereustroit’ mir.”
308
Berezovskii, Krotov and Chervyakov, Rossiya, 42.
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 99
Mamleev’s expulsion, the circle became also more secretive and took new members
only after some initiation ritual.309 Allegedly, the circle’s members included, at several
points, apart from Golovin, Dugin and Mamleev, the Islamist Geidar Dzhemal (see
Appendix),310 the artists Anatolii Zverev and Vladimir Pyatnitskii, the poets Genrikh
Zapgir, Yurii Kublanovskii and Leonid Gubanov, the philosopher Vladimir Stepanov
(see Appendix), and, according to one source, even the famous writer Venedikt
Erofeev.311 According to another well-informed source, in 1978-1988, the group was
led by Geidar Dzhemal, and, in 1983-1989, also by Dugin. 312
The Azeri Dzhemal (b. 1947) was, at that time, apparently a close friend of Dugin,
and had a biography somewhat similar to Dugin’s.313 In 1967, Dzhemal too had been
expelled from his higher education institution, the Institute for Oriental Languages
(where, at the same time, Zhirinovskii studied) for political reasons, and subsequently
become an autodidact interested in Traditionalism.314 In 1980, Dzhemal, Dugin and
Golovin went for a month-long trip to the Zeravshan Mountains in the North-East
Pamirs.315 Dugin’s first major contribution to the activities of the circle was, apparent-
ly, his translation of Julius Evola’s writing Pagan Imperialism into Russian lan-
guage.316
For Dugin, the influence of Golovin was especially important, and one report says
that it was Golovin, a professional translator and polyglot, who motivated Dugin to
learn foreign languages. The same source says that that “Golovin’s lectures on her-
309
One sources alleges that this initiation ritual consisted of Golovin urinating into the mouth
of the new apostle. See Kaledin, “Terapiya okazalas’ bessil’noi pered maniei Dugina-
mladshego pereustroit’ mir.” While this may not have been the case, the Mamleev-
Golovin circle is, indeed, by most observers described as having been interested in bi-
zarre experiments as a way of self-discovery.
310
Sedgwick, Against the Modern World, 223. On Dzhemal, see Yu.A. Kur’yanov, “Novyy
iskhod k vostoku? Ideologiya evraziitsev i sovremennost’,” Orientatsiya: Zurnal russkikh
traditsionalistov, no.4 (1995): 18-27. For a book by Dzhemal in a Western language, see
Gejdar Jamal, Tawhid: Prospettive dell’Islam nell’ex URSS. Transl. and ed. by Danilo
Valdorio (Parma: Insegna del Veltro, 1993).
311
Kaledin, “Terapiya okazalas’ bessil’noi pered maniei Dugina-mladshego pereustroit’ mir.”
Interestingly, Eduard Limonov apparently knew Golovin and Mamleev before his emigra-
tion in the 1970s, but was not especially close to them. That was in spite of Limonov’s in-
terest, at that time, for mysticism. Shenfield, Russian Fascism, 203.
312
Berezovskii, Krotov and Chervyakov, Rossiya, 42.
313
Oreshkin, “Spor Slavyan;” URL (last accessed October 2006):
http://www.nns.ru/Person/jemal/.
314
Vladimir Pribylovskii, Vozhdi: Sbornik biografii rossiiskikh politicheskikh deyatelei
natsionalistisicheskoi i impersko-patrioticheskoi orientatsii (Moskva: Panorama, 1995),
44.
315
Sedgwick, Against the Modern World, 222-223, 257-260.
316
Shenfield, Russian Fascism, 192.
ANDREAS UMLAND 100
meneutics, Traditionalism and Eurasianism were received by Dugin as eye-
opening.”317 Dugin later spoke of the circle as “the true masters of the Moscow eso-
teric elite.”318 In 1989, the Golovin circle started to publish a samizdat newspaper
Poslednii polyus (The Last Pole) which was edited by I. Dudinskii, had a circulation of
3,000-5,000 copies, and appeared altogether three times. 319 Dzhemal, Golovin and
Mamleev have continued to collaborate with Dugin after the break-up of the Soviet
Union, and are contributing today to his publications and other activities.320
During a visit to Western Europe in 1989, Dugin met a number of well-known ultra-
nationalist European publicists including the Frenchman Alain de Benoist, the Bel-
gian Jean-François Thiriart, and Italian Claudio Mutti.321 According to one source,
Dugin was able to establish contacts with some of them thanks to the help of Mam-
leev who, at that time, must have lived in Paris. 322 Later, these men, together with
other similarly oriented theorists, visited Dugin in Moscow, and participated to one
degree or another in his various projects.323 In 1991, Dugin published a book called
Continente Russia in Mutti’s Italian publishing house. 324 According to a further
source, the Golovin circle had also contacts to the French publishing house called
Vivrism, and to a Paris philosophical group around Tat’yana Goricheva.325
During perestroika, Dugin took a brief interest in the radical wing of the democratic
movement led by Valeriya Novodvorskaya.326 Together with Dzhemal, Dugin entered,
on Golovin’s advice, in 1987, Dmitrii Vasil’ev’s National-Patriotic Front Pamyat’, Mos-
cow’s major independent ultra-nationalist organization, at this time. 327 Having served
317
Kaledin, “Terapiya okazalas’ bessil’noi pered maniei Dugina-mladshego pereustroit’ mir.”
318
Aleksandr Dugin and Eduard Limonov, “Ya lyublyu ‘shampanskikh geniev’,” Elementy:
Evraziiskoe obozrenie, no. 4 (1993): 49-52; as quoted in Shenfield, Russian Fascism,
191.
319
Berezovskii, Krotov and Chervyakov, Rossiya, 42.
320
Shenfield, Russian Fascism, 190-199.
321
Shenfield, Russian Fascism, 192.
322
Polyannikov, „Po tropam Khimery, ili razmyshlenniya o evraziistve i ‘novom mirovom
poriadke.’”
323
Shenfield, Russian Fascism, 192.
324
Sedgwick, Against the Modern World, 332.
325
Berezovskii, Krotov and Chervyakov, Rossiya, 42.
326
Polyannikov, „Po tropam Khimery, ili razmyshlenniya o evraziistve i ‘novom mirovom
poriadke.’” Another author alleges that Dugin and Dzhemal wanted to emigrate to Lybia
in the mid-1980s. See Kaledin, “Terapiya okazalas’ bessil’noi pered maniei Dugina-
mladshego pereustroit’ mir.” According to some sources, Dugin was once married to
Evgeniya Debryanskaya, a leader of Russian feminism. See Polyannikov, „Po tropam
Khimery, ili razmyshlenniya o evraziistve i ‘novom mirovom poriadke.’” His current wife,
however, is his close colleague Natal’ya Melent’eva who is an active editor and writer for
Arktogaya and Evraziya.
327
Personal communication with Vyacheslav Likhachev, Spring 2005; Polyannikov, „Po tro-
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 101
at the Central Council of Pamyat’ in 1988-1989, Dugin, however, left the organization
after a conflict with Vasil’ev who had called him a “kike-mason.”328
Dugin’s Emergence as a Publicist
From 1988-1991, Dugin was editor-in-chief for a publisher called EON (perhaps, his
own creation),329 and entered, in 1991, the editorial board of Den’. At the same time,
he continued his activity in the publishing business with the foundation of what would
gradually become a major post-Soviet Russian ultra-nationalist press: the Historical-
Religious Society Arktogeya (Northern Country). In 1991, he published his first larger
and widely noted books, The Mysteries of Eurasia,330 and The Paths of the Absolute,
as well as the first issues of the almanac Milyy Angel (Enchanting Angel),331 and
abortive journal Giperboreets (The Hyperborean).332 These were followed by numer-
ous books, and some other periodicals.
Most of the publications principally authored or edited by Dugin are listed in Table 2
below.333 Still, this list includes neither a number of further books published by
Arktogeya (for which Dugin often provided forewords), nor some edited volumes pub-
lished under the imprint of other presses to which Dugin contributed too. It also does
not include a flood of articles by Dugin that have appeared in a variety of Russian
(and some Western) periodicals, above all in the weeklies Zavtra and Limonka (The
Little Lemon, a word also used for a hand-grenade),334 but also in such Soviet-era
pam Khimery, ili razmyshlenniya o evraziistve i ‘novom mirovom poriadke;’” Kaledin,
“Terapiya okazalas’ bessil’noi pered maniei Dugina-mladshego pereustroit’ mir.”
328
Pribylovskii, Vozhdi, 44-45; Polyannikov, „Po tropam Khimery, ili razmyshlenniya o ev-
raziistve i ‘novom mirovom poriadke.’”
329
URL (last accessed October 2006): http://eurasia.com.ru/leaders/dugin.html. Not much is
known about EON, a publishing house from which I have not been able to find any
books.
330
On Dugin’s first book, see Gasan Guseynov, “‘Misterii Evrazii’ A. Dugina,” in his Karta
nashey Rodiny: Ideologema mezhdu slovom i telom (Helsinki: Institute for Russian and
East European Studies, 2000), 95-96.
331
Now available on the web at URL (last accessed October 2006):
http://angel.org.ru/main.html.
332
Pribylovskii, Vozhdi, 45; Shenfield, Russian Fascism, 193.
333
In listing below the circulation numbers of the books and journals in question, I am follow-
ing an approach of Viktor Shnirel’man. In his analysis of the spread of pseudo-theories of
the alleged ancient roots of the Russians connected to the so-called Book of Vles (a for-
gery), Shnirel’man lists the circulation numbers of the journals that have propagated such
theories as well as of the volumes containing the Book of Vles or parts of it. See
Shnirel’man, Intellektual’nye labirinty, 272-273.
334
Limonka was founded in 1994. Official circulation numbers were 7,000 in 1995, 5,500 in
1996, and 10,000 in 1997. See Limonka, no. 77(1997): 1, no. 13 (1995): 4; Rogachev-
ANDREAS UMLAND 102
ultra-nationalist organs, as the monthly Nash sovremennik (Our Contemporary) since
the early 1990s as well as in various centrist newspapers since the mid-1990s. 335
Still, this table alone shows Dugin’s enormous output, and the variety of subjects he
has been dealing with: esotericism, international relations, culture, history, politics,
etc. There are, probably, only few publicists—whether pro- or anti-democratic—in
Russia today how could report as continuous a flow of publications as Dugin’s over
the last 15 years.
skii, “The National-Bolshevik Party (1993-2001),” 4.
335
Many of these articles became subsequently chapters, or sections in Dugin’s books.
See, for instance, the acknowledgements in Aleksandr Dugin, Tampliery Proletariata:
Natsional-bol’shevizm i initsiatsiya (Moskva: Arktogeya 1997), 323-324. Thus, the below
table probably does reflect the larger part of Duing’s publicistic work.
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 103
Table 2: The major books and journals published by Dugin, if not otherwise indicated,
under the imprint of Arktogeya Press336
Name of Publication Year Issue or Official cir-
edition culation
nos.
Puti Absolyuta [The Paths of the Absolute]337 1990 1st edn
Continente Russia [The Continent Russia]338 1991 1st edn
Misterii Evrazii [Mysteries of Eurasia] 1991 1st edn
-“- 1996 2nd edn 3,000
Giperboreets [The Hyperborean] 1991 No. 1339
Almanakh “Milyy Angel” 340 1991 1st Vol. 20,000
-“- 1992 2nd Vol. 1,000
-“- 1996 3rd Vol.
-“- 1999 4th Vol.
Puti Absolyuta 1991 2nd edn 5,000
Konspirologiya [Conspirology]341 1992 1st edn 10,000
Rusia: Misterio de Eurasia342 1992 1st edn
Giperboreiskaya teoriya343 1993 1st edn 50,000 (?)
-“- 1993 2nd edn 5,000344
Elementy: evraziiskoe obozrenie 1992 No. 1 50,000 (?)
-“- 1992 No. 2 30,000(?)
336
This is an improved version of the table first presented in Umland, “Kulturhegemoniale
Strategien der russischen extremen Rechten.” The question marks behind some circula-
tion numbers below indicate that these are officially given circulation numbers that might
be inflated. I shall be grateful for any corrections or additional information on the data in
this table.
337
See URL (last accessed October 2006): http://eurasia.com.ru/leaders/dugin.html. Appar-
ently, Dugin wrote this book in 1989. See URL (last accessed October 2006):
http://www.arctogaia.com/public/putiabs/. I have not been able to establish the publisher
and circulation number of this first edition. Perhaps, it was published in Moscow by EON.
338
Published in Parma or/and Milano by Edizioni All’insegna del Veltro.
339
Pribylovskii, Vozhdi, 44-45.
340
Almanac “Enchanting Angel.”
341
Sub-title: Nauka o zagovorakh, taynykh obshchestvakh i okkul’tnoy voyne [The Science
of Conspiracies, Secret Societies and Occult War).
342
Published in Madrid by Grupo Libro. Some sources give 1990 as the year of publication
of this book which seems to me unlikely.
343
Hyperborean Theory. Sub-title: Opyt apiosofskogo issledovaniya [An Aryosophical In-
quiry].
344
This number is taken from an annotation in Elementy, no. 8 (1996/1997): 111.
ANDREAS UMLAND 104
Name of Publication Year Issue or Official cir-
edition culation
nos.
-“- 1993 No. 3 10,000
-“- 1993 No. 4 10,000
-“- 1994 No. 5 10,000
-“- 1995 No. 6 5,000
-“- 1996 No. 7 5,000345
-“- 1997 No. 8 5,000
-“- 1998 No. 9
Konservativnaya revolyutsiya346 1995 1st edn 4,000
Tseli i zadachi nashei Revolyutsii347 1995 1st edn 5,000
Metafizika Blagoi Vesti348 1996 1st edn 3,000
Tampliery Proletariata349 1997 1st edn 3,000
350
Osnovy geopolitiki 1997 1st edn 3,000
-“- 1998 2nd edn
-“-351 1999 3rd edn 5,000
-“- 2000 4th edn
Konets sveta [The End of the World]352 1998 2nd edn 3,000
Nash put’ [Our Path]353 1999 1st edn
354
Absolyutnaya Rodina 1999 2nd edn 5,000
The Seminal Writings of Alexander Dugin355 1999 1st Vol.356
345
Shenfield though gives the number 2,000; Russian Fascism, 291.
346
Conservative Revolution.
347
The Aims and Tasks of Our Revolution.
348
The Metaphysics of the Gospel. Subtitle: Pravoslavnyi ezoterizm [Orthodox Esotericism].
349
Templar Knights of the Proletariat. Sub-title: Natsional-bol’shevizm i initsiatsiya [National-
Bolshevism and Initiation].
350
The Foundations of Geopolitics. Sub-title: Geopoliticheskoe budushchee Rossii [Russia’s
Geopolitical Future].
351
New sub-title: Myslit’ prostranstvom [Thinking in Terms of Space]. This third edition of the
book was added with a second part. See Ingram, “Alexander Dugin,” 1032.
352
Sub-title: Eskhatologiya i traditsiya [Eschatology and Tradition]; identical with Milyy An-
gel, 2nd-3rd Vols.
353
Sub-title: Strategicheskie perspektivy razvitiya Rossii v XXI veke [Strategic Perspectives
of Russia’s Development in the 21st Century].
354
Absolute Motherland. Sub-title: Puti Absolyuta. Metafizika Blagoy Vesti. Misterii Evrazii
[Absolute Motherland: The Paths of the Absolute. The Metaphysics of the Happy Epistle.
The Mysteries of Eurasia]. Parts of this book were published as books before.
355
Published in London by the European Liberation Front or/and Eurasian Movement. See
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 105
Name of Publication Year Issue or Official cir-
edition culation
nos.
-“- 1999 2nd Vol.357
-“- 1999 3rd Vol.358
Evraziiskoe vtorzhenie359 1999 Nos. 1-5 2,000
-“- 2000 No. 6
-“- (supplement to the weekly Zavtra) 1998 Nos. 1-15 100,000
-“- -“- 1999 Nos. 16-33 100,000
-“- -“- 2000 Nos. 34-49 100,000
Evraziiskoe obozrenie [Eurasian Review] 2001 Nos. 1-2360 5,000
-“- 2001 No. 3
-“- 2001 No. 4 10,000
-“- 2002 No. 5 5,000
-“- 2002 No. 6
-“- 2002 No. 7
-“- 2003 No. 8 20,000
-“- 2003 No. 9
-“- 2003 No. 10
Osnovy Evraziistva361 2001 1st edn 5,000
Russkaya Veshch’,362 2 Vols. 2001 1st edn 5,000
URL (last accessed October 2006): http://www.geocities.com/eurasia_uk/towards.html.
356
Includes the articles “National-Bolshevism or Nothingness,” “Just Bolshevism,” and “Five
Theses on the Meaning of Life.”
357
Includes the articles “Der Arbeiter,” “The Post-Liberal Era in Russia,” “Ideology of World
Government” and “When Everybody Has Gone.”
358
Includes the articles “Thesis on NBP,” “Post-NBP,” “National-Bolshevism,” “New Arc-
togaia, Strategy, Invasion and New University” and “The Metaphysics of National-
Bolshevism.”
359
Eurasian Invasion. See: URL (last accessed October 2006):
http://arcto.ru/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=907; URL (last accessed Oc-
tober 2006): http://arctogaia.com/public/vtor/index.shtml; URL (last accessed October
2006): http://arctogaia.com/public/vtor38.htm.
360
Some of the print versions of this newspaper do not have a number on them, but are
instead subtitled spetsial’nyi vypusk (special edition). However, the electronic version of
the irregular periodical are numbered consistently, and have been taken from the WWW-
site: URL (last accessed October 2006): http://eurasia.com.ru.
361
Foundations of Eurasianism.
362
A Russian Thing. Sub-title: Ocherki natsional’noy filosofii [Outlines of a National Philoso-
phy].
ANDREAS UMLAND 106
Name of Publication Year Issue or Official cir-
edition culation
nos.
Evolyutsiya nauchnykh paradigm363 2002 1st edn 2,000
Evraziiskii put’ kak natsional’naya ideya364 2002 1st edn 3,000
Filosofiya traditsionalizma365 2002 1st edn 3,000
Filosofiya politiki [The Philosophy of Politics] 2003 1st edn 5,000
Proekt “Evraziya” [Project “Eurasia”] 366 2004 1st edn 4,100
Evraziiskaya missiya N. Nazarbaeva367 2004 1st edn 1,500
Filosofiya voiny [The Philosophy of War]368 2004 1st edn 5,000
Konspirologiya [Conspirology]369 2005 2nd edn 5,000
Contributing frequently to Den’ and other ultra-nationalist organs, in July 1992, Dugin
launched what would become the periodical establishing his reputation in Russia and
abroad, the journal Elementy: Evraziiskoe obozrenie (Elements: Eurasian Review; 9
issues published in 1992-8).370 It was partly modelled on Alain de Benoist’s pan-
European network of journals of the same name, but went, in a number of ways, fur-
ther than its West European counterparts leading de Benoist to later distance himself
from Dugin. Elementy included, apart from Dugin’s and his followers’ articles, inter-
views with a number of prominent Russian ultra-nationalists politicians such as Ser-
gei Baburin (then RSFSR Supreme Soviet deputy and later a State Duma deputy for
Rodina),371 Eduard Limonov, Viktor Alksnis (former USSR Supreme Soviet deputy,
363
The Evolution of Scientific Paradigms.
364
The Eurasian Path as a National Idea.
365
Philosophy of Traditionalism.
366
Published in Moscow by Yauza, Eksmo.
367
The Eurasian Mission of Nursultan Nazarbaev. Published by ROF “Evraziya,” and down-
loadable from URL (last accessed October 2006): http://evrazia.org/FTP/1-
288_polosi.pdf.
368
Published in Moscow by Yauza, Eksmo.
369
Subtitle: nauka o zagorovakh, sekretnykh obshchestvakh i tainoi voine (the science of
conspiracies, secret societies and hidden war). Published by ROF “Evraziya.”
370
See URL (last accessed October 2006): http://elem2000.virtualave.net/. On this journal:
Nikolai-Klaus von Kreitor (who later became a member of Elementy’s editorial board),
“Elements of the New Russian Nationalism,” Telos 26, no. 2(96) (1993): 61-64; Leonid
Luks, “Der ‘Dritte Weg’ der ‘neo-eurasischen’ Zeitschrift ‘Ėlementy’—zurück ins Dritte
Reich?” Studies in East European Thought 52, no. 1-2 (2000): 49-71, reprinted in idem,
Der russische “Sonderweg”? 99-120.
371
On Baburin see, Za yedinuyu i velikuyu Rossiyu: istoriya Rossiiskogo obshchenarodnogo
soyuza v dokumentakh 1991-1994 (Moskva: Novator, 1995); Sergei N. Baburin, Rossi-
iskii put': Stanovleniie rossiiskoi geopolitiki kanuna XXI veka (Moskva: ANKO, 1995); V.
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 107
member of Elementy’s editorial board and current State Duma deputy), or the late
Metropolitan Ioann (Snychev, 1927-1995). “Elementy was especially noticeable for its
sophisticated use of illustrations with accompanying inscriptions.” 372 Every issue con-
tained, at least, one contribution by a foreign author of either the inter-/post-war peri-
ods like Julius Evola, Mircea Eliade and Carl Schmitt, or contemporary West Europe-
an New Right, e.g. de Benoist, Claudio Mutti, Jean Thiriart, Armin Mohler, or Robert
Steukers.373 The contributors of Elementy also included representatives of some oth-
er of the above listed right-radical intellectual centres such as Evgenii Morozov of the
International Institute of Geopolitics.
In the Wilderness
Already in the early 1990s, when Dugin only began to emerge as a nationalist theore-
tician, and followed still a largely groupuscular strategy, as introduced above, he
seemingly started to think about how to break out from the lunatic fringe spectrum
and to reach a status in society similar to that of the “New Right” in Western Europe.
In March 1992, Alain de Benoist, together with Belgian right-wing extremist publicist
Robert Steukers, visited Moscow, and held a round-table with Dugin, above-
mentioned ultra-nationalist Supreme Soviet and today State Duma Deputy Speaker
Sergei N. Baburin, the Head of the Chair of Strategic Studies of the General Staff
Academy General Lieutenant Nikolai Klokotov and some other personalities. Appar-
ently, as a result of this visit Dugin founded the Elementy, and initially included de
Benoist in its editorial board. Among the various new right-wing extremist intellectual
periodicals that appeared in the early-mid 1990s (some of them also co-edited by
Dugin), Elementy quickly acquired a special position, and has since become the sub-
ject of content analyses by Russian and Western authors alike. 374 Although de Be-
noist became later disappointed about Dugin and cut ties with him, it seems still the
case that those institutions affiliated with Dugin should—as will be argued in more
detail below—be regarded as part and parcel of the European “New Right”, and as
principally inspired by the “Nouvelle Droite’s” Gramscian strategy. In spite of the split
Khairiuzov, Sergei Baburin: Politicheskii portret (Moskva: Novator, 1996); Andreas Um-
land, “State Duma Deputy Sergej Baburin: Portrait of a Russian Ultra-Nationalis,”
Bremer, Dörrenbächer and Dose, eds., ICCEES VII World Congress, 441.
372
Mitrofanova, The Politicization of Russian Orthodoxy, 56.
373
Elementy are avaible on the web at URL (last accessed October 2006):
http://elem2000.virtualave.net/.
374
E.g. Tsymburskiy, “‘Novye pravye’ v Rossii;“ Luks, “Der ‘Dritte Weg’ der ‘neo-
eurasischen’ Zeitschrift ‘Ėlementy’—zurueck ins Dritte Reich?”
ANDREAS UMLAND 108
between Dugin and de Benoist, Elementy reported continuing ties to de Benoist re-
search Center GRECE as well as to other West European “New Right” think-tanks in
France, Italy, Belgium, Germany and Spain. 375
Interestingly, the ties between the Russian and Western New Right had been emerg-
ing even before Dugin went to Western Europe in 1989. According to Martin Lee,
Eduard Limonov who co-founded with Dugin the above mentioned National-
Bolshevik Front/Party in 1993-94 had “first encountered de Benoist in Paris” where
Limonov, as a Soviet émigré writer, also “hobnobbed with various iconoclasts, includ-
ing another proponent of National Bolshevism, [the above mentioned] Jean-François
Thiriart [see Appendix].” In August, 1992, Thiriart visited Moscow where he was wel-
comed by Dugin, and met, together with Dugin, the former 2 nd Secretary of the CPSU
Central Committee Egor Ligachëv and KPRF chairman Gennadii Zyuganov. On 23
November 1992, Thiriart died from a heart attack, and “was eulogized in several na-
tionalist press outlets in Russia, including Den’, which published some of his writ-
ings.”376 In 1993, Dugin met in Moscow Christian Boucher, the head of the French
section of the Order of Oriental Templars (Ordo Templi Orientis), an international oc-
cult grouping principally influenced by the writings of the British Satanist Aleister
Crowley (see Appendix).377 According to one report, Dugin was inspired more by
Crowley’s biography than his writings as Crowley once tried to attract to his Order
Stalin, Hitler, and other leaders.378 In summer 1994, Dugin visited Italy.379
In September 1993, a series of documentaries under the title O tainakh veka (On the
Secrets of the Century) authored by Dugin and Yurii Vorob’evskii was shown on the
First and Fourth Russian TV channels.380 The program took an apologetic approach
to historic fascism, explained empathetically Nazi symbols and mysticism, and admit-
ted the possibility of a non-compromised, benign, intellectual fascism. 381 As a result it
was shut down. In spite of Dugin’s co-foundation and leadership of the NBP in the
mid-1990s, he, in 1996, also became an irregular contributor to the major liberal high-
375
E.g. Elementy, no. 8 (1996/97): 102.
376
Lee, The Beast Reawakens, 319-321.
377
On Boucher, see Yury Vorobyevsky, “The Path of the Absolute: Volume III. Chapter 5.
Flying Stones: The Metaphisical Roots of World Politics,” URL (last accessed October
2006): http://www.oag.ru/library/path_to_apocalypse/apocalypse_III-5.html.
378
Kaledin, “Terapiya okazalas’ bessil’noi pered maniei Dugina-mladshego pereustroit’ mir.”
379
N. Aspesi, “Va dove ti porta il vento,” Le Republica, 26th June 1994; Norbert Bobbio, Left
and Right: The Significance of a Political Distinction (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1997), 108.
380
Pribylovskii, Vozhdi, 44-45; Shenfield, Russian Fascism, 193.
381
Verkhovskiy, Papp and Pribylovskiy, Politicheskiy ekstremizm v Rossii, 247.
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 109
brow daily Nezavisimaya gazeta (Independent Newspaper). This newspaper later
provided a regular forum for the presentation and discussion of Dugin’s ideology. 382
Stephen Shenfield further noted that
[i]n 1997 Dugin had a weekly hour-long radio program called Finis
Mundi [End of the World] on the popular music station FM 101.383 This
series, which attracted a cult following of university students, was sus-
pended after sixteen weeks. Dugin later established a second program
on a less well-known station, Free Russia.384
There he led, in 1997-1999, a program called “Geopolitical Review.”385 There have
also been reports that Dugin has been giving lectures at the Russian Academy of the
General Staff. One commentator mentions cooperation of Dugin with the Ministry of
Défense journal Orientiry (Orientations).386 Shenfield noted in 2001 a relationship
between Dugin and the head of the company Russkoe zoloto (Russian Gold), Ale-
ksandr Tarantsev.387
For some time, to be sure, it seemed as if Dugin’s multifarious dealings were reach-
ing a dead end. According to one observer, in the 1990s, Dugin was actively publish-
ing, “[b]ut, in seriously influencing public opinion, he did not succeed then. He was
read only by the enlightened underground keen on all kinds of mystic esoterics.” 388
As noted, in 1993-1998, he, together with Limonov, set up the National-Bolshevik
Front, and later the NBP.389 The two avant-garde publicists seemed to cooperate for
a while fruitfully in, above all, creating one of the most extravagant post-Soviet news-
papers, Limonka.390 Dugin and Limonov were engaged in an attempt to create a joint
382
See Dugin, Tampliery proletariata, 324; Aleksandr Dugin, “Novyi sotsializm,” Nezavisi-
maya gazeta—stsenarii, 14 February 2001; idem, “Evraziistvo: Ot filsofii k politike,”
Nezavisimaya gazeta, 30 May 2001; Nikolai Rabotyazh, “V zashchitu liberalizma:
Polemika s Aleksandrom Duginym,” Nezavisimaya gazeta, 14 April 2001.
383
These programs on various philosophers, intellectuals and writers are available on au-
dio-cassettes and CD from Arktogeya.
384
Shenfield, Russian Fascism, 193.
385
URL (last accessed October 2006): http://eurasia.com.ru/leaders/dugin.html.
386
Kaledin, “Terapiya okazalas’ bessil’noi pered maniei Dugina-mladshego pereustroit’ mir.”
387
Shenfield, Russian Fascism, 199.
388
Kaledin, “Terapiya okazalas’ bessil’noi pered maniei Dugina-mladshego pereustroit’ mir.”
389
Shenfield, Russian Fascism, 194.
390
Some of these activities are described in Eduard V. Limonov, Anatomiya Geroya (Smo-
lensk: Rusich, 1998); see also Mathyl, “‘Die offenkundige Nisse und der rassenmäßige
Feind’;” and Rogachevskii, “The National-Bolshevik Party (1993-2001).” Shenfield specu-
lates that Limonov’s acquaintance with Dugin in late 1992 may have catalyzed Limonov’s
departure from Zhirinovskii’s “shadow cabinet” where Limonov had occupied the post of
the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. See Shenfield, Russian Fascism, 194.
On the “shadow cabinet,” see Umland, “Vladimir Zhirinovskii in Russian Politics.” Another
ANDREAS UMLAND 110
radically nationalist opposition that would unite several new ultranationalist parties,
including the RNE and NBP, some prominent counter-cultural figures, as well as,
perhaps, nominally communist groups such as Viktor Anpilov’s Russian Communist
Workers Party into a more potent political force. 391 When a joint Declaration of some
of representatives of these forces with the signatures of Dugin, Limonov, Letov, Bar-
kashov, Bachtiyarov, and Morozov was published in June 1994, it seemed for a mo-
ment as if this endeavour might lead somewhere.392 However, eventually, this pro-
ject—as well as another one, the Movement for a Conservative Revolution393—did
not materialize.
Dugin’s first attempt to become a party politician proved to be a failure too. In 1995,
he, as an NBP candidate, took part in the State Duma elections in a suburban district
of St. Petersburg. In spite of the public support of the popular rock-singer Sergei
Kurëkhin (1954-1996) and his group Pop-mekhanika as well as Egor Letov’s punk
group Grazhdanskaya oborona, Dugin received merely 0.87% of the vote, and occu-
pied the 14th place among the 17 contenders of his electoral district. This was, even
in comparison to other unsuccessful ultra-nationalist candidates, an embarrassing
result.
In May 1998, it was, among other factors, the tension between Dugin’s intellectual
ambition and esoteric style of writing, on the one side, and the conflicting needs of
populist party politics of the National Bolsheviks that led him leave the NBP with a
number of his followers in order to devote himself to other activities. 394 Following the
saga of Dugin’s and Limonov‘s rapprochement and split in 1993-1998, to be exten-
sively described in a forthcoming book Andrei Rogatchevski, as well as Dugin’s earli-
er and later forerays, one feels reminded of certain inter-war European tendencies.
Then,
interesting episode in this story is the temporary estrangement, at that point, between
Dugin and Prokhanov who left the editorial board of Elementy because of Dugin’s coop-
eration with Limonov, and Limonka’s attacks on Prokhanov’s Den’ as well as its “very
critical [attitude to] parliamentarianism and general pussyfooting of the Zyuganovite
communists.” Allensworth, The Russian Question, 282. See also Pribylovskii, Vozhdi, 85-
86.
391
Allensworth, The Russian Question, 262.
392
For an English translation of this “Declaration of the Revolutionary Opposition,” see
Markus Mathyl, “Is Russia on the Road to Dictatorship? (Transl. by Janet Biehl),” Left
Green Perspectives, no. 34 (1995), URL (last accessed October 2006):
http://www.social-ecology.org/lgp/issues/lgp34.html.
393
Pribylovskii, Vozhdi, 44-45.
394
Shenfield, Russian Fascism, 194.
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 111
[s]ome of fascism was not more than posturing and the effusions of mi-
nor philosophers hoping to gain a wider audience by making extreme
statements, or of decadent writers who had turned into men of action—
such as [Maurice] Barrè or [Gabrielle] D’Annunzio.395
However, in distinction to the eventually pathetic efforts of these inter-war fascist in-
tellectuals, Dugin, after his departure from the NBP in 1998, started to make steps in
gaining an indirect, but increasingly strong influence on mainstream political and in-
tellectual trends. In fact, as Stephen Shenfield and others have noted there is evi-
dence that, already before 1998, Dugin’s ideas had a certain impact not only on the
lunatic fringe, but on selected parts of Russia’s political and academic establishment.
In the early 1990s, he seems to have affected the evolution of, among others,
Zyuganov’s russophile re-interpretation of the idea of socialism396—a central term in
Dugin’s writings too. In 2001, Shenfield noted that
[…] various periodicals of the Ministry of Défense have for a number of
years now been publishing advertisements for Dugin’s books and articles
[…] [and] [t]here is considerable circumstantial evidence suggesting that
General Igor Rodionov was particularly well-disposed toward Dugin during
his tenure as head of the Academy of the General Staff and then (briefly)
397
as defense minister in 1996-1997.
Theoretician of the Post-Soviet Russian Right
In many regards, in the late 1980s and early-mid 1990s, Dugin’s activities resembled
those of the above listed and some other intellectuals: He was building up his own
research and publication centre, and trying to propagate his ideas among ultra-
nationalist political organizations, and further potential supporters in such spheres as
youth groups, the military, secret services, and academia. He, like many other na-
tionalist publicists, attempted to smuggle his ideas into nationalist politics. In the
words of Mark Sedgwick, Dugin and Dzhemal in 1987-1989, for instance, had “hoped
to influence [Pamyat’] toward Traditionalism, rather as [Mircea] Eliade had hoped to
use the Legion of the Archangel Michael in Romania, and [Julius] Evola had hoped to
395
Laqueur, Fascism, 26.
396
Shenfield, Russian Fascism, 192.
397
Ibid., 198-199.
ANDREAS UMLAND 112
use the Fascists, the Herrenclub, and the SS.”398 While this early attempt by Dugin of
the late 1980s was largely unsuccessful, the record in the 1990s is a mixed one.
The two principal institutions that Dugin founded in 1990-1991, and that later became
his main instruments for spreading his views were the Historical-Religious Associa-
tion Arktogeya (Northern Country) which also functions as a publishing house,399 and
the Center for Special Meta-Strategic Studies, a think-tank.400 Numerous institutions
such as these sprang up in Russia in the early 1990s. Most of them have since re-
mained marginal or vanished altogether. They thus came to represent mere foot-
notes in post-Soviet Russia’s early history.
In contrast, Dugin’s various publications, especially the mentioned journal Elementy
as well as some other periodicals, were more original and widely read in nationalist
circles, than the drier, if, partly, not less numerous works of other publicists such as
Kurginyan.401 This was not the least, because of the frequent contributions by, or ref-
erences to, inter- and post-war Western authors in Dugin’s journals and books.
Dugin’s, for the taste of Western readers, bizarre obsession with eseroticism might
have also contributed to his growing popularity in some Russian sub-cultures. Al-
ready in 1996, it has been said that “[a] variety of esoteric cults have their fervent fol-
lowers on the extreme Right, in Russia perhaps more than in any other country.”402
Dugin was thus an intellectual who had been exercising more influence than other
similar publicists on the formation of the agenda of the post-Soviet Russian extreme
right, already by the mid-1990s. As one perceptive observer noted, although his ide-
ology constitutes “garbage from concepts digested by Europe […], [b]ecause Dugin’s
erudition is peculiar and fed by material from not very well-known among Russian
readers works by Hitlerite occultist institutes, his texts make a dumbfounding impres-
sion on readers unprepared to digest such spiritual food.” 403 Allensworth was among
the first Anglophone observers to remark, in 1998, that Dugin’s “importance to the
‘patriotic’ movement has not yet been properly acknowledged.”
398
Dugin later described Pamyat’s members as “hysterics, KGB collaborators, and schizo-
phrenics.” Sedgwick, Against the Modern World, 224.
399
See URL (last accessed October 2006): http://www.arctogaia.com/ and URL (last ac-
cessed October 2006): http://www.acto.ru.
400
It has been later re-named into Center for Geopolitical Expertise. See URL (last ac-
cessed October 2006): http://cge.evrazia.org/.
401
Yanov, Weimar Russia, 275.
402
Laqueur, Fascism, 122.
403
Boris Rezhabek, “Merzlaya zemlya evraziitsa Dugina,” Lebed’: nezavisimyi al’manakh,
no. 248 (2001), URL (last accessed October 2006):
http://www.lebed.com/2001/art2744.htm.
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 113
Prokhanov has […] subtly spread the ideas of Aleksandr Dugin among
his brethren via Den’/Zavtra. Eurasianist or not, the term mondialism [a
term popularized by Dugin in Russia] is heard from the lips of even the
most vociferous critics of Dugin’s ideology. It is Dugin, who broadened
the horizons of the [anti-Western] coalition: Mondialism, not simply the
West or El’tsin or Zionism, is the enemy. Gennadii Zyuganov has wield-
ed the language of Dugin’s cultural system quite effectively, eschewing
the classic Jewish-Masonic formula for streamlined, modernized version
of the grand conspiracy that transcends the conspiratology of the Old
Right.404
According to Aleksandr Verkhovskii, “[t]hanks to Dugin’s talents the ‘conservative
revolution’ has gained such a wide popularity that elements of this ideology can be
detected in [the ideas of] almost all Russian nationalists […].” 405 For instance, it was
Dugin who “with his national-bolshevism and ‘left-wing fascism,’ […] supplied [the
prominent writer Eduard] Limonov with the conceptual formulas that enabled him to
achieve the desired synthesis [of his various ideas].”406 A 2005 Zavtra reviewer of a
book by former Dugin-disciple Vadim Shtepa did not even think it to be necessary to
explain to his readers what such concepts as “traditional society,” “Guénonian cri-
tique” or “inversion” connote—meaning that Dugin had, by then, succeeded to make
404
Allensworth, The Russian Question, 245, 261. However, Allensworth contradicts himself
when also assuming that Zhirinovskii’s idea of a “drive to the south,” i.e. the plan of Rus-
sia’s occupation of Turkey, Iran and Afghanistan, “may have been inspired by Dugin’s
geopolitics […].” Ibid. As Allensworth—in my view, quite correctly—writes himself, at an-
other point in his, in general, extremely well-researched book: “By the time [Zhirinovskii]
emerged on the political scene in the late Gorbachev period, the drive to the south was
already formulated as the core of Zhirinovskii’s ideology.” Ibid., 193. Not only is it unlikely
that the later LDPR leader had become aware of Dugin’s views already before 1993
when Dugin, like Zhirinovskii, had still been a political nobody even within the nationalist
fringe. Zhirinovskii’s extreme anti-Muslim propaganda and frequent use of the derogative
term yuzhane (Southerners) in his major pamphlet Poslednii brosok na yug (The Last
Dash to the South) document a form of ultranationalism that is fundamentally different
from Dugin’s. I thus suspect that, even in the period 1991-1993, i.e. when Zhirinovskii
formulated his plan gradually in his party’s newspaper Liberal, Dugin exerted little if any
influence on Zhirinovskii. The LDPR leader is a Turkologist by training, did his military
service in the Caucasus, and lived in Turkey during Soviet times. He thus needed little
advice on the beauties of the Eastern tradition from Dugin or somebody else. Extensive
treatments of Zhirinovskii’s ideology may be found in Koman, “The Last Surge to the
South,” and Umland, “Vladimir Zhirnovskii in Russian Politics.”
405
Verkhovskii, Politicheskoe pravoslavie, 10.
406
Shenfield, Russian Fascism, 204.
ANDREAS UMLAND 114
Western Traditionalist terminology self-explanatory within, and become part and par-
cel of, the Russian extreme right-wing discourse.407
Moreover, Dugin’s approach was, as Markus Mathyl has pointed out, also exception-
al in that his circle quickly managed to establish ties with the counter-cultural youth
scene, among them popular nationalist rock- and punk-musicians such as Egor Letov
(b. 1964), Sergei “Pauk” Troitskii (b. 1966), Roman Neumoev, or the late Sergei
Kurëkhin (1954-1996).408 In addition, the Dugin circle became known for its sophisti-
cated, inter-connected set of World Wide Web sites that offer most of the circle’s pub-
lications, above all Dugin’s books, in electronic form. 409 Dugin has explicitly praised
the WWW’s qualities as being conducive to the activities of anti-systemic, marginal-
ized groups.410 Since the late 1990s, the presence of Dugin’s organizations and writ-
ings on the WWW has thus evolved into a major tool of linking with each other his
supporters across Russia and abroad, and of spreading his views. Early on, Dugin
started to build up extensive web-archives of most of his texts and of the writings of
his intellectual fathers and followers on his WWW-sites. Some of these sites are
briefly described in Table 3 below. His Yahoo-Group-Mailinglist “Neo-Eurasia” was
founded in January 2001, had accumulated 350 members by January 2007, and em-
braces today a vibrant community of Russian and non-Russian supporters of “neo-
Eurasianism.”411
One of the most original electronic initiatives linked to the Dugin circle was, in 1999-
2002, the WWW-journal :LENIN: Antikulturologicheskii ezhenedel’nik [Lenin: An Anti-
407
Vadim Shtepa, RUtopiya (Ekaterinburg: Ul’tra. Kul’tura, 2004); Andrei Smirnov,
“Apostrof,” Zavtra, no. 40(620) (2005): 8.
408
Markus Mathyl, “Die Konstruktion eines Feindes: Antisemitismus und Antiamerikanismus
in Aleksandr Dugins Neo-Nationalbolschewismus,” Paper presented at the Annual Con-
vention of the German Society for East European Studies “Vorurteile als politische Barri-
eren,” Göttingen, 7-8 March 2002; idem, “Das Entstehen einer nationalistischen Gegen-
kultur im Postperestrojka-Rußland.” See also Anne Hahn, “Voll tolerant oder was dürfen
uns sibirische Dorfdeppen singen? Über eine Auseinandersetzung um den Sänger Jegor
Letow,“ URL (last accessed October 2006): http://www.satt.org/gesellschaft/
02_10_letow_1.html. These and similar actions by the Dugin circle remind one of the
strategy of “entryism” followed by certain extremist groups in, for instance, England and
Germany in the 1980s that tried to infiltrate youth-cultures such as soccer-fans and dis-
coteques. Laqueur, Fascism, 127.
409
E.g. URL (last accessed October 2006): http://arcto.ru; URL (last accessed October
2006): http://www.dugin.ru; URL (last accessed October 2006): http://www.geopolitika.
ru/; URL (last accessed October 2006): http://www.resist.gothic.ru/; URL (last accessed
October 2006): http://www.arctogaia.com/.
410
See Schmidt, “’Kein betrüblicher Systemfehler’?”
411
URL (last accessed January 2007): http://groups.yahoo.com/group/neo-eurasia/. One
may add though that some members of this group, like myself, can, probably, not be
counted as full supporters of “neo-Eurasianism.”
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 115
Culturological Weekly] which regularly published contributions by Dugin under the
rubric Atsefal, and was created and edited by the prolific, anti-systemic Russian
WWW-publicist Mikhail Verbitskii (b. 1969). Dugin and Verbitskii have both received
awards for their various writings on the WWW.412 Verbitskii started his various inter-
net activities, above all his project End of the World News (EOWN), in the mid-1990s
from the server of Harvard University where he was completing a Ph.D. in Mathemat-
ics in 1990-1997. Apart from his numerous presentations at various European math-
ematics seminars and conferences, Verbitskii gave, invited by the University of Ox-
ford Russian Student Society, in 2004 a paper on the history of the Russian “nation-
alist opposition” at Balliol College Oxford, at which I was present. At this presenta-
tion, Verbitskii mentioned neither his own role in the rise of the Dugin circle in 1990s,
nor his apparent sympathy for the ideas of the British Satanist Aleister Crowley—an
inclination documented by Henrike Schmidt.413 He also did not speak about his more
recent participation in activities of the Dugin circle. 414 That may have been because,
at the time of his presentation at Oxford, Verbitskii was officially affiliated with the
Mathematics Department of the University of Glasgow.
412
Verbitskii’s project is shortly introduced and well-interpreted in a comparative perspective
by Schmidt, “’Kein betrüblicher Systemfehler’?” 223-228. A short biography of Verbitskii
by Evgenii Gornyi and Aleksandr Sherman may be found at URL (last accessed October
2006): http://www.guelman.ru/obzory/verbitsky.htm.
413
Schmidt, “’Kein betrüblicher Systemfehler’?” 223-228.
414
E.g. Mikhail Verbitskii, “Saudovskii sled,” in: Nataliya Melent’eva, ed., Geopolitika terrora:
geopoliticheskie posledstviya terroristicheskikh aktov v SShA 11 sentyabrya 2001 goda
(Moskva: Arktogeya, 2002), 135-142.
ANDREAS UMLAND 116
Table 3: Some WWW-sites within Dugin’s webring.
Name WWW- Purpose, reach, structure, etc.
Sites
Tradition— http://a.w A site uniting several WWW sites related to Dugin’s ideas.
Revolution ebring.co
m/hub?ri
ng=traditi
o
Historical- http://ww The society is described as an “association of intellectuals
Religious Soci- w.arctog who study religious traditions, cultures and history of world
ety Arktogeya aia.com/, nations.” In effect, it seems to function mainly as a publish-
http://arct ing house principally engaged in circulating Dugin’s manu-
o.ru/, scripts—often multiple copies under various headings. By
http://ww 2001, Arktogeya had ten branches in nine Russian cities. 415
w.my.arct Interestingly, Dugin presents himself, on these sites, in dif-
o.ru/, ferent ways. For instance, his outspoken article “Fascism—
borderless and red” is absent in the WWW book Tampliery
Proletariata at http://arcto.ru/, but present in the same
book’s WWW version at http://www.arctogaia.com.
1999-2002: http://resi Apparently, a virtual organization the site of which is also
Novoe sopro- st.gothic. available in English, and contains some texts, pictures, and
tevlenie (New ru/ links to the other sites listed here. A purpose of the site
Resistance). seems to be the introduction of Dugin’s network to English
readers, and subscription for a mailing list is possible. Now
it is called: Sait u poslednego fonarya (Site at the Last
Lampoon)
Novyi universi- http://uni Lectures, and seminars in theology, history, political sci-
tet (New Uni- versi- ence, sociology, psychology, religious studies, philology,
versity). This tet.virtual and ethnology as well as on metaphysics, traditionalism,
project may not ave.net/ geopolitics, conspirology, etc. given at the Mayakovskiy
have material- Museum. Staff lecturers: A. Dugin, E. Golovin, Yu. Mam-
ized. leev, A. Ezerov, M. Verbitskiy, A. Nevskiy and others. Last
lectures announced for December 1999. “About fifty stu-
dents currently [November 2000] consider themselves his
followers.”416
415
Ingram, “Alexander Dugin,” 1032.
416
Shenfield, Russian Fascism, 199.
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 117
Name WWW- Purpose, reach, structure, etc.
Sites
Konservativna- http://ww A site with links to major anti-Western texts, and groups in
ya revolyutsiya w.geociti Europe and Australia that call themselves “conservative
es.com/C revolutionary.”
(Conservative
api-
Revolution)
tolHill/68
24/
Evraziya: In- http://evr Dugin’s current major site where he publishes his articles,
formatsionny- azia.org/ TV shows, books, and other statements, and where his
analiticheskii current organization, the International “Eurasian Move-
portal (Eurasia: ment,” is briefly presented.
Informational-
Analytical Por-
tal)
Archivio Eura- http://ute A site devoted to texts of Dugin in Western languages, and
sia nti.lycos.i his links to West European marginal intellectuals.
t/Eurasia
nWeb-
Site/
Disser- http://scie The texts of, and protocols of the academic council meet-
tatsionnye is- nce.dugi ings concerning, Dugin’s dissertations for the Candidate of
sledovaniya… n.ru/ Science in Philosophy and Doctor of Science in Politology
(Disseration degrees (see below).
research…)
Web-Design http://ele The task of this enterprise was the creation of new sites for
Firm Kontinent. m2000.vi institutions and organizations with a “Eurasian geopolitical
rtu- direction.” This project may not have materialized as the
alave.net site is not any longer operational.
/design.h
tm (now
dead
link)
:Lenin: an of- http://imp A site of comments and texts on contemporary affairs and
fering to Gods erium.len philosophical questions run by Dugin’s associate Mikhail
unkown. End of in.ru/ Verbitskii.
the Word
News.
ANDREAS UMLAND 118
In the mid-1990s, Dugin seems to have followed a dual strategy of, on the one side,
affiliating himself to, and trying to impregnate with his ideas, the most radical anti-
systemic segments in Russia’s emerging uncivil society, and, on the other side, en-
tering Moscow’s political establishment, and gaining a wider readership beyond the
narrowly neo-fascist support. Thus, for instance, Dugin, somewhat paradoxically,
was, in 1993-1998, as mentioned, co-founder, leader as well as major ideologist of
Eduard Limonov’s expressly revolutionary, anti-systemic National-Bolshevik Party417
while, at the same time, appearing on national radio and TV, 418 publishing in liberal
newspapers,419 and reading lectures on philosophy, world history, and international
relations at various occasions and institutions such as the Academy of the General
Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.
From the Margins to the Mainstream
The contradiction in Dugin’s simultaneously groupuscular and Gramscian strategy
was resolved in 1998 when Dugin and a group of his supporters left the NBP, and,
instead, established themselves, at first, as an informal advisory group to, and, later,
as an official analytical division at no lesser an institution than the office of, the
Speaker of the lower house of the Russian parliament, Gennadii I. Seleznëv.420 The
official title of the institute attached to Seleznëv’s bureau, and headed by Dugin was:
Section for Geopolitical Expertise of the Expert-Consultative Council on Problems of
National Security at the Office of the Head of the State Duma of the Federal Assem-
bly of the Russian Federation. Dugin’s affiliation was announced by Seleznëv in
1999.421 It was, apparently, first in a radio interview in March 1999 when Seleznëv
revealed that Dugin is his adviser and suggested that Dugin’s doctrine be made part
of the school curriculum.422
Two years before, in 1997, Dugin had published the first edition of his, perhaps, most
influential work Osnovy Geopolitiki (The Foundations of Geopolitics) that quickly sold
417
Aleksandr Verkhovskii, “Sobach’ya starost’,” Novoe vremya, no. 6(2636) (1996): 10-12;
Mathyl, “‘Die offenkundige Nisse und der rassenmäßige Feind’.”
418
Shenfield, Russian Fascism, 193.
419
See Dugin, Tampliery proletariata, 324.
420
It is noteworthy that Dugin was then still a member of the NBP the slogans of which, at
that time, included “Seleznev—na parashu!” (Seleznev, you belong to the latrine!). As
quoted in Rogachevskii, “The National-Bolshevik Party (1993-2001),” 3. This slogan was
pronounced at an NBP demonstration on 7 November 1997.
421
Sedgwick, Against the Modern World, 332.
422
Shenfield, Russian Fascism, 193.
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 119
out, acquired the status of a seminal study, and became a text-book at various Rus-
sian higher education institutions, especially those of the military. 423 It is a book that
earned him wide attention in not only the nationalist section of Russia’s elite. Jacob
Kipp reported concerning the publication of the first edition of Osnovy Geopolitiki in
1997:
When I was in Moscow in June, the Dugin book was a topic of hot dis-
cussion among military and civilian analysts at a wide range of institutes,
including the Academy of State Management, and in the [presidential
administration] offices at Staraya ploshchad’ [Old Square].424
Alan Ingram observed that “[e]ditions one and two [of Osnovy Geopolitiki] sold out,
and the first printing of the third edition (5,000) copies was becoming difficult to ob-
tain in September 1999.”425 Dugin himself claimed that the Georgian translation of
this book sold 5,000 copies in little Georgia. 426 In 1999, a chapter from the book was
reprinted in a major scholarly anthology on Russian foreign policy and security.427 By
2000, Osnovy Geopolitiki had gone through its fourth edition, 428 and become a major
political pamphlet with a wide readership in academic and political circles.429
Probably, in connection with these trends, Dugin’s presence in mainstream Russian
media and conferences started to increase markedly from 1998 onwards. To be
sure, there was, as Stephen Shenfied noted, in 2001 yet
no evidence that Dugin’s ideas have had any palpable influence on
the general public. Indeed, his language is too esoteric even to be un-
derstood by most ordinary people, nor is his work easy to popularize.
However, it is Russia’s present and future intellectual elite that Dugin
423
Aleksandr Dugin, Osnovy geopolitiki: Geopoliticheskoe budushchee Rossii (Moskva:
Arktogeya, 1997). Sedgwick mentions that, at this point, “Dugin had already published
‘Geopolitics as Destiny’ in the April 25, 1997, issue of Krasnaya zvezda [Red Star], the
army newspaper […].” Sedgwick, Against the Modern World, 229.
424
As quoted in Shenfield Russian Fascism, 199.
425
Ingram, “Alexander Dugin,” 1032.
426
See URL (last accessed October 2006): http://arctogaia.com/public/litgaz1.html.
427
A.G. Dugin, “Rossiya nemyslima bez imperii,” in: T.A. Shaklein, ed., Vneshnyaya politika
i bezopasnost’ sovremennoi Rossii. Khrestomatiya v dvukh tomakh. Tom 1. Kniga 1: Is-
sledovaniya (Moskva: Moskovskii obshchestvennyi nauchnyi fond, OOO “Izdatel’skii
tsentr nauchnykh i uchebnykh program, 1999), 96-116.
428
Aleksandr Dugin, Osnovy geopolitiki: Myslit’ prostranstvom, 4th edn (Moskva: Arktogeya,
2000); See, on this book, John B. Dunlop, “Alexander Dugin’s Foundations of Geopoli-
tics,” unpublished manuscript, Stanford: Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and
Peace, 2001.
429
See Shenfield, Russian Fascism, 199; and Ingram, “Alexander Dugin,” 1032.
ANDREAS UMLAND 120
has always regarded as his priority target audience. His collaboration
with Limonov in the NBP [in 1993-98] represents in this respect a de-
tour from the main path. And the influence that Dugin has achieved
over at least some parts of the elite is by no means insignificant. 430
Dugin’s most important project bringing him even broader attention in the press was
the foundation of the Socio-Political Movement “Eurasia” in spring 2001. 431 His earlier
affiliations with the General Staff Academy or office of the Speaker of the State Duma
could have been seen as, by itself, constituting merely temporary, if not accidental,
phenomena. With the foundation of “Eurasia,” 432 the Dugin phenomenon, however,
has made a qualitative leap from the footnotes to the major plot of post-Soviet Rus-
sian history.
Already at its foundation in 2001, the new “Eurasia” movement was marked by a
number of important peculiarities. For instance, its creation was evidently supported
by the Presidential Administration; it was, seemingly, a project advanced by the
Kremlin’s notorious “political technologist” Gleb Pavlovskii.433 According to one
source, the organization was financed by the General Staff. 434 Whether this was in-
deed the case or not, “Eurasia” claimed over fifty regional organizations and about
2,000 activists at its first congress in April 2001. 435 Among the members of “Eura-
sia’s” first Central and Political Councils were Talgat Tadzhuddin, the Chief Mufti of
the Russian Muslim Spiritual Directorate,436 as well as high representatives of Chris-
430
Shenfield, Russian Fascism, 198.
431
See URL (last accessed October 2006): http://eurasia.com.ru/.
432
Marina Latysheva, “Putin i bezdna,” Versiya, no. 19 (29 May – 4 June 2001) (URL (last
accessed October 2006): http://www.agentura.ru/text/press/2001/bezdna.txt).
433
I am grateful to Robert C. Otto for highlighting this link to me. See, for instance, Andrey
Kolesnikov, “Posle podvodnoi lodki: Na katastrofakh otrabatyvaetsya informatsionnaya
politika,” Izvestiya, no. 161 (29 August 2000): 3. Another source, however, claims that
“[t]he talk that ‘Eurasia’ is one more project of the well-known political technologist G.
Pavlovskii realized with money from the Russian special services is merely a PR [cam-
paign] for Pavlovskii himself.” See Kaledin, “Terapiya okazalas’ bessil’noi pered maniei
Dugina-mladshego pereustroit’ mir.”
434
Kaledin, “Terapiya okazalas’ bessil’noi pered maniei Dugina-mladshego pereustroit’ mir.”
The same source says that “the chekists [i.e. the former KGB—A.U.] do not directly fi-
nance Dugin.” Ibid.
435
Andrey Levkin, “Chto takoe ‘Evraziya’, kazhdyi (poka?) ponimaet po svoemu,” at: URL
(last accessed October 2006): http://www.smi.ru/2001/04/24/988131062.html.
436
On Tadzhuddin, see Vyacheslav Likhachev, “Rossiiskie musul’mane I antisemitizm,”
Evrei Evrazii, no. 1(2) (2003): 4-12. Verkhovskii reports from the congress: “An even
greater role in the creation of Eurasia was played by the Spiritual Department of Talgat
Tadzhuddin. He personally sat in the presidium of the conference and one could see
many mullahs in the audience. […] (Buddhists and Hebrews [sic, i.e. Jews] were repre-
sented only sparsely and insignificant figures at the founding congress.” Alexander
Verkhovsky, “Religious Xenophobia: Within Religious Orders and Between Religious Or-
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 121
tian-Orthodox, Jewish, and Buddhist religious organizations.437 Verkhovskii notes
that, in particular, the Catechism Department of the Moscow Orthodox Patriarchy was
involved in this project.438 It is also noteworthy that the movement’s leading organs
included the former SVR (Foreign Intelligence Service) officer Petr Suslov439 and
General-Lieutenat (ret.) Nikolai Klokotov who had held the Chair of Strategy of the
Russian Military Academy of the General Staff from 1988 to 1996 and contributed to
Dugin’s seminal work Osnovy geopolitiki.440 A further remarkable figure in Dugin’s
entourage was, for a while, Khozh-Akhmed Nukhaev (b. 1954)441 who had once been
a Chechen separatist dissident, held high posts in the Chechen Republic government
in the 1990s, published books as well as brochures on political issues, 442 and spoke
in favour of a union between Eurasianist Orthodox Russian and Islamic Ichkeriya
(Chechnya).443 However, Nukhaev became also known as a suspect in the case of
the murder of the former editor of the Russian edition of the weekly journal Forbes,
Khlebnikov who had written an unfavourable book about Nukhaev.444
While this list of supporters of Dugin looks impressive, it needs to be said that some
of these figures may have been told by the Kremlin’s “political technologists” to enter
Dugin’s organization to manipulate Russia’s political landscape, and, perhaps, others
ders,” in: Lokshina, Nationalism, Xenophobia and Intolerance in Contemporary Russia,
232-258, here 236.
437
Maksim Shevchenko, “Podderzhivaet li Patriarkhiya radikal’nykh sionistov?” Nezavisima-
ya gazeta: Religii, no. 8 (25 April 2001): 1; Dmitrii Radyshevskii, “Soiuz ravvinov s ka-
zakami,” Moskovskie novosti, no. 15 (10 April 2001): 13; Grigory Nekhoroshev, “‘Evrazi-
itsy’ reshili operet’sya na Vladimira Putina,” Nezavisimaya gazeta, no. 73 (24 April 2001):
2; and Victor Yasmannn, “The Rise of the Eurasians,” The Eurasian Politician, no. 4 (Au-
gust 2001): 1 (URL (last accessed October 2006):
http://www.cc.iyu.fi/~aphamala/pe/issue4/Yasmannn.htm). I am grateful to Robert C. Otto
for sending me the first three articles, and Michael Hagemeister for providing me with a
copy of the latter source.
438
Alexander Verkhovsky, “The Extremist Wing of Russian Nationalism. Spring 2001,” in:
Yuri Dzhibladze, Alexander Osipov and Catherine Fitzpatrick, eds., Working Against
Racism in Russia: Perspective of Russian NGOs (Moskva: Center for the Development
of Democracy and Human Rights, 2001), 93-98, here 97.
439
Kaledin, “Terapiya okazalas’ bessil’noi pered maniei Dugina-mladshego pereustroit’ mir.”
440
Clover, “Will the Russian bear roar again?”
441
URL (last accessed October 2006): http://www.noukhaev.com/portal/.
442
Khozh-Akhmed Nukhaev, Vedeno ili Vashington? (Moskva: Arktogeya-tsentr, 2001);
idem, Vozvrashchenie varvarov (Moskva: Astreya-2000, 2002); idem, Rossiya i Cheche-
niya: mir po formule Pobeda-Pobeda (Baku: Mekhk-Kkhel, 2002).
443
Mitrofanova, Politizatsiya “pravoslavnogo mira,” 141.
444
The motive behind the Chechen’s attraction to Eurasianism is illustrated in the following
quote from the former President of the Chechen Republic Akhmet Kadyrov (assassinated
in 2004): “The Russian national idea is best stated in terms of Eurasian ideology, and
through Eurasianism it becomes acceptable for the Chechen Republic.” Nezavisimaya
gazeta, 8th June 2001; as quoted in Mitrofanova, The Politicization of Russian Orthodoxy,
52.
ANDREAS UMLAND 122
saw “Eurasia” as an instrument to further their social careers—rather than as an or-
ganization fully expressing their world views and political aspirations. What appears,
in view of such caveats, as a more noteworthy feature of “Eurasia’s” founding con-
gress on 21 April 2001 was the presence of a prominent Russian political theorist,
the late Aleksandr Panarin (1940-2003), and a well-known TV journalist of Russia’s
first and most far-reaching Channel ORT, Mikhail Leont’ev (b. 1958), at this occa-
sion.445 Whereas the formerly listed figures may have had, partly, careerist motives
for taking part in Dugin’s new initiative, such a motivation seems less likely with re-
gard to the latter two Russian notables who, arguably, had more to loose than to win
from an association with as dubious a figure as Dugin.
Leont’ev, by one source called “the president’s [i.e. Putin’s] favourite journalist,”446 is
the infamous founder, editor-in-chief, and major anchorman of the rabidly anti-
American daily political prime-time TV show Odnako (However). He was not only
present at “Eurasia’s” founding congress,447 but also became a member of the
movement’s Central Council. 448 Later, however, Leont’ev seems to have left “Eura-
sia,” and founded instead his own Serafim Club which, in the meantime, seems to
have also become defunct.449 In any way, the fanaticism of Leont’ev’s anti-
Americanism has remained, and kept the substance and tone of his TV programs
close to the direction and style of Dugin’s writings.
Professor Panarin was, in his own words, a representative of “late Eurasianism,”450
and, in the words of a detached observer, “a leading theoretician of modern Eura-
sianism.”451 His, perhaps, most important overtly ideological book The Orthodox Civi-
lization in the Global World452 is a manifesto of anti-Westernism and Russian messi-
anism453 that proclaims Russian Orthodoxy as a “universal project” and “world-wide
445
URL (last accessed October 2006): http://eurasia.com.ru/syezd.htm.
446
Obshchaya gazeta quoted in Mavra Kosichkina, “Putin’s New Style: Moderation and Pre-
cision, Against the Backdrop of a ‘Soviet Mentality’ Renaissance,” Politruk, no. 56 (6
June 2001): 2 (URL (last accessed October 2006):
http://www.wps.ru:8101/chitalka/politruk/en/20010606.shtml).
447
A photograph of Dugin and Leont’ev together may be found in Valerii Stroev, “Analitiki o
evrazijstve,” Evrazijskoe obozrenie, no. 5 (11 February 2002): 2.
448
URL (last accessed October 2006): http://eurasia.com.ru/syezd.htm.
449
Verkhovskii, “Serafimovskii klub.”
450
As quoted in Mitrofanova, Politizatsiya “pravoslavnogo mira”, 139.
451
Hofman, “No Love from Russia,” 33.
452
Aleksandr S. Panarin, Pravoslavnaya tsivilizatsiya v global’nom mire (Moskva: Algoritm,
2002). See on this book Mitrofanova, The Politicization of Russian Orthodoxy, 152.
453
See the review of Sally Boss at: URL (last accessed October 2006):
http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~sarmatia/405/254bossp.html.
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 123
historical alternative.”454 While ideas like these indicate well the reasons for Panarin’s
support for Dugin, the Professor cannot be dismissed as a representative of a mar-
ginal tendency in Russian academia. Panarin held the Chair of Political Science at
the Department of Philosophy of Moscow State University, 455 and thus one of the
most important posts in the Russian social science community until his early death in
2003. He was also Director of the Center for Social and Philosophical Studies at the
Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences, a productive publicist
and author or co-author of, among others, various monographs sold and recom-
mended by the Russian Ministry of Education as philosophy and political science
textbooks.456 In Soviet times, Panarin belonged to a social-democratic student dissi-
dent group, and was, for this reason, expelled from the Komsomol as well as Mos-
cow State University.457 In 1989, Panarin, oddly, published a book critical of French
neo-conservatism458—an ideological trend that, in the very same year, was about to
become a major source of inspiration for Dugin who was visiting Western Europe in
1989. At this time, Panarin was still an ardent proponent of democracy, liberalism,
universalism, and, even, the Reformation (a position unusual for an Orthodox Chris-
454
As quoted in Mitrofanova, Politizatsiya “pravoslavnogo mira,” 140.
455
On Panarin’s ideas, Vesa Oittinen, “Eurasismus—eine Integrationsideologie für Ruß-
land?” Blätter für deutsche und internationale Politik, no. 11 (1994): 1379-1386, here
1385-1386; Marlen Laryuel [Marlène Laruelle], „Pereosmyslenie imperii v postsovetskom
prostranstve: novaya evraziiskaya ideologiya,“ Vestnik Evrazii—Acta Eurasica, no. 1(8)
(2000): 5-18; Walerij Afanasjew, „Nichtmarxistische russische Geschichtsphilosophie des
19. und 20. Jahrhunderts am Beispiel der slawophilen und eurasischen Philosophie,“
unpublished doctoral dissertation (Berlin: Freie Universität, 2001); Marlène Laruelle, „Le
néo-eurasisme Russe: l’empire après l’empire?“ Cahiers du Monde russe 42, no. 1
(2001): 71-94; Gordon Hahn, „The Rebirth of Eurasianism,“ CDI Russia Weekly, no. 215
(12-18 July 2002), at: URL (last accessed October 2006): http://www.cdi.org/russia/215-
14-pr.cfm.
456
E.g. V.V. Il’in, A.S. Panarin and D.V. Badovskii, Politicheskaya antropologiya (Moskva:
Izdatel’stvo MGU, 1995); V.V. Il’in, A.S. Panarin and A.S. Akhiezer, Reformy i kontr-
reformy v Rossii (Moskva: Izdatel’stvo MGU, 1996); A.S. Panarin, I.A. Vasilenko, E.A.
Kartsev, L.I. Novikova, I.N. Sizemskaya, G.K. Ovchinnikov, Filosofiya istorii (Moskva:
Gardariki, 1999); Aleksandr S. Panarin, Rossiiskaya intelligentsiya v mirovykh voinakh i
revolyutsiyakh XX veka (Moskva: Editorial URSS, 1998); idem, Rossiya v tsiklakh miro-
voi istorii (Moskva: Izdatel’stvo MGU, 1996); idem, Global’noe politicheskoe prognoziro-
vanie v usloviyakh strategicheskoi nestabil’nosti (Moskva: Editorial URSS, 1999): idem,
Global’noe politicheskoe prognozirovanie (Moskva: Algoritm, 2000); idem, Politologiya: O
mire politiki na Vostoke i na Zapade (Moskva: Universitet, 2001); idem, Politologiya
(Moskva: Gardariki, 2001); idem, Politologiya: Uchebnik (Moskva: TK Velbi, 2003) idem,
Stategicheskaya nestabil’nost’ v XXI veke (Moskva: Algoritm, 2003); idem and I.A. Va-
silenko, Politologiya: Obshchii kurs (Moskva: Logos, 2003).
457
Andrei P. Tsygankov, “Aleksandr Panarin kak zerkalo rossiiskoi revoyutsii,” unpublished
paper (San Francisco 2005), 4. I am grateful to Professor Tsygankov for sending me,
and letting me quote from, his important important intellectual biography of Panarin.
458
Aleksandr S. Panarin, Stil’ “retro” v ideologii i politike (kriticheskie ocherki frantsuzskogo
neokonservatizma) (Moskva: Mysl’, 1989).
ANDREAS UMLAND 124
tian).459 When in the mid-1990s, Panarin was turning towards Eurasianism, he was
initially at pains to emphasize the difference between his “civilized” Eurasianism and
its radical version promoted in such organs as Den’, Elementy and Nash sovremen-
nik.460 Though Panarin was, in the mid-1990s, regarded as a representative of a ver-
sion of Eurasianism more moderate than Dugin’s, he actually “rarely mentioned the
founding-fathers of Eurasianism and, later, even attacked the ‘geographical determin-
ism’ that was conferred to them.” 461 The “Eurasianist” Panarin seems thus to have
had a strained relationship to the classics of Russian Eurasianism, reminding of the
selectivity with which Gumilëv and Dugin have used them (a tendency to be analyzed
below). Nevertheless, Panarin still “remained closer to the ideas of such founding-
fathers of Eurasianism as Petr Savitskii or Prince Nikolai Trubetskoi than the follow-
ers of the biologistic theories of Gumilëv or the supporters of extremely right-wing
geopolitics pronounced by Dugin (in spite of the rapprochement of Dugin and Panarin
during the last years of the latter).”462
In 1999, a Russian social scientist called Panarin, in the reputed journal Europe-Asia
Studies, “one of the most profound and original modern Russian scholars in the phi-
losophy of politics.”463 Mitrofanova writes that “Panarin has always been one of the
most respected political theorists in Russia.” 464 In 2002, Panarin won the prestigious
Solzhenitsyn Prize for two of his recent books, History’s Revenge: The Russian Stra-
tegic Initiative in the 21st Century (a reply to Francis Fukuyama’s The End of History),
and The Seduction by Globalism465 (on Russia’s distinctiveness from Western civili-
zation).466 By this time, Panarin had become an increasingly shrill voice of radical
anti-Westernism, propagator of conspiracy theories, apologist of Stalinism, convert to
anti-Semitism (warning against “Jewishization” of the world), and regular contributor
to the well-known nationalist “thick journal” Moskva (Moscow). His ideas on an im-
peding conflict between the land- and sea-powers were becoming similar to
Dugin’s.467 However, “Panarin’s reputation among the academics was by that time so
459
Tsygankov, “Aleksandr Panarin kak zerkalo rossiiskoi revoyutsii,” 5-6.
460
Ibid., 9-11.
461
Marlen Laryuel’ [Marlène Laruelle], “Aleksandr Panarin i ‘tsivilizatsionnyi natsionalizm’ v
Rossii,” in: Verkhovskii, ed., Russkii natsionalizm, 165-182, here 168.
462
Laryuel’, “Aleksandr Panarin i ‘tsivilizatsionnyi natsionalizm’ v Rossii,”, 181-182.
463
V.A. Bazhanov, “A Note on A.S. Panarin’s Revansh istorii,” Europe-Asia Studies 51, no.
4 (1999): 705-708, here 705.
464
Mitrofanova, The Politicization of Russian Orthodoxy, 151.
465
Aleksandr S. Panarin, Revansh istorii: rossiiskaya strategicheskaya initsiativa v XXI veke
(Moskva: Logos, 1998); idem, Iskushenie globalizmom (Moskva: Eksmo-Press, 2002).
466
URL (last accessed October 2006): http://www.rol.ru/news/art/news/02/04/18_001.htm.
467
Tsygankov, “Aleksandr Panarin kak zerkalo rossiiskoi revoyutsii,” 15-22. One should add
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 125
firm that even the publication of evidently ‘ideological’ books was not able to shatter
it.”468
At first, Panarin did, in contradiction to some press reports and scholarly analyses, 469
not become a member of Dugin’s movement, but merely attended its founding con-
gress in April 2001. What, nevertheless, indicates a certain closeness between Dugin
and Panarin already in 2001 was that the scholar contributed articles to “Eurasia’s”
first publications.470 Panarin also quoted Dugin’s above mentioned tome Osnovy ge-
opolitiki affirmatively in some of his political science text books.471 In 2002, Panarin
finally became a member of the Central Council of Dugin’s newly founded party “Eur-
asia.” According to Dugin, Panarin agreed to write a foreword to one of Dugin’s latest
books Filosofiya politiki (Philosophy of Politics). Yet, Panarin’s illness and eventual
passing away in September 2003 prevented him from doing so.472
Presumably, for neither of these two well-established figures in Russian society, Le-
ont’ev and Panarin, an affiliation with an organization such as “Eurasia” was a ne-
cessity in terms of their respective careers in journalism and academia. Instead, it
seems that Leont’ev and Panarin were genuinely attracted to Dugin and his ideas.
With such prominent personalities and prolific commentators in their own right at his
side, Dugin had, at the beginning of this decade, started making inroads into main-
stream Russian politics, elite thinking, and society as a whole. It is especially surpris-
ing that a scholar like Panarin, by way of publicly supporting “Eurasia” and Dugin
seemingly acknowledged the latter’s intellectual leadership although Dugin’s dubious
intellectual and political biography is well-known, and though Dugin had only shortly
though that Panarin, in distinction to Dugin, remained critical of Putin. Ibid., 21, 23.
468
Mitrofanova, The Politicization of Russian Orthodoxy, 152.
469
Laryuel’, “Aleksandr Panarin i ‘tsivilizatsionnyi natsionalizm’ v Rossii,”, 169.
470
Aleksandr Panarin, “Pravoslavnaya tsivilizatsiya v global’nom mire,” Evraziiskoe obozre-
nie, no. 4 (11 Dezember 2001): 4-5, at: URL (last accessed October 2006):
http://eurasia.com.ru/eo/4-5.html; idem, “Ontologiya terrora,” in: Melent’eva, ed., Geopoli-
tika terrora, 45-51; OPOD „Evrazija,“ ed., Russkaya pravoslavnaya tserkov’ v pros-
transtve Evrazii: materialy VI Vsemirnogo russkogo narodnogo sobora (Moskva: Artko-
geya, 2002), 90-101.
471
E.g. Aleksandr S. Panarin, Politologiya: uchebnoe posobie (Moskva: Gardariki, 2002),
372. It does not surprise, in this context, that Panarin also quotes affirmatively the major
theorist of the Nouvelle Droite, Alain de Benoist. Ibid., 226, 355. Thus, the leader of con-
temporary West European intellectual right-wing extremism is introduced to Russian po-
litical science students in a textbook recommended explicitly by the Ministry of Education
of the RF. On de Benoist, see for instance, Griffin, “Plus ça change!; idem, “Between
Metapolitics and Apoliteia;” Bar-On, “The Ambiguities of the Nouvelle Droite, 1968-1999;”
Spektorowski, “The New Right.”
472
URL (last accessed October 2006):
http://evrazia.org/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1508.
ANDREAS UMLAND 126
before been awarded a Candidate of Science degree from an obscure Rostov higher
education institution (more on this below). Dugin was aware of the potential im-
portance of Panarin’s support for his organization: At “Eurasia’s” founding congress,
in his plenary speech, he immediately expressed his joy about Panarin’s presence in
the auditorium.473 In a later speech reviewing the congress’s results, he again under-
scored Panarin’s presence (and that of another prominent publicist, Eduard
Bagramov, editor of the journal Evraziya)474 as a pleasant surprise. 475 It is to be ex-
pected that Dugin’s approval by Panarin will further boost the status of Arktogeya’s
numerous extremely anti-Western publications, and promote their usage by educa-
tional institutions, including universities.
Panarin’s turn to the extreme right reminds—to return briefly to the above compari-
son of late Imperial Germany with contemporary Russia—of the impact that the com-
ing out of a German prominent academic, the historian Heinrich von Treitschke, as
an antisemite had on German society of the Wilhelmine period. Leonid Luks notes
that
Treitschke who was among the most influential academic teachers of
Berlin University contributed heavily to making antisemitic stereotypes
respectable. In his lectures, on “politics” he described the alleged deficits
of the “Jewish national character” with similar venom as he had done al-
ready in his publicistic work. […] Among Treitschke’s listeners who ab-
sorbed the message of the eloquent university lecturer were many stu-
dents who would later be among the most active fighters against the so
called “Jewish threat.”476
George Iggers points out that “[i]n Treitschke’s auditorium, there were the future
leaders of the Pan-Germans […] as well as hundreds of later high officials, lecturers,
army officers, etc. He succeeded in providing his ressentiment, his hate against so-
473
See the section „Neoevraziistvo“ at: URL (last accessed October 2006):
http://eurasia.com.ru/stenogramma.html.
474
Laryuel’, Ideologiya russkogo evraziistva, 12.
475
URL (last accessed October 2006): http://eurasia.com.ru/polit.htm. On Bagramov, a for-
mer CPSU Central Committee member and today editor of the journal Evraziya: narody,
kul’tury, regilii (Eurasia: Peoples, Cultures, Religions), see Marlène Laruelle, “The Two
Faces of Contempoary Eurasianism: An Imperial Version of Russian Nationalism,” Na-
tionalities Papers 32, no. 1 (2004): 115-136.
476
Leonid Luks, “Die Sehnsucht nach der ‘organischen nationalen Einheit’ und die ‘jüdische
Frage’ im publizistischen Werk Fedor Dostoevskijs und Heinrich von Treitschkes,” in: i-
dem and Florian Anton, eds., Deutschland, Russland und das Baltikum: Beiträge zu ei-
ner Geschichte wechselvoller Beziehungen. Festschrift zum 85. Geburtstag von Peter
Krupnikow (Köln, Weimar, Wien: Böhlau, 2005), 155-186, here 173-174.
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 127
cialists, Jews, the English and non-whites […] with an aura of scholarly respectabil-
ity.”477 To be sure, the contents of Panarin’s and Treitschke’s writings and lectures
are hardly comparable; yet, their respective roles within the academic establishments
of their countries and times, to some degree, are.
Since the foundation of “Eurasia” in 2001, the development of the Dugin phenome-
non has become difficult to follow. The number of Dugin’s appearances in the press,
television, radio, World Wide Web, and various academic and political conferences
has multiplied and can, therefore, be presented here only selectively.478 To fully doc-
ument and adequately analyze the multitude of activities Dugin and his movement
since “Eurasia’s” foundation in 2001 would constitute a separate research project.
Already in 2002, one commentator reported that
[a]ccording to the data of the Effective Politics Foundation (headed by
Gleb Pavlovskii) the frequency of mentioning [upominaemost’] of
Dugin in the Russian mass media in the first half of 2002 was almost
ten times [na poryadok] higher than the [value of this] indicator for the
respective period in 2000 had been. 479
Below, I am mentioning thus only some of the various developments of the Dugin
phenomenon in 2001-2006.
Dugin in Moscow High Politics
For instance, in December 2001, Dugin and his followers apparently managed to hi-
jack the VI World Russian Popular Assembly, an annual gathering of Orthodox and
other religious believers held since 1993 under the aegis of the Russian Orthodox
Church.480 At this Assembly, high officials of the Russian government and churches
were present, including President Vladimir Putin and the Patriarch of Moscow and All
Russias Aleksii II. “Eurasia” apparently sponsored a number of presentations at this
congress and managed to place two of its representatives, Dugin and Tadzhuddin,
as speakers of the main Plenary Session of the congress. As a result, Dugin and Ta-
477
Georg Iggers, “Heinrich von Treitschke,” in: Hans-Ulrich Wehler, ed., Deutsche Historiker
(Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprechte, 1973), 174-188, here 186.
478
Victor Yasman, “Aleksandr Dugin—Eurasia party founder and chief ideologue of the
Russian geopolitical school,” at: URL (last accessed October 2006):
http://www.rferl.org/specials/russianelection/bio/dugin.asp.
479
Timur Polyannikov, “Po tropam Khimery, ili razmyshlenniya o evraziistve i ‘novom miro-
vom poriadke.’”
480
Mitrofanova, The Politicization of Russian Orthodoxy, 221.
ANDREAS UMLAND 128
dzhuddin had the opportunity to officially present themselves on a par with a number
of influential Russian figures such as Putin and Aleksii II whom they explicitly ad-
dressed in their speeches. Dugin’s publishing house Arktogeya-Tsentr produced, af-
terwards, a small collected volume which commemorated this occasion, with a print-
run of 1,000. The book included apart from texts by Putin, Aleksii II, the Head of the
Writers Union of Russia Valerii Ganichev, the Metropolitan of Smolensk and Kalinin-
grad Kirill, and the Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada (Supreme Soviet) of the Republic
of Crimea Leonid Grach, pieces by various supporters of “neo-Eurasianism,” among
them a number of academics sympathetic to Dugin, e.g. Aleksandr Panarin.481
Concerning Dugin’s growing presence in mass media, he has repeatedly appeared
in, among others, Vladimir Pozner’s leading Russian weekly prime time analytical TV
show on Channel 1 (ORT) Vremena (Times), Aleksandr Arkhangel’skii’s late-night
high-brow talk-show on Channel 2 (RTR) Tem vremenem (At the Same Time), Vla-
dimir Solovëv’s weekly NTV political show Voskresnyi vecher (Sunday Evening) as
well as Andrei Malakhov’s popular Channel 1 (ORT) talk-show Pust’ govoryat (Let
Them Talk).482 He has become a regular commentator in the Moskoviya TV Chan-
nel’s nationalistic analytical weekly program Russkii vzglyad (The Russian View) led
by the popular showman Ivan Demidov.483 Since 2005, he is the presenter of his own
irregular TV talk-show Vekhi (Landmarks) at Russia’s new religious TV channel Spas
(Saviour).
Apart from Dugin’s frequent appearances in radio and television shows, it is worth-
noting that he was, in 2003, a regular contributor for Literaturnaya gazeta (Literary
Newspaper), one of Russia’s most reputed intellectual weekly newspapers, and led a
column under the pseudonym Atsefal. In addition, Dugin is a somewhat less frequent
contributor to the official Russian federal government newspaper Rossiiskaya gazeta
(Russian Newspaper).484 A Swiss journalist called Dugin in February 2006 an “influ-
ential political scientists” whose “permanent presence in the media has made him an
authoritative speaker of the conservatives.”485
481
See, OPOD “Evraziya,“ ed., Russkaya pravoslavnaya tserkov’ v prostranstve Evrazii. On
Ganichev, see Mitrokhin, Russkaya partiya.
482
Personal observations in 2005-2006.
483
URL (last accessed October 2006): http://www.religare.ru/print7321.htm.
484
A list of Dugin’s publications to Rossiiskaya gazeta may be found at URL (last accessed
October 2006): http://www.rg.ru/tema/avtor-Aleksandr-Dugin/.
485
Ingold, “Patriotisches Krisenmanagement.”
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 129
In view of the above, Dugin’s failure to transform his organization into a functional
party in 2002-2003 cannot be taken as a measure for an adequate assessment of his
current and future role in Russian society. As Dugin stated at the Founding Congress
of his Movement on 21 April 2001: “Our aim is not to reach power and not to fight for
power; our aim is to fight for influence on the power [holders]. These are different
forms.”486 Dugin’s unsuccessful liaison with Rodina in summer 2003, his abortive at-
tempt to participate in the State Duma elections of December 2003, and his eventual
expulsion from the Party “Eurasia” by the party’s co-founder Petr Suslov in 2004 are
thus of only limited relevance for an evaluation of his role in society.487
What seems more important is that, during the last years, his indirect political influ-
ence has been rising further. In particular, the new shift of his organizational base
from the Party “Eurasia” to the Mezhdunarodnoe “Evraziiskoe dvizhenie” (Interna-
tional “Eurasian Movement”), founded in November 2003, became another break-
through for Dugin in terms of his reach into the Russian political elite. The original
“Eurasia” Movement of 2001 included prominent personalities, like Tadzhuddin,
Panarin and Leont’ev, mainly from civil society. The only prominent exclusion to this
rule was then Dmitrii Ryurikov who became a member of “Eurasia’s” Central Council.
In the 1990s, Ryurikov had been a foreign policy advisor to Boris El’tsin. When “Eur-
asia” was founded in 2001, Ryurikov was the Russian Ambassador to Uzbekistan.488
While Ryurikov was a figure of exceptional status of the first “Eurasia” Movement
founded in 2001, the leading body of Dugin’s new International “Eurasian Movement”
of 2003 comprises—in addition to prominent civil society actors, academics from the
C.I.S. and some minor Western intellectuals—also a number of representatives of the
Russian government and parliament. In October 2006, the list of the members the
Movement’s Highest Council included:
486
URL (last accessed October 2006): http://eurasia.com.ru/syezd.htm.
487
Mitrofanova, The Politicization of Russian Orthodoxy, 191.
488
See Dunlop, “Alexander Dugin’s Foundations of Geopolitics,” 6.
ANDREAS UMLAND 130
(1) from the Russian executive and legislative branches of power:
- Minster of Culture of the RF, Aleksandr Sokolov,
- Vice-Speaker of the Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of
the RF, Aleksandr Torshin,
- Chairman of the Committee on International Relations of the Fed-
eration Council, Mikhail Margelov,
- Advisor to the President of the RF, Aslambek Aslakhanov,
- former Deputy Foreign Minister and current Ambassador of the RF
to Latvia, Viktor Kalyuzhnii,
- Ambassador of the RF to Denmark, Dmitrii Ryurikov,
- Head of the Department on Political Parties and Social Organiza-
tions of the Ministry of Justice of the RF, Aleksei Zhafyarov,
- Minister of Culture of the Republic of Yakutiya (Sakha) and Rector of
the Arctic State Institute of Culture and Art, Andrei Borisov,
- Head of the State Committee for Property of the RF Territorial Direc-
torate responsible for Moscow State University, Zeidula Yuzbekov,
(2) from Russian civil society:
- Chief Mufti of the Spiritual Directorate of the Muslims of Russia and
European Countries of the C.I.S., Talgat Tadzhuddin,
- President of the National Association of TV and Radio Broadcasters
and member of the Directorate of the Academy of Russian Televi-
sion, Eduard Sagalaev,
- Head of the Council of Ambassadors of the RF and President of the
Russian-Turkish Friendship Society “Rutam,” Al’bert Chernyshëv,
- Editor-in-Chief of the Russian army newspaper Krasnaya zvezda
(Red Star), Nikolai Efimov,
- President of the Consulting Firm Neokon and founder of the WWW-
Site Worldcrisis.ru, Mikhail Khazin,
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 131
- Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences and Vice-
President of the Society of Georgians of Russia, Severian Zagarish-
vili,
- Head of the Congress of the Peoples of the Northern Caucasus and
Secretary for National Issues of the Union of Writers of Russia,
Brontoi Bedyurov,
(3) from the C.I.S.:
- Rector of the Lev Gumilëv Eurasian National University of Astana
(Kazakhstan), Sarsyngali Abdymanapov,
- Ambassador of the Republic of Kyrgystan to Russia and Head of the
Council of Directors of Postnoff Ltd, Apas Dzhumagulov,
- Director of the Academy of Management attached to the Office of
the President of Belarus and Director of the Research Institute on
the Theory and Practice of Government of the Republic of Belarus,
Evgenii Matusevich,
- Rector of the Kyrgyz-Russian Slavic University of Bishkek, Vladimir
Nufad’ev,
- Director of the Akhmad Donish Institute of History, Archaeology and
Ethnography of the Tadzhik Academy of Sciences, Rakhim Masov,
- Rector of the Makhambet Utemisov Western Kazakhstani State Uni-
versity of Uralsk, Tuyakbai Ryzbekov,
- Leader of the Bratstvo (Brotherhood) Party, Ukraine, Dmitro
Korchinskii,
- Leader of the Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine, Nataliya Vit-
renko,
(4) from other countries:
- Head of the İşçi Partisi (Labour Party) of Turkey, Doğu Perinçek,
- French Air Force General (ret.) and leader of the Forum for France,
Pierre-Marie Gallois,
ANDREAS UMLAND 132
- Director of the Center for Central Asian and Caucasian Studies at
Luleå, Sweden, and Editor-in-Chief of the scholarly journal Central
Asia and the Caucasus, Murad Esenov,
- Lecturer of the Faculty of Policy Studies of Iwate Prefectural Univer-
sity, Japan, Yukiko Kuroiwa,489
- conspirologist and author of the book Vladimir Poutine et l'Eurasie
(Charmes: Les Amis de la Culture Européenne, 2005), Jean Par-
vulesco,
- Editor-in-Chief of the Milano journal Eurasia: Rivista di Studi Geo-
politici (of which Dugin is an editorial board member), Tiberio Grazi-
ani,
- Head of the Congress of Serbs of Eurasia (KSEA), Mila Alečković-
Nikolić.490
In view of the above-listed members of the Russian executive and legislative branch-
es of power in the International “Eurasian Movement,” Dugin’s claim, in September
2005, that the Kremlin supports what he is trying to do sounds plausible.491 To be
sure, a mere presence of such persons as Culture Minister Sokolov, and Federation
Council Deputy Speaker Torshin as well as International Affairs Committee Chairman
Margelov in the register of the Highest Council of Dugin’s movement may not mean
much in terms of these politicians’ ideological positions, and cannot be regarded as
an endorsement of Dugin’s neo-fascist views. However, it does indicate that these
highly placed figures are aware of Dugin, support, at least, partly his movement, and
have become accessible to him. That Dugin has serious contacts within both, the
Russian executive—including the presidential administration and government—and
parliament is an indication of the breadth of his influence among Russia’s political
elite.
Apart from the diversification of Dugin’s contacts into the higher echelons of power in
Russia, he has recently become known as creator of a new youth organization called
489
URL (last accessed October 2006): http://read.jst.go.jp/ddbs/plsql/KNKY_eg_24?code=
1000263586.
490
URL (last accessed October 2006): http://www.evrazia.org/modules.php?name=
News&file=article&sid=1908.
491
Paul Goble, “Eurasians Organize ‘Anti-Orange’ Front in Russia, CIS,” Johnson’s Russia
List, no. 9242 (2005), #27.
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 133
Evraziiskii soyuz molodezhyi ESM (Eurasian Youth Movement),492 and introduced as
heir to Ivan the Terrible’s infamous personal guard and mystical order oprichnina.
Founded on 26th February 2005 and led by Pavel Zarifullin, the ESM’’s explicitly stat-
ed aim is the prevention, through “direct action,” of events like the Ukrainian Orange
Revolution in Russia. One of its first activities was its participation in a meeting in
support of President Murtaza Rakhimov who has become known for the authoritarian
methods of his rule and large-scale manipulation of elections, in Bashkortostan’s
capital Ufa.493 Since its foundation, the ESM has established itself as such an active
and prolific youth organization with branches in a number of former Soviet republics
and a special section for children (ESM-deti) that an adequate coverage of the rise of
this organization would demand a separate study.
In addition, Dugin has extended his international contacts since the foundation of his
movement in 2001. They now range from Great Britain where he is in contact with
Troy Southgate’s “New Right” to various intellectual and political figures in Turkey
where he has become known as a leading Russian political commentator. Though it
would be an overstatement to say, as Mitrofanova does, that the “Eurasia” section of
the Serbian nationalist WWW-site “Komentar” is “basically stuffed with A. Dugin’s
articles,”494 the “neo-Eurasianist” is present there and presumably has some follow-
ing among the Serbian extreme right.495
Dugin’s “Academic Career”
The above development mark important trends. Yet, what might be most relevant in
terms of both, Dugin’s own idea of what his activities are about, and the depth and
sustainability of his impact on Russian society, are his publicistic activities and their
acceptance within Russia’s elites. Will his attempts to lastingly impregnate Russia’s
and the C.I.S.’s intellectuals and politicians with his ideas—an enterprise that Dugin
sees himself as more important than his various forerays into the electoral arena—be
successful? For an understanding of the Dugin phenomenon, Dugin’s eagerness to
492
Another (perhaps, virtual) organization initiated by Dugin are the so-called United Tatar-
Mari-Hyperborean Forces. See Goble, “Eurasians Organize ‘Anti-Orange’ Front in Rus-
sia, CIS.”
493
Mitrofanova, The Politicization of Russian Orthodoxy, 194. Interestingly, Dugin, at the
same time, is opposed to Tatarstan’s President Mintimir Shaimiev. See Goble, “Eura-
sians Organize ‘Anti-Orange’ Front in Russia, CIS.”
494
Mitrofanova, Politizatsiya “pravoslavnogo mira,” 246.
495
URL (last accessed October 2006): http://www.komentar.co.yu/evroazija/index.php.
ANDREAS UMLAND 134
become a fully accepted member of academia is particularly revealing. It speaks
about both, how he understands himself as well as what the long-term prospects of
his role in Russian society might be.496 Whether Dugin will be in a position to enter
the Ivory Tower, make his pamphlets into text-books, and become accepted in schol-
arly circles are major issues in assessing the chances of his project as he himself
understands it.
Indications that Dugin has, in spite of his pronounced anti-rationalism, aspired to be-
come integrated into Russia’s social sciences from the start of his publicistic activities
can be found in his early publications. In the blurb for his seminal and especially
phantasmorgic book Konspirologiya of 1992,497 the
editorial collegium of the publisher [i.e. Dugin himself—A.U.] un-
derlines that the present publication has a strictly scientific,
scholarly character though the specifics of the present theme
force one frequently to [turn to] non-traditional methods, to the
study of mythological paradigms and complicated sociological
laws.498
In his seminal article “The War of the Continents” that was first published in the major
Russian extremely right-wing weekly Den’ and reprinted in Konspirologiya, Dugin
praises Sir Halford Mackinder for having, in his science of geopolitics, established
“certain objective laws.”499 While, in the second 2005 edition of Konspirologiya,
Dugin, interestingly, admits that the 1992 first edition contained “many now obvious
absurdities, inconsistencies, imprecisions and overstatements,” he still claims that
this was a “serious analysis of serious events,” and that the mistakes “were corrected
later in our serious and valid scholarly [nauchnye] studies.”500 In another book, Dugin
admits too that his aim of a Conservative Revolution “does not constitute a ready-
496
Needless to say that such behavior is in stark contrast to, for instance, the self-
perception of Adolf Hitler who even “refused to accept honorary doctorates.” Laqueur,
Fascism, 20.
497
There is contradictory information on the publication year of the copy that I have in my
archive: The title sheet gives 1993 as the publication year, while the copyright statement
contains the number 1992.
498
Dugin, Konspirologiya, 2. A similar point is made in Mitrofanova, The Politicization of
Russian Orthodoxy, 147.
499
Dugin, Konspirologiya, 92, emphasis added.
500
Aleksandr Dugin, “Konspirologiya—veselaya nauka postmoderna,” in his, Konspirologiya
(nauka o zagovorakh, sekretnykh obshchestvakh i tainoi voine) (Moskva: ROF “Evrazi-
ya,” 2005), 5-15, here 13-14.
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 135
made model,” yet that it “can also not be reduced to a phantastic voluntaristic pro-
ject.”501
Since his early publications, Dugin has tirelessly and with increasing professionalism
worked towards publicizing his ideas among educated citizens of the former Soviet
Union. In September 1998, he launched an attempt to establish his own “New Uni-
versity”—a series of high-brow lectures and seminars for his Moscow followers. 502
Mitrofanova noted in 2005 that “[o]rganizing exhibitions of books by Aleksandr Dugin
in various cities and countries seems to be the central preoccupation of the Interna-
tional ‘Eurasian Movement,’”503 and that Dugin has explicitly “formulated the task of
restructuring the elite’s consciousness, stating that the ‘xenomorphous’ (i.e. non-
Russian) elite should be impelled to give an oath of allegiance to the Russian na-
tion.”504
Whether Dugin will manage to leave the ghetto of fringe publicism with which he is
still associated among Russian intellectuals depends on whether he will be accepted
in mainstream academic discourse. To be sure, there is, in principle, nothing to be
said against an entry of persons with unusual biographies into academia, and, in par-
ticular, against greater diversity in post-Soviet social sciences. However, a number of
Russian self-made “scholars” like Dugin have made it their aim not only to enter aca-
demia, but also to radically transform basic criteria of what constitutes science, what
scholarly research is about, and to permit bodies of thought such as occultism, mysti-
cism, esotericism, conspirology, etc. into higher education and scholarship that would
bring down the borders between science and fiction, and blur the distinction between
scholarly and non-scholarly texts. While pluralism in academia may be as valuable as
in other spheres of life, “[t]he gatekeeping functions of the academy cannot be abol-
ished by a wistful appeal to diversity.”505
Mitrofanova who is both an observer and participant of the elite stratum that Dugin
wishes to enter writes of him as still belonging to a circle of “new intellectuals” not
accepted among the academic establishment.
In terms of their style, the works of the “new intellectuals” remind
one of the scholarly tractates of the Middle Ages and Renaissance:
501
Dugin, Konservativnaya Revolyutsiya, 3.
502
See URL (last accessed October 2006): http://universitet.virtualave.net/.
503
Mitrofanova, The Politicization of Russian Orthodoxy, 191.
504
Ibid., 192.
505
John Gerring, Social Science Methodology: A Criteral Framework (Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 2001), 5.
ANDREAS UMLAND 136
absence of footnotes, references to authorities as providing proof,
[and] mixing of reliable with unreliable information. Instead of calling
the “new sciences” false, one could regard them as a sign of an ar-
chaization of science, its return to former forms. 506
It remains to be seen whether Dugin will be able to enter mainstream scholarly dis-
course, become integrated into the academic establishment, and thus gain opportuni-
ties to influence, above all, the educated young. One might, in this connection, recall
that, in the inter-war years, “[s]tudents were strong supporters of the fascist move-
ments in Spain and Romania, and so in these countries fascism was in the early
years a phenomenon confined mainly to particular universities. Likewise, the Nazis
emerged victorious in Germany’s university elections well before they became a ma-
jor political factor nationwide.”507 While, at the point of finishing this study, it is still an
open question whether extremely right-wing ideas will gain a lasting foothold in Rus-
sian academia comparable to the advance of racial studies into mainstream German
academia during the Weimar Republic, Panarin’s above mentioned interest for
Dugin’s activities indicate that the leader of the International “Eurasian Movement”
has done already a first step into the Ivory Tower of Russian higher education and
scholarship by 2001. Further aspects of his rise also illustrate Dugin’s gradual entry
into intellectual elite circles, and the higher education system.
For instance, two scholars from a reputed Moscow higher education institution who
seem to have endorsed Dugin by way of contributing to a collected volume of confer-
ence papers published by the “Eurasia” Movement 508 are the Professors Viktor
Zotov509 and Anatolii Ushkov510 who both hold the degree of a Doctor of Science
(Dr.Sc.) in Philosophy, and teach at the Department of Political Science at the Facul-
ty of Social Sciences and Humanities of the Russian University of People’s Friend-
ship—once a major Soviet institution for educating foreign students.511 Though it is of
some importance that Zotov and Ushkov did not hesitate to submit their papers for a
volume published by “Eurasia,” it also needs to be mentioned that this volume was
506
Mitrofanova, Politizatsiya “pravoslavnogo mira,” 186.
507
Laqueur, Fascism, 19.
508
Viktor Zotov, “Evraziitsyi o pravoslavii,” in: OPOD „Evraziya,“ ed., Russkaya pravoslav-
naya tserkov’ v prostranstve Evrazii, 138-142; Anatolii Ushkov, “K opredeleniyu kategorii
‘imperiya’,” in: OPOD „Evraziya,“ ed., Russkaya pravoslavnaya tserkov’ v prostranstve
Evrazii, 143-145.
509
URL (last accessed October 2006): http://www.humanities.edu.ru/db/msg/49663.
510
URL (last accessed October 2006): http://www.humanities.edu.ru/db/msg/49713.
511
URL (last accessed October 2006): http://www.rudn.ru/.
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 137
the above-mentioned collection of presentations at the VI World Russian Popular
Sobor hijacked by “Eurasia,” and that neither Zotov nor Ushkov recommend Dugin’s
books in the study program of their university courses on the history of Western,
Russian and Eastern political thought.512 Concerning Ushkov, one might add though
that he affirmatively quotes Dugin in his cited contribution, 513 and recommends nu-
merous anti-Western texts, among them those by above-mentioned Ivan Il’in, Lev
Gumilëv, and Aleksandr Panarin, in his university syllabus.514 At least Ushkov might
thus be counted among Dugin’s open supporters.
Academics in the Urals who are—more obviously so than the mentioned Moscow
professors—close to Dugin are, at Chelyabinsk State University, Galina Sachko,
Candidate of Science in Philosophy, Associate Professor (dotsent) and Dean of the
Faculty of Eurasia and the East,515 and, at the Urals State University of Technology,
Professor Stanislav Nekrasov, Dr.Sc. in Philosophy, who also works at the Urals
State Conservatory in Ekaterinburg.516 As shown below, Dugin’s connections to aca-
demics in the Southern Russian city of Rostov-on-the-Don seem to be particularly
well-developed. Among Dugin’s followers in Rostov is, for instance, Professor Tama-
ra Matyash, Dr.Sc. in Philosophy and holder of a chair at the Instituted for Further
and Continued Education at Rostov State University. 517
Although Mitrofanova claimed in 2004 that “not a single traditional scholar will seri-
ously consider […] a dissertation written on the basis of the ‘methodology of integral
Traditionalism,’”518 she reports herself extensively on Dugin’s success in obtaining
the degrees of a Candidate of Science in Philosophy, and Doctor of Political Science
at Rostov. Like myself, Mitrofanova has been wrong in stating that Dugin defended
512
See URL (last accessed October 2006): http://www.humanities.edu.ru/db/msg/31326; ;
URL (last accessed October 2006): http://www.humanities.edu.ru/db/msg/31329.
513
Ushkov, “K opredeleniyu kategorii ‘imperiya’,” in: OPOD „Evraziya,“ ed., Russkaya pra-
voslavnaya tserkov’ v prostranstve Evrazii, 145
514
URL (last accessed October 2006): http://www.humanities.edu.ru/db/msg/31329. Mitro-
fanova mentions Professor V.Y. Pashchenko as a supporter of Eurasianism at Moscow
State University’s Faculty of Philosophy. However, Pashchenko supports the Eurasianist
G.V. Vernadskii’s idea of genetic link between the Slavs and Mongols, rather than
Dugin’s occultist theories on Eurasia. Mitrofanova, Politizatsiya “pravoslavnogo mira,”
139.
515
For a contribution to a collected volume edited by Dugin’s Eurasia Movement, see Galina
Sachko, “Evraziitsyi o pravoslavii,” in: OPOD „Evraziya,“ ed., Russkaya pravoslavnaya
tserkov’ v prostranstve Evrazii, 102-106.
516
URL (last accessed October 2006): http://old.russ.ru//authors/stnek.html.
517
For a contribution to a collected volume edited by Dugin’s Eurasia Movement, see Tama-
ra Matyash, “Pravoslavie kak kul’turnyi fenomen,” in: OPOD „Evraziya,“ ed., Russkaya
pravoslavnaya tserkov’ v prostranstve Evrazii, 107-115.
518
Mitrofanova, Politizatsiya “pravoslavnogo mira,” 185.
ANDREAS UMLAND 138
his kandidatskaya at Rostov State University519 when, in fact, the defence took place
under the chairmanship of Yu.A. Zhdanov (apparently, a relative of former Central
Committee Secretary Andrei Zhdanov) on 20 December 2000 at an institution called
the North-Caucasian Higher School Scientific Center. 520 The title of Dugin’s Candi-
date of Science dissertation was “The Evolution of the Paradigmatic Foundations of
Science: A Philosophical-Methodological Analysis” which was later published as a
book.
The only significant instance of protest against Dugin’s entry into the academic es-
tablishment through the conferment of a Candidate of Science degree seems to have
come from Professor Dr.Sc. Boris Georgievich Rezhabek, a biologist, ecologist and
philosopher at Rostov-on-the-Don,521 who published two (seemingly identical) articles
against Dugin after, in late 2000, the head of Arktogeya managed to defend his kan-
didatskaya.522 Rezhabek wrote that, contrary to Dugin’s own claims, young Dugin
was exmatriculated from the Moscow Institute of Aviation not for anti-Soviet activities,
but insufficient performance. Whether this is the case or not, Dugin never finished a
regular higher education degree program, and the question arises how he was admit-
ted to a postgraduate degree examination. Rezhabek reports that “the ideologist of
the ‘Conservative Revolution’ presented to the Academic Council [at Rostov] a….
diploma from the Extra-Mural Department of the Novocherkassk Institute of Meliora-
tion Engineering!”523 As Mitrofanova comments, Rezhabek implied that this diploma
from Novocherkassk may have been obtained in an irregular way. 524 At least, it is
safe to note that melioration engineering is not a subject closely related to Dugin’s
dissertation subject of philosophy of science.
What was noteworthy in this defence is that the vedushchaya organizatsiya (leading
organization)—a specific Soviet/post-Soviet institution within a postgraduate research
519
Umland, “Toward an Uncivil Society?” 378; Mitrofanova, Politizatsiya “pravoslavnogo
mira,” 183.
520
See URL (last accessed October 2006): http://science.dugin.ru/disser-1-
stenogramma.htm; URL (last accessed October 2006):
http://www.rsu.ru/sknc/home_.html.
521
A short biography of Rezhabek might be found at URL (last accessed October 2006):
http://www.rel.org.ru/cgi-bin/script.cgi?action=show&file=10030.
522
Boris G. Rezhabek, “Noosfera ili arktogeya?” Vestnik Rossiiskogo filososkogo ob-
shchestva, no. 3(19) (2001): 81, as quoted in Mitrofanova, Politizatsiya “pravoslavnogo
mira,” 183 (Mitrofanova though gives a wrong first letter of the patronym for Rezhabek—
L. instead of G.); Rezhabek, “Merzlaya zemlya evraziitsa Dugina.”
523
Rezhabek, “Noosfera ili Arktogeya?” 81, as quoted in Mitrofanova, The Politicization of
Russian Orthodoxy, 157.
524
Ibid.
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 139
degree procedure, designed to secure outside evaluation of research submitted for
the acquisition of an academic degree—was the Department of Philosophy and
Methodology of Science of the Faculty of Public Administration of Russia’s most
prestigious institution of higher learning, Moscow State University (Moskovskii gosu-
darstvennyi universitet—MGU). In addition, Prof. V.G. Kuznetsov as a representative
of Moscow State University, namely of Panarin’s Faculty of Philosophy, though not
having been present at the defence in person, played the role of Dugin’s official “op-
ponent” in this procedure.525
This kandidatskaya defence is well-documented as Dugin has put the procedure’s
stenogramm on the WWW,526 and as above-mentioned Rostov biology professor Bo-
ris Rezhabek has commented on the event. Rezhabek complains, for instance, that,
among the five “scholarly works” listed by Dugin in order to fulfil the publishing re-
quirement of the Highest Attestation Commission (Visshaya attestatsionnaya kom-
missiya—VAK) of the Ministry of Education for obtaining a Candidate of Science de-
gree, there were “four published in Dugin’s own publishing house Arktogeya, and on-
ly one, with little relation to the theme of the dissertation, in the journal Filosofiya
khozyaistva (Philosophy of Economics).”527
In 2004, Dugin defended, contrary to an information by Mitrofanova who again men-
tions Rostov State University, 528 his doktorskaya (a second doctoral degree compa-
rable to the German Habilitation necessary to pass in order to acquire the right to a
full professorship) at another, in connection to Dugin’s dissertation subject, unusual
institution—the Rostov Juridical Institute of the Ministry of Interior of the Russian
Federation.529 In 2001, this Institute’s Deputy Director for Academic Affairs, Police
Colonel and Professor Viktor Vereshchagin, Dr.Sc. in Philosophy, had been a con-
tributor to a collected volume edited by Dugin’s Eurasia Movement, and performed as
Dugin’s dissertation supervisor at the defence of the kandidatskaia.530 The subject of
Dugin’s thesis presented to the Juridical Institute was “The Transformation of Political
Structures and Institutes in the Process of Modernization of a Traditional Society.”
525
Rezhabek, “Merzlaya zemlya evraziitsa Dugina.”
526
URL (last accessed October 2006): http://science.dugin.ru/disser-1-stenogramma.htm.
527
Rezhabek, “Merzlaya zemlya evraziitsa Dugina.”
528
Mitrofanova, The Politicization of Russian Orthodoxy, 157.
529
See URL (last accessed October 2006): http://science.dugin.ru/avto-disser-2.htm.
530
Viktor Vereshchagin, “O samobytnosti russkoi kul’tury v kontekste globalizatsii,” in:
OPOD „Evrazija,“ ed., Russkaya pravoslavnaya tserkov’ v prostranstve Evrazii, 116-125;
Rezhabek, “Merzlaya zemlya evraziitsa Dugina.”
ANDREAS UMLAND 140
Once more, most noteworthy about this defence was that Moscow State University
played, in this procedure too, the role of the “leading organization.”531
It should be also noted that, in distinction to the ambivalent situation with Dugin’s
formal fulfilment of the publishing requirement for obtaining the Candidate degree,
Dugin duly fulfilled this formality in the case of the defence of doktorskaya. He seems
to have, simply, submitted 32 of his previously published publicistic and political arti-
cles for a re-publication to a yearbook and some minor scholarly journals with titles
like Ekonomicheskaya teoriya na poroge XXI veka (Economic Theory on the Thresh-
old to the 21st Century), Filosofiya khozyaistva (Economic Philosophy) and Filosofiya
prava (Legal Philosophy). 532 The VAK that, formally, confers the doktor nauk title
demands twenty publications in periodicals or collected volumes explicitly accepted
as scholarly by the VAK for conferring the degree of a Doctor of Philosophy. Appar-
ently, Dugin re-published his previous statements in the three minor periodicals sole-
ly for the sake of fulfilling this requirement. The leading “neo-Eurasianist” now, as
531
While this aspect of Dugin’s academic career provides his Candidate and Doctor de-
grees with some legitimacy, it should be also noted that it is, altogether, not that surpris-
ing that Moscow State University agreed to play such a role in Dugin’s dissertation de-
fense. As mentioned above, on MGU’s Philosophy Deparment’s most influential profes-
sor, Aleksandr Panarin, had, until his death in 2003, been emerging as a supporter of
Dugin’s projects. Also, this most reputed of Russia’s universities did in the 1990s not
hesitate to confer the degree of Doctor of Science in Philosophy to such “scholars” as
above-mentioned Gennadii Zyuganov and Vladimir Zhirinovskii. Not only were the texts
submitted by Zyuganov (“Major Tendencies and Mechanisms of Socio-Political Changes
in Contemporary Russia,” 1995) and Zhirinovskii (“The Past, Present and Future of the
Russian Nation,” 1997) hardly proper dissertations, but rather extended political pam-
phlets with footnotes. Zyuganov and Zhirinovskii also did not fulfil some crucial formal re-
quirements for the conferral of a doktor nauk. Neither of the politicians had a sufficient
amount of papers published in recognized scholarly journals which is a requirement that
needs to be fulfilled to be admitted to a defense of a doktorskaya, in the first place.
Zhirinovskii, moreover, was admitted to the defense of a doktorskaya without ever having
defended a kandidatskaya (something Zyuganov had been able to accomplish during his
apparatchik carreer in Soviet times at Moscow’s so-called Academy of Social Sciences
of the CPSU Central Committee). These and a number of similar examples illustrate
both, the importance which Russian political actors attach to formal academic qualifica-
tions and the degree of corruption of the Russian higher education system. See Ale-
ksandr Kats, “Doktor Zyuganov,” URL (last accessed October 2006):
http://zhurnal.lib.ru/k/kac_a_s/zuganov.shtml; S.G. Egorov, “Gorbachev vchera,” Duel’,
no. 25(47) (1997), URL (last accessed October 2006):
http://www.duel.ru/199725/?25_3_1; Artem Verindub, “Slantsy Putina,” Russkii
Newsweek, 7 June 2004, URL (last accessed October 2006):
http://www.compromat.ru/main/nauka/disser.htm; Dmitrii Simakin, “Doktora nevidimogo
fronta,” Nezavisimaya gazeta, 24 March 2006, URL (last accessed October 2006):
http://www.ng.ru/inquiry/2006-03-24/1_doctors.html; Nikolai Aruev, “Akh, uvazhaemye
kolligi, dotsenty s kandidatami…,” Sankt-Peterburgskie vedomosti, no. 21(2411) (2001),
URL (last accessed October 2006): http://www.mathsoc.spb.ru/formu/aruev.html..
532
See URL (last accessed October 2006): http://science.dugin.ru/.
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 141
Mitrofanova notes, prefers to be called “doktor Dugin”—in Russia, an unusual way of
addressing a scientist who is not a physician. 533
What was, perhaps, most noteworthy in Dugin’s 2004 doktorskaya defence was that
the prominent Russian political sociologist and philosopher Professor Aleksandr
Tsipko played the role of Dugin’s official “opponent” in the dissertation defence at
Rostov, and thus, like his late colleague at Moscow State University Professor Ale-
ksandr Panarin, contributed to giving a certain clout to Dugin’s academic career.
Tsipko had, for years, been affiliated to the social-democratic Gorbachev Foundation
and plays, in his TV and other mass media appearances, the role of a patriotic, yet
moderate commentator. In the early 1990s, he did, though, also attract some atten-
tion with his idiosyncratic theory on the origins of Russian Bolshevism in which he
claimed a pre-eminence of non-Russian factors in the emergence of Soviet totalitari-
anism.534 Concerning Moscow State University’s role in Dugin’s entry into the aca-
demic establishment, it, finally, needs to be mentioned that, since February 2006,
Dugin has been teaching a course on “Post-Philosophy: The Problem of Philosophy
under the Conditions of Post-Modernity” at MGU’s Philosophy Department—a fact
that was not left unmentioned at Arktogeya’s WWW sites.535
III.5.3 The Role of “Neo-Eurasianism” in Dugin’s Political Mimicry536
How was Dugin able to gain such wide acceptance among Russia’s academic and
political elite? A major tool in Dugin’s Gramscian strategy and attack on the still prom-
inent position of more or less liberal political values and pro-Western (or, at least, not
radically anti-Western) attitudes among intellectuals and leaders of post-Soviet Rus-
sia has been the above-mentioned term “Eurasianism”—or his new construct “neo-
533
Mitrofanova, The Politicization of Russian Orthodoxy, 157.
534
Yasmann, “Red Religion,” 28.
535
URL (last accessed October 2006):
http://arcto.ru/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1357; URL (last accessed Oc-
tober 2006): http://arcto.ru/modules.php?name=News&new_topic=61; URL (last ac-
cessed October 2006): http://www.evrazia.org/testlenta/shownews.php?0602116022307.
It should be also mentioned that, already in 2000, Dugin read a course called “The Phi-
losophy of Politics” at the International Independent Ecological-Politological University, a
small private college in Moscow with ties to Western institutions, meaning that he must
have had some support among the academics of this institution, in that period. URL (last
accessed October 2006): http://eurasia.com.ru/leaders/dugin.html. On this university, see
URL (last accessed October 2006): http://www.mnepu.ru/, and on its history, see URL
(last accessed October 2006): http://www.mnepu.ru/doc.php?id=22.
536
This section is partly based on Umland, “Kulturhegemoniale Strategien der russischen
extremen Rechten.”
ANDREAS UMLAND 142
Eurasianism”—itself.537 Whereas Dugin has, during his groupuscular phase in the
early 1990s, used frequently terms like “Traditionalism,” “New Socialism” and “Con-
servative Revolution” for describing his views, this changed towards the end of the
decade in the course of his gradual inclusion into the political establishment, and
embrace of “New Right” tactics. In the words of one his former accomplices, in the
late 1990s, “Aleksandr Dugin started active cooperation with the authorities replacing
the, by definition, extremist ‘National Bolshevism’ [for self-description] to the more
[politically] correct ‘Eurasianism’ [for labelling his own ideology].”538 In as far as “Eur-
asia” and “Eurasianism” are greatly inflated words in contemporary Russia,539 this
would, by itself, hardly be a fact worth noting. For instance, the prominent Russian
ethnologist Viktor Shnirel’man noted already in 1996:
The Eurasianist movement that blossomed in the Russian émigré
scene in the 1920-1930s is experiencing, in our times, a kind of
second birth. The ideas of Eurasianism have been adopted [pod-
khvacheny] to one degree or another by the intellectual elite of the
establishment of Russia—and not only inside her. In particular,
everybody will remember the April 1994 project of the President of
Kazakhstan for the creation of a Eurasian Union. The ideas of
Eurasianism are regarded with sympathy by such—in terms of
their world views and aspirations—different actors as the former
(until 1993) advisor to the Russian president S[ergei] Stankevich
[on the one side] and the leader of the communists G[ennadii]
Zyuganov [on the other], one of the inspirators [vdokhnovitelei] of
the “spiritual opposition” A[leksandr] Prokhanov in collaboration
with a whole number of other patriotically oriented writers [on the
one hand] and the film director N[ikita] Mikhalkov [on the other],
the well-known linguist Viach[eslav] V. Ivanov and literary critic
V[adim] Kozhinov. The Eurasianist ideology is propagated by the
russocentric literary-artistic journal Nash sovremmenik [Our Con-
537
The most profound study of classical Eurasianism published so far is: Marlène Laruelle,
L'idéologie eurasiste russe ou comment penser l'empire. Preface by Patrick Sériot (Paris:
L'Harmattan, 1999). There is also an excellent Russian translation of the book to which I
will refer below: Marlen Laryuel’, Ideologiya russkogo evraziistva ili Mysli o velichii imperii
(Moskva: Natalis, 2004).
538
Maler, “National-bol’shevizm: konets temy.”
539
For an overview of the various denotations of “Eurasianism” in post-Soviet Russia, see
Fischer, Eurasismus.
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 143
temporary] as well as the organ of the Russian Academy of Sci-
ences Obshchestvennye nauki i sovremennost’ [Social Sciences
and the Contemporary World]. All of the theories [postroeniya] of
the nowadays so popular geographer and historian L[ev] N.
Gumilëv [see below—A.U.]—whose collected works are, with big
pomp, currently published by the librarian association Tanais—
are, with very rare exceptions, elevated to [the status of] Eura-
sianist sources.540
Anastasiya Mitrofanova made a similar observation, eight years later:
While, in the early 1990s, they could be found only in marginal jour-
nals printed on bad paper paid for by the authors themselves, to-
day, one encounters references to Eurasianism (both, direct and in-
direct) in presentations of the most moderate political actors and the
articles of respected scholars. Eurasian ideas are spread over the
whole political spectrum; they can be found even in addresses of
the highest state officials. 541
540
Viktor Shnirel’man, “Evraziitsy i evrei,” Vestnik Evreiskogo universiteta v Moskve, no. 11
(1996): 4-45, here 4.
541
Mitrofanova, Politizatsiya “pravoslavnogo mira,” 136. Mitrofanova might, with regard to
early appearances of texts on Eurasianism, be overstating her case though. The surge of
interest into Eurasianism started, independently from Dugin’s activities (see below), al-
ready before its boom in the late 1990s, with the introduction of glasnost’, in the late
1980s. Late Soviet and early post-Soviet Russian scholarly publications on Eurarsianism
in leading academic and intellectual journals include, in chronological order, Yu. Linnik,
“Evraziitsy,” Sever, no. 12 (1989): 138-153; A.V. Sobolev, “Polyusa evraziistva: L. P.
Karsavin (1882-1952), G. V. Florovskii (1893-1979),” Novyi mir, no. 1 (1991): 180-182;
O.V. Manikhin, “Evraziistvo: Predchuvstviya i sversheniya,” Sovetskaya bibliografiya, no.
1 (1991): 78-81; G. Shevelev, “Preobrazhenie dukha: Zametki evraziitsa,” Mezhdunarod-
naya zhizn’, no. 11 (1991): 86-91; “Evraziiskaya ideya: vchera, segodnya, zavtra (Iz ma-
terialov konferentsii, sostoyavsheisya v komissii SSSR po delam YuNESKO),” Inostran-
naya literatura, no. 12 (1991): 213-228; S.S. Khoruzhii, “Rossiya, Evraziya i otets Georgii
Florovskii,” Nachala, no. 3 (1991): 22-30; L.I. Novikova, I.N. Sizemskaya, “Evraziiskii is-
kus,” Filosofskie nauki, no. 12 (1991): 103-108; Igor’ Isaev, “Evraziistvo: mif ili re-
al’nost’?” Kommunist, no. 12 (1991): 106-118; A.A. Nikishenkov, “N.S. Trubetskoi i fe-
nomen evraziiskoi etnografii,” Etnograficheskoe obozrenie, no. 1 (1992): 89-92; L.I.
Novikova and I.N. Sizemskaya, “Politicheskaya programma evraziitsev: real’nost’ ili uto-
piya?” Obshchestvennye nauki i sovremennost’, no. 1 (1992): 104-109; S.S. Khoruzhii,
“Karsavin, evraziistvo i VKP,” Voprosy filosofii, no. 2 (1992): 78-87; T.V. Epimakhova,
“Evraziitsy: Politicheskaya kontseptsiya, tezisy kochevnikovedcheskoi teorii,” Vestnik
Chelyabinskogo universiteta. Seriya 1: Istoriya, no. 2(4) (1992): 37-42; N.A.
Omel’chenko, “Spory o evraziistve: Opyt istoricheskoi rekonstruktsii,” Politicheskie issle-
dovaniya, no. 3 (1992): 156-163; M.A. Robinzon, L.P. Petrovskii, “N.N. Durnovo i N.S.
Trubetskoi: problema evraziistva v kontekste ‘Dela slavistov’ (Po materialam OGPU-
NKVD...),” Slavyanovedenie, no. 4 (1992): 68-82; A.V. Sobolev, “Svoya svoikh ne poz-
nasha. Evraziistvo: L.P. Karsavin i drugie (konspekt issledovaniya),” Nachala, no. 4
ANDREAS UMLAND 144
Thus, Dugin’s self-description as a “neo-Eurasianist” constitutes nothing particular in
post-Soviet Russia. What makes this issue interesting here is that Dugin has, largely,
succeeded in impressing on both Russian and Western observers the notion that he
is indeed a new Eurasianist thinker, and thus writes within in the tradition of a well-
respected school of thought within the modern Russian history of ideas. This became
(1992): 49-58; O.A. Kaznina, “D.P. Svyatopolk-Mirskii i evraziiskoe dvizhenie,” Nachala,
no. 4 (1992): 81-88; A.A. Troyanov, “Izuchenie evraziistva v sovremennoi zarubezhnoi
literature: Kratkii obzor,” Nachala, no. 4 (1992): 99-103; L.I. Novikova and I.N.
Sizemskaya, “Dva lika evraziistva,” Svobodnaya mysl’, no. 7 (1992): 100-110; I.A.
Tugarinov, “Evraziistvo v kruge nashego vnimaniya,” Vestnik vysshei shkoly, no. 7/9
(1992): 16-24; F.I. Girenok, “Evraziiskie tropy,” Vestnik vysshei shkoly, no. 7/9 (1992):
34-43; A.A. Ermichev, “L.P. Karsavin: Russkaya ideya,” Russkaya literatura, no. 1
(1993): 132-136; Yu.D. Zhmakin, “Referativnyi obzor: Ignatov A. ‘Evraziya’ i poiski novoi
russkoi kul’turnoi samobytnosti: Vozrozhdenie ‘evraziiskogo’ mifa,” Rossiya i sovremen-
nyi mir, no. 2 (1993): 147-154; V.Ya. Pashchenko, “Evraziitsy i my,” Vestnik Mos-
kovskogo universiteta. Seriya 12: Sotsial’no-politicheskiie issledovaniya, no. 3 (1993):
79-89; T.N. Ochirova, “Evraziistvo i puti russkogo istoricheskogo samopoznaniya,”
Izvestiia RAN: Seriya literatura i yazyk 52:4 (1993): 34-47; V.A. D’yakov, “O nauchnom
soderzhanii i politicheskikh interpretatsiyakh istoriosofii evraziistva,” Slavyanovedenie,
no. 5 (1993): 101-115; F.I. Girenok, “Novye dikie: Evraziiskie tropy. Fragmenty,” Vestnik
Moskovskogo universiteta. Seriya 12: Sotsial'no-politicheskie issledovaniya, no. 5
(1993): 36-42; L. Lyuks, “Evraziistvo,” Voprosy filosofii, no. 6 (1993): 105-114; V. Durnov-
tsev, “Predisloviie k publikatsii stat’i P.N. Savitskogo ‘Geopoliticheskie zametki po russkoi
istorii’,” Voprosy istorii, no. 11/12 (1993): 120-124; Igor’ Isaev, “Geopoliticheskie korni
avtoritarnogo myshleniya: Istoricheskii opyt evraziistva,” Druzhba narodov, no. 11 (1993):
139-149; Yu.V. Kolesnichenko, “Opyt evraziistva: tema lichnosti v otechestvennoi filoso-
fii,” Vestnik Moskovskogo universiteta. Seriya 12: Sotsial'no-politicheskie issledovaniya,
no. 1 (1994): 71-77; N.S. Semenkin, “Kontseptsiya ‘pravyashchego otbora’ kak politich-
eskaya ideya evraziistva,” Etnopoliticheskii vestnik, no. 1 (1994): 179-193; T.N. Ochiro-
va, “Geopoliticheskaya kontseptsiya evraziistva,” Obshchestvennyie nauki i sovremen-
nost’, no. 1 (1994): 47-55; V.V. Kozlovskii, I.A. Savkin, “’Tretii put’’ evraziistva,” Veche:
Al’manakh russkoi filosofii i kul’tury, no. 1 (1994): 17-25; V.P. Kosharnyi, “Evraziistvo kak
ob’‘ekt mezhdistsiplinarnogo sinteza,” Vestnik Moskovskogo universiteta. Seriya 7:
Filosofiya, no. 4 (1994): 9-19; I.A. Isaev, “Evraziistvo: ideologiya gosudarstvennosti,” Ob-
shchestvennye nauki i sovremennost’, no. 5 (1994): 42-55; M.A. Kolerov, “Bratstvo sv.
Sofii: ‘Vekhovtsy’ i evraziitsy (1921-1925),” Voprosy filosofii, no. 10 (1994): 143-151; S.S.
Khoruzhii, “Transformatsiya slavyanofil’skoi idei v 20 veke,” Voprosy filosofii, no. 11
(1994): 52-62. Some of these early analyses of Eurasianism were rather well done, such
as for instance Novikova’s and Sizemskaya’s “Dva lika evraziistva” of 1992. Early post-
Soviet republications of texts by the classical Eurasianists under the imprint of reputed
publishers include L.V. Ponomareva, ed., Evraziya: Istoricheskie vzglyady russkikh emi-
grantov (Moskva: Institut vseobshchei istorii RAN, 1992); I.I. Novikova and I.N.
Sizemskaya, eds., Rossiya mezhdu Evropoi i Aziei: Evraziiskii soblazn’ (Moskva: Nauka,
1993). Also, Victor Yasmann reported already in 1993 that the official journal of the Min-
istry of Foreign Affairs Mezhdunarodnaya zhizn’ (International Life) had become “a podi-
um for Eurasians.” Yasmann, “Red Religion,” 30. For early post-Soviet treatments of
Eurasianism in a major ultra-right journal, see V. Kozhinov, “Istoriosofiya evraziitsev,”
Nash sovremennik, no. 2 (1992): 140- 144; S. Klyuchnikov, “Russkii uzel evraziistva,”
Nash sovremennik, no. 3 (1992): 174-180. For further references, see Vinkovetsky,
“Eurasianism in Its Time: A Bibliography,” in: Vinkovetsky and Schlacks, eds., Exodus to
the East, 156-174, and Aleksandr V. Antoshchenko, “Spory o evraziistve,” in: O Evrazii i
evraziitsakh (bibliograficheskii ukazatel’) (Petrozavodsk: Izdatel’stvo Petrozavodskogo
universiteta, 1996), 7-43, or: URL (last accessed October 2006):
http://www.karelia.ru/psu/Chairs/PreRev/BIBLENG.RTF.
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 145
his entry ticket into mainstream Russian political discourse. It is the success of
Dugin’s purposeful political mimicry—the effective representation of his world-view
and movement within a much broader, popular intellectual and political tendency in
post-Soviet Russia—that seems to be the key to his recent advances. By way of styl-
izing himself as a major representative and innovator of classical Eurasianism, Dugin
has succeeded in distracting public image from his earlier groupuscular strategy of
an unashamed embrace of fascism during the 1990s, and in persuading Russia’s
elite of the “centrism” of his political position and benigness of his aims today. “Eura-
sianism” has been Dugin’s device of entryism allowing him at once to both, sneak in,
and manipulate, the intellectual and political mainstream.
Dugin’s re-interpretation of the highly respected world-view of Eurasianism reminds
of the strategy of Germany’s inter-war “conservative revolutionaries” and their pur-
poseful stretching of such, in the Weimar Republic, popular notions as “socialism”
and “democracy” to fit their ultra-nationalist aims.542 Dugin’s introduction of the term
“neo-Eurasianism,” in turn, is reminiscent of the post-1968 European New Right
which introduced the construct “ethnopluralism” as a euphemistic term for covering its
neo-racist ideology and attempted to utilize the today popular notion of pluralism for
anti-democratic aims. Not only has Dugin succeeded in manipulating “Eurasianism”
in a way that has allowed him to enter the Russian political and intellectual estab-
lishment. In many, if not most Russian and non-Russian scholarly analyses too,
Dugin’s movement is acknowledged as representing a revival of the Russian émigré
intellectual movement of the 1920s-1930s that called itself and became known as
“Eurasianism.”543 It is for this reason—many academics’ acceptance of the Eura-
sianist credentials of Dugin and the scholarly clout this gives to Dugin’s claims—that
this misleading contextualization of the Dugin phenomenon needs to be addressed in
more detail.
As mentioned, Dugin’s intellectual biography indicates that his political thinking and
world view have, initially, been formed by other schools of thought than classical
542
Pfahl-Traughber, Konservative Revolution und Neue Rechte.
543
E.g. Michael Kleineberg and Markus Kaiser, „’Eurasien’—Phantom oder reales Entwick-
lungsmodell für Rußland?“ Universität Bielefeld. Fakultät für Soziologie. For-
schungsschwerpunkt Entwicklungssoziologie—Working Paper, no. 338 (2001), as well
as many other secondary sources on Dugin listed above and below. Interestingly, some
sections of the West European extreme right have started to consciously use the concept
too. See, for example, Carlo Terracciano, Revolte gegen die moderne Weltordnung: Die
revolutionäre Aktualität des Werkes von Julius Evola im Zeitalter der Globalisierung
(Bliestorf: Regin-Verlag, 2005). The issue of the kind and degree of Dugin’s influence on
the West European extreme right could be a fascinating subject for future research.
ANDREAS UMLAND 146
Eurasianism, not the least by Western authors. Such an interpretation departs from
Kaledin’s who asserted a primary importance of Russian authors for Dugin, and sees
Western sources—in particular Traditionalism—coming in only at a second stage.
Kaledin writes:
Simply, Dugin earlier than others read the works of P[etr] P. Se-
menov-Tyan-Shanskii, I[van] Il’in, N[ikolai] Danilevskii, N[ikolai] Ale-
kseev, N[ikolai] Berdyaev and L[ev] Gumilëv who wrote about the
continental might of Russia and her messianic role in unifying around
her all peoples. The merit of Dugin is, merely, that he synthesized
their ideas with philosophical Traditionalism […].544
On the contrary: Russian authors such as the ones mentioned by Kaledin were
adopted by Dugin only later on in order to “nativize” his world view which remained
fundamentally indebted to Western sources.545
Dugin’s Intellectual Biography
The future “Neo-Eurasianist,” according to Mark Sedgwick, translated into Russian
(apparently from German), as early as 1981, i.e. at the age of 19, Baron Julius Evo-
la’s Pagan Imperialism which was, oddly, freely available in Russia’s largest, Lenin
Library. In fact, Evola’s books had already been “discovered in the Lenin Library in
Moscow by Jamal [i.e. Geidar Dzhemal, a close associate of Dugin in the 1980s; see
below—A.U.] and a few other dissidents [also linked to Dugin] shortly after the Cuban
Missile Crisis [in 1962].”546 In 1991, at the age of 29, Dugin translated into Russian
544
See Kaledin, “Terapiya okazalas’ bessil’noi pered maniei Dugina-mladshego pereustroit’
mir.”
545
Thomas Parland makes the following, more apt observation by way of juxtaposing
Dugin’s and KPRF-leader Gennadii Zyuganov’s ideas: “Dugin is more influenced by
[West] European antiliberal rightism in general and German national socialism in particu-
lar, whereas [Gennadii] Zyuganov’s ideas are coloured by Russian conservative thought
(Nikolai Danilevskii, Ivan Il’in, Ivan Solonevich, [Lev] Gumilëv) combined with parts of
[Joseph] Stalin’s legacy as well as with elements of Western thought (Arnold J. Toyne-
bee, Samuel Huntington, i.a.). Dugin is obsessed by occultism, whereas Zyuganov is ra-
ther an eclectic thinker and pragmatic politician.” Parland, The Extreme Nationalist
Threat in Russia, 138.
546
Sedgwick, Against the Modern World, 5, 221-222. According to another report, already in
his youth, Dugin was to such a degree interested in Nazism that he, being member of a
student rock-group, co-produced a so-called “‘Hans-Zivers-Songs’ collection which
praised sadism, decadence and SS romantics.” Timur Polyannikov, “Po tropam Khimery,
ili razmyshlenniya o evraziistve i ‘novom mirovom poriadke.’” Kontinent [Kazachstan],
nos. 21(83), 22(84) & 24(86), 2002, URL (last accessed October 2006):
http://centrasia.org/newsA.php4?st=1039820400. However, this information is not cor-
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 147
and published The Crisis of the Modern World, the major work of René Guénon—
founder of a Western intellectual movement that became know as Traditionalism. A
commentator from Kazakhstan claimed that “it was exactly with this book with which
in the 1960s [Evgenii] Golovin’s and [Geidar] Dzhemal’s [two of Dugin’s major teach-
ers, see below—A.U.] fascination with Traditionalism started which is why [this book]
can rightly be called the ‘true source and secret of Duginism’.”547 Dugin himself speci-
fied in a 2006 interview that his
intellectual formation happened in 1979-1980 when becoming acquaint-
ed with the traditionalists of the “third way,” those like [Eduard] Golovin
and [Geidar] Dzhemal. Therefore, my formation as a personality, as an
intellectual, as a thinker, as a politician, as an ideologue was exactly tra-
ditionalistic. […] I was 17-18 yeas old and saw the world as absolutely
empty and disgusting. This emptiness had to be filled with something.
The alternatives which were offered to me—the intelligentsia with [Bulat]
Okudzhava, half-dissidents reading [Aleksandr] Solzhenitsyn, the inert
conformist Orthodox—did not fill this emptiness at all […]. The only thing
which could fill this gigantic inner emptiness which I had was the total re-
jection of everything modern within the framework of the ultra-
revolutionary traditionalist non-conformist intellectualism of [René]
Guénon and [Julius] Evola. […] That is how I was formed. In 1981-82, I
was already a full-fledged [zakonchennyi] philosopher with an own intel-
lectual agenda, with an own metaphysic and ideology. […] I did not ma-
ture any more [Bol’she ya ne vzroslel].548
One would have to add that, with regard to Guénon himself, it is—reminding some-
what the issue of “neo-Eurasianism”—not clear whether Dugin can be justifiedly
called the former’s legitimate follower, and an authentic representative of perennial
philosophy. That is because Dugin, for example, often seems to locate the begin-
nings of the primordial “Tradition” only in one particular—i.e. the Eurasian—
civilization rather than in an ancient religious order embracing the whole of humanity.
The latter universalistic aspects of Guénon’s world view—sometimes reminiscent of
the Ringparabel in Gotthold Ephraim Lessing’s (1729-1781) famous drama-play Na-
roborated in other biographies of Dugin.
547
Polyannikov, “Po tropam Khimery, ili razmyshlenniya o evraziistve i ‘novom mirovom
poriadke.’”
548
Dugin, “Pravye lyudi—sovremennye pravye.”
ANDREAS UMLAND 148
than, the Wise (1779)—are thus lost in Dugin’s historiosophy. Dugin’s Traditional-
ism—if one is prepared to accept such a designation—is more similar to that of Julius
Evola.549 James Gregor even identified Evola as the principal source for Dugin.550 In
connection with this circumstance, Shenfield’s argument that it is exactly Dugin’s
Traditionalism that “identifies [him] unequivocally as a fascist” is not only conceptually
unsound, and has more to do with Shenfield’s idiosyncratic definition of fascism than
with Guénon’s original Traditionalism.551 Shenfield’s statement seems also empirical-
ly questionable in as far as the peculiar kind of Traditionalism that Dugin learnt from
Evola and that he further manipulated into what was to become “neo-Eurasianism”
has, arguably, not much to do with perennial philosophy as understood by the origi-
nal Traditionalists any more.552
A reason for this might be that other Western theorists—some of whom had no con-
nection to Traditionalism whatsoever—also had considerable influence on Dugin.
Wayne Allensworth wrote, in his informative analysis of contemporary Russian na-
tionalism published in 1998, that “Dugin appropriated (almost wholesale) the ideas of
the Belgian geopolitical theorist Jean Thiriart,” a Belgian former pro-Nazi activist, and
co-founder of West European post-war neo-fascist, anti-Western “National Bolshe-
vism” (more in the Appendix). 553 The most important source of Dugin’s 1991-1992
seminal article “The War of the Continents” seems to have been the Romanian New
Right conspirologist Jean Parvulesco,554 and, in particular, Parvulesco’s 1989 report
The GRU Galaxy: The Secret Mission of Mikhail Gorbachev, the USSR, and the Fu-
ture of the Eurasian Continent which, allegedly, Parvulesco had, personally, given to
Dugin. There, Parvulesco, according to Dugin’s reference, spoke of the “Eurasian
Order” as having been particularly active in the early 20th century.
Oddly, neither Parvulesco nor Dugin mention in this connection the circle of the clas-
sical Eurasianists, but rather an obscure “St. Petersburg doctor Bamaev” as well as,
among others, Baron Roman von Ungern-Sternberg, Marshall Tukhachevskii, or
549
Shenfield, Russian Fasicsm, 268.
550
Gregor, “Andreas Umland and the ‘Fascism’ of Alexander Dugin.”
551
Shenfield, Russian Fasicsm, 195.
552
Sedgwick, Against the Modern World.
553
Allensworth, The Russian Question, 251.
554
For Dugin’s appraisal of Parvulesco or Parvulescu, see A. Dughin, “Star of an Invisible
Empire (on Jean Parvulesco),” URL (last accessed October 2006):
http://www.arctogaia.com/public/eng-parv.htm. For a German version, see URL (last ac-
cessed October 2006): http://www.multikulti.ru/German/info/German_info_160.html.
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 149
GRU founder Semën I. Aralov.555 Moreover, when speaking about the Russian “Eur-
asianist Order’s” white section in Europe—i.e. its representatives in the Russian anti-
communist émigré scene—in his “The Great War of the Continents” (1991-1992),
Dugin does also not mention the classical Eurasianists. Instead, he speaks about
representatives of this Order in the Abwehr [Nazi Germany’s counter-
intelligence unit—A.U.], and later also in the foreign sections of the
SS and SD (especially of the SD, the chief of which [Reinhard Tris-
tan] Heydrich [1904-1942; a mastermind of the Holocaust—A.U.] was
himself a devoted Eurasianist which is why he became a victim of the
intrigues of the Atlanticist [Wilhelm Franz] Canaris [1887-1945; one
of the leaders of the German military Widerstand against Hitler—
A.U.]).556
As illustrated before, Dugin has, in some of his writings, acknowledged the influence
of Western schools of thought, like Traditionalism, the Conservative Revolution or
geopolitics, on “neo-Eurasianism.” Yet, in his Manifesto of the Eurasian Movement,
he, in contradiction to the above autobiographical statement, put the various schools
of thought reflected in “neo-Eurasianism” in a different order, and claimed that his
ideology emerged by way of
[p]roceeding from the heritage of the Russian Eurasianists of the 1920s-
1930s, incorporating the spiritual experience of the tradition of Russian
Orthodoxy from ancient times to today, enriching itself with the social
criticism of the Russian narodniki and European “New Left,” evaluating
anew the achievements of the Soviet epoch of the fatherland’s history,
and, in addition, mastering the philosophy of Traditionalism and Con-
servative Revolution, [and] a developed geopolitical methodology
[…].557
This statement is similar to the one by Kaledin, and not only deliberately confuses the
temporal order of the impact of various sources of “neo-Eurasianism” on Dugin (and,
probably, lets the mentioned Russian and Western left-wingers turn in their graves).
It also camouflages the pre-eminence of Western ideas for his intellectual develop-
ment. Dugin changes here and in other statements the order of primacy for obvious
555
Dugin, Konspirologiya, 100-101.
556
Ibid., 102.
557
URL (last accessed October 2006): http://eurasia.com.ru/manifest.html.
ANDREAS UMLAND 150
reasons: He, being an ultranationalist, needs to make sure to not appear as an im-
porter of Western ideas into Russia—a trait that could become an image problem
similar to those mentioned with regard to Barkashov and Limonov. When still follow-
ing a groupuscular strategy and openly posing as a radical (and not “centrist,” as to-
day), he freely admitted the influence of the German “Conservative Revolution” and
German National Bolshevik Ernst Niekisch (see Appendix). Yet, he felt it necessary
to clarify that “National Bolshevism”—a construct he especially frequently used to
describe his views in the 1990s—is, nevertheless, an “extremist Russian ideology.”558
What Dugin’s activities are about is well-summarized in the following observation by
Wayne Allensworth:
The [Russian] New Right, through its chief ideologist, Aleksandr Dugin,
[…] borrows heavily from the ideological arsenal of the European Right
in an effort to renew the Russian Idea, but it has not repudiated those
Russian thinkers of the past who are considered the precursors of the
new synthesis. Dugin’s ruminations on the nation forming aspects of
geography may be Spengleresque, and he borrows heavily from the
language of the [German] conservative revolution’s cultural system. But
[Nikolai] Danilevskii, [Konstantin] Leont’ev and especially Lev Gumilëv
and the Eurasianists of the 1920s and 1930s are given their due. 559
For example, as a result of the impact of integral Traditionalism for Dugin’s thought,
he has distanced himself from the classical Eurasianist view of Orthodoxy as being
superior to Islam.560 Instead, he has put “traditional Islam” (as opposed to supposedly
non-traditional Wahhabism) on one level with Russian Orthodoxy. 561 While the clas-
sical Eurasianists had also sympathies for Islam, they wrote negatively about the Ko-
ran.562 They attacked Eastern religions—not the least Buddhism—as being “Satan-
ic.”563 Dugin, on the contrary, has openly shown sympathy for many Eastern reli-
gions, and made positive references to representatives of Western Satanism. For
Dugin, Orthodoxy by itself plays obviously a less important role than it did for the
558
Aleksandr Dugin, “Novyi natsional-bol’shevistskii poryadok,” URL (last accessed October
2006): http://www.redline.ru/~arctogai/nacbol.html, as quoted in Mey, Russische
Schriftsteller und Nationalismus 1986-1995, 316, emphasis added.
559
Allensworth, The Russian Question, 259.
560
Novikova and Sizemskaya, “Dva lika evraziistva.”
561
Mitrofanova, Politizatsiya “pravoslavnogo mira,” 137; idem, The Politicization of Russian
Orthodoxy, 52.
562
Laryuel’, Ideologiya russkogo evraziistva, 183.
563
Laryuel’, Ideologiya russkogo evraziistva, 185-186.
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 151
classical Eurasianists who were already by their upbringing devout Orthodox believ-
ers. Dugin, in contrast, has only recently become a member of an Orthodox Church
of the Old Belief which, however, accepts the supremacy of the Moscow Patriarchy.
Being framed by the ideas of Evola and other Traditionalists, Dugin sees Orthodoxy
only as one of several religions that have preserved the initial “Tradition.” No such
ideas can be found in classical Eurasianism. Whereas classical Eurasianism may
well count as a brand of—what Mitrofanova calls—“political Orthodoxy,” Dugin’s
“neo-Eurasianism” should, contrary to a classification made by Mitrofanova too, per-
haps not.564
The classical Eurasianist point of view concerning the separateness of different civili-
zations from each other is, in some regards, similar to Samuel Huntington’s The
Clash of Civilizations. In contrast, Dugin puts, in a Guénonian vein, more emphasis
on a conflict between Eurasian Orthodox, Islamic, Buddhist and other civilizations
that have allegedly preserved, to one degree or another, the “primordial Tradition”
and are thus united by virtue of their common fundamental social values, on the one
side, and those—Western or Western-influenced—cultures that are inflicted with
decadence and degradation as a result of their departure from the original hierar-
chical social order of the Tradition, on the other. 565 Moreover, Dugin allows, again
inspired by West European Traditionalism, for principal differences within various
world religions. He differentiates between their “Eurasian” or “traditional” subsections,
on the one side, and their “Atlanticist” or “profane” deviations, on the other, elevating
this division into the major line of world conflict. While Dugin’s “Eurasian” camp may
thus, for instance, include certain Jewish “Traditionalists,” the latter “Atlanticist” coali-
tion encompasses as different congregations as the Christian Orthodox Constantino-
ple Patriarchy, Wahhabism, Protestantism, or Puritanism.566
Dugin thereby does not talk about the conflict between Orthodoxy, Is-
lam and Buddhism, for instance, or about “the clash of civilizations” in
the Huntingtonian sense. Instead, he focuses on conflict between var-
ious deviations from Tradition. The West is the only civilization which
has not descended from “real” Tradition, and that is why all Traditional
religions should unite against it.567
564
Mitrofanova, The Politicization of Russian Orthodoxy
565
Mitrofanova, The Politicization of Russian Orthodoxy.
566
Mitrofanova, Politizatsiya “pravoslavnogo mira,” 136-137.
567
Idem, The Politicization of Russian Orthodoxy, 53. It seems to me that, therefore, Andrei
ANDREAS UMLAND 152
Not only does Dugin’s biography—outlined in more detail below—indicate the pres-
ence of other sources for his thinking than Eurasianism. A comparison between “neo-
Eurasianism” and classical Eurasianism reveals further differences these two bodies
of thought.
Similarities between Classical Eurasianism and “Neo-Eurasianism”
To be sure, it is certainly the case that classical Eurasianism was, like Dugin’s “neo-
Eurasianism,” radically anti-Western and anti-democratic, organicistic and potentially
totalitarian. The fact that Petr N. Savitskii was influenced by early German geopolitics
is reminiscent of Dugin’s debt to German anti-democratic thought. Equally, the sym-
pathies that Roman Yakobson and Petr Suvchinskii, apparently, had for futurism are
reminiscent of Dugin’s interests.568 There are also some substantive similarities.569
This concerns, for instance, the resemblance between Dugin’s vision of the future
and Nikolai Trubetskoi’s wish that the earth should be divided into “systems of autar-
kic worlds.”570 Both the classical Eurasianists and “neo-Eurasianists” have shown
considerable sympathy for Bolshevism which they both saw as an, in distinction to
Marxism, Russian national phenomenon.571 Like Dugin, the Eurasians endorsed the
October Revolution, and were interested in Nikolai Ustryalov’s National Bolshe-
vism.572 When Dugin explicitly approved of the October Revolution of 1917 and
praises Lenin, this can be seen as a sign of continuity with the classical Eurasianists
who “considered their ‘constructive’ attitude toward the Russian revolution as a lead-
ing distinction between them and other groupings of Russian exiles and a main rea-
Tsygankov’s interesting argument about the contamination of Russian public discourse
by Samuel Huntington’s differentialist ideas is thus only partly responsible for the rise of
people like Dugin whose world-view has different sources. While the reception of Hun-
tington’s theory in Russia may have contributed to a more nationalistic and anti-Western
Russian discourse, the Harvard professor’s views were far too moderate in order to exert
a substantive impact on the extreme right. Tsygankov, Whose World Order?
568
Nicholas V. Riasanovsky, “Afterword: The Emergence of Eurasianism,” in: Vinkovetsky
and Schlacks, eds., Exodus to the East, 115-142, here 131-132, 137, 148.
569
Leonid Lyuks, “Zametki o ‘revolyutsonno-traditsionalistskoi’ kul’turnoi modeli ‘evrazi-
itsev’,” Forum noveishei vostochnoevropeiskoi istorii i kul’tury 1, no. 2 (2004), URL (last
accessed October 2006): http://www1.ku-
eichstaett.de/ZIMOS/forum/docs/8Evrazijcy.pdf.
570
Nikolai S. Trubetskoi, Nasledie Chingis-Khana (Moskva: Agraf, 1999), 515; as quoted in
Mitrofanova, Politizatsiya “pravoslavnogo mira,” 113. See further Otto Böss, “Zur
Wirtschaftskonzeption der ‘Eurasier’,” in: Werner Gumpel and Dietmar Keese, eds.,
Probleme des Industrialismus in Ost und West: Festschrift für Hans Raupach (München
and Wien: Olzog, 1973), 481-492.
571
Laryuel’, Ideologiya russkogo evraziistva, 93.
572
Laryuel’, Ideologiya russkogo evraziistva, 94.
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 153
son why they, rather than these others, would renew Russia.”573 Savitskii even once
wrote that Lenin was greater than Chingis Khan who was regarded, by the classical
Eurasianists, as the founder of Russia-Eurasia.574 The classical Eurasianists’ partial
approval of the Soviet regime led their fellow émigrés to call them “Orthodox Bolshe-
viks.”575
What is further noteworthy is the particular, affirmative self-description of the classical
Eurasianists as “nationalists.” The authors of the 1921 manifesto of classical Eura-
sianism Iskhod k Vostoku (Exodus to the East) wrote in their introduction: 576 “[W]e
direct our nationalism not merely toward ‘Slavs,’ but toward a whole circle of peoples
of the ‘Eurasian’ world, among whom the Russian people has the central position.” 577
This is a sentence which would seem to represent Dugin’s aspirations well too. The
same goes for the classical Eurasianists’ interest for the concept of a “Third Way.” 578
Further, in the words of Stefan Wiederkehr, both teachings, classical and “neo-
“Eurasianism
reduced [their polycentric conception of world history] in their political
practice to a Manichean bipolar world view. That was because the
historical mission of Russia-Eurasia consisted, in their eyes, in unify-
ing all those who defend the multiplicity of cultures against the main
enemy. The latter was accused of an intention to push through its
own cultural model as a standard world-wide.579
Nevertheless, it seems also clear that classical Eurasianism was considerably less
aggressive than Dugin’s “neo-Eurasianism.” To be sure, the classical Eurasianists’
ideology was, as indicated above, “close to totalitarian” and their scholarly practice
“exclusively ‘national’.”580 Pavel Milyukov has accused Eurasianism of mysticism and
of closeness to German racism.581 One might even consider classical Eurasianism as
a form of (proto-) fascism,582 as Fedor Stepun has explicitly done.583 Laruelle has
detected similarities between classical Eurasianism and Italian Fascism as well as
573
Riasanovsky, “Afterword: The Emergence of Eurasianism,” 123.
574
Laryuel’, Ideologiya russkogo evraziistva, 211.
575
As quoted in Laryuel’, Ideologiya russkogo evraziistva, 101.
576
Iskhod k Vostoku (Sofiya: Tipografiya “Balkan,” 1921), III-VII.
577
Vinkovetsky and Schlacks, Exodus to the East, 4.
578
Laryuel’, Ideologiya russkogo evraziistva, 78.
579
Wiederkehr, “‘Kontinent Evrasija’,” 128.
580
Laryuel’, Ideologiya russkogo evraziistva, 8.
581
Ibid., 43.
582
On the concept of proto-fascism, see Griffin, The Nature of Fascism.
583
Laryuel’, Ideologiya russkogo evraziistva, 43.
ANDREAS UMLAND 154
the French extreme right, i.e. the writings of its intellectual leaders Maurice Barrès
(1862-1923) and Charles Maurras (1868-1952).584 They also defined themselves, like
Dugin’s followers, as both a political party and religious order.585
Discrepancies between Classical Eurasianism and “Neo-Eurasianism”
Notwithstanding, a comparative reading of texts by the classical Eurasianists, on the
one side, and by Dugin and his followers, on the other, reveals differences in con-
tents, style, and tone which are altogether more significant and go deeper than the
listed similarities. In particular, Dugin’s overt sympathy for certain precursors, fellow-
travellers, brands, manifestations, and successors of German Nazism constitutes a
thick dividing line between classical Eurasianism and “neo-Eurasianism.” Trubetskoi
wrote already in 1935—i.e. long before World War II, the Holocaust and Nazi Ger-
many’s attack on the Soviet Union—that “our views on the idea governing a truly
ideocratic state are irreconcilable with the colonial imperialism so manifest in the
modern European ideocratic (‘fascist’) movements.”586 That is a kind of principled
rejection of inter-war fascism which contradicts, in particular, early Duginism. One
should, moreover, keep in mind that Dugin made his various affirmative statements
on Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany after the Axis powers had devastated large parts
of Russia. Whereas, for the classical Eurasianists, their affirmative view of the con-
cept of a “Third Way” meant that Russia should choose a path between communism
and capitalism, yet avoid fascism,587 Dugin has presented various forms of inter-war
European fascism as permutations of exactly—what he calls—the “Third Way” and
“Conservative Revolution,” concepts he adheres too. In an article finished in May
1991, Dugin, for instance, wrote that the
fullest and most total (though, one has to admit, not the most orthodox)
embodiment of the Third Way was German National Socialism. In prin-
ciple, the phrase “national socialism” has an obviously “conservative
revolutionary” character in as far as such a unification of the right-wing
concept of nationalism with the left concept of socialism in the under-
584
Ibid., 87.
585
Ibid., 47, 49.
586
N.S. Trubetzkoy, The Legacy of Genghis Khan and Other Essays on Russia’s Identity
(Ann Arbor: Michigan Slavic Studies Publications, 1991), 274, as quoted in lya Vinko-
vetsky, “Eurasianism in Its Time: A Bibliography,” in: Vinkovetsky and Schlacks, eds.,
Exodus to the East, 143-174, here 149.
587
Laryuel’, Ideologiya russkogo evraziistva, 78.
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 155
standing of the ideologues of this party [the NSDAP] was meant to un-
derscore that we are talking about exactly a Third, and neither a right
nor left, Way.588
Though both the classical and “neo-Eurasianists” have acknowledged their closeness
to Italian Fascism, their sympathetic critique of Mussolini’s regime was of a different
nature: The classical Eurasians tended to pick for criticism certain—what they saw
as—excesses of Italian Fascism like its leader cult, imperialism, or sacralization of
the Italian people. 589 They rejected the cult of raw force and war. 590 In contrast, Dugin
has, somewhat reminding similar arguments made by Julius Evola,591 attacked inter-
war fascism, including Italian Fascism, as having been too moderate and having
made too many compromises with the old elites. Predictably, therefore, Dugin has
been most sympathetic to the Nazi-sponsored, more radical 1943-1945 North Italian
Social Republic of Salo which “fulfilled all criteria of the Third Way.” 592 The classical
Eurasianists distinguished themselves among their Russian fellow ultranationalists
with their principled critique of Nazism—especially its pan-German and Aryan ide-
as593—long before the Third Reich turned eastwards and when a Nazi-Soviet coop-
eration still seemed possible. In contrast, Dugin has, in spite of writing after World
War II and the Holocaust as well as their extensive description in scholarly and publi-
cistic texts, found many positive aspects in Nazi theory and practice, and, in particu-
lar, in selected sections of the Nazis’ most cruel organizations the SS, like Hermann
Wirth’s Ahnenerbe Institute and SD, for explicit praise.594
Dugin does also not hesitate to admit that, concerning the relationship between Ger-
many’s “Conservative Revolution” of the 1920s and early 1930s and Nazism, “it is
impossible to deny continuity—though their direct identification with each other would
be also unacceptable.”595 With this statement, Dugin is closer to liberal, left-wing and
mainstream Western scholarly views on the role of the German “Conservative Revo-
lution” in the Weimar Republic than to the apologetic writings of many West Europe-
an New Rightists who have, again and again, attempted draw a line of division be-
588
Dugin, Konservativnaya Revolyutsiya, 14.
589
Laryuel’, Ideologiya russkogo evraziistva, 100.
590
Laryuel’, Ideologiya russkogo evraziistva, 261.
591
Umland, “Classification, Julius Evola and the Nature of Dugin’s Ideology.”
592
Dugin, Konservativnaya Revolyutsiya, 17.
593
Laryuel’, Ideologiya russkogo evraziistva, 101.
594
Dugin, Konservativnaya Revolyutsiya, 25; idem, Giperboreiskaya Teoriya (opyt ariosof-
skogo issledovaniya) (Moskva: Arktogya, 1993), 3-72.
595
Dugin, Konservativnaya Revolyutsiya, 21.
ANDREAS UMLAND 156
tween the “Conservative Revolution” (their officially acknowledged predecessors), on
the one side, and Nazism, on the other. The European New Right, sometimes, even
presented people like Ernst Jünger as principled anti-fascists. The fact that Dugin, in
contrast, does not care to make such distinctions and frankly acknowledges the link
between his publicly acknowledged intellectual forefathers—the same German “con-
servative revolutionaries”—and the ideology that brought death, deportation, en-
slavement etc. to millions of Eastern Slavs and other peoples of “Eurasia” is remark-
able. Whereas the classical Eurasianists condemned racism and especially racial
anti-Semitism for its “extreme anthropological materialism,” 596 Dugin, though also not
being a biologically racist anti-Semite (in the narrow sense), has not hesitated to
mention the relevance of “racial belonging [rasovaya prinadlezhnost’]” to people’s
identity.597 He devoted space in his major book Foundations of Geopolitics on attack-
ing Jews—a subject that has been extensively dealt with in a book by Vadim
Rossman (and can therefore be ignored here).598
Further worth-mentioning differences concern the intellectual biographies and dis-
parities in the epistemology of the classical Eurasianists, on the one side, and Dugin
and his followers, on the other. Dugin’s movement grew out of an eccentric circle of
anti-Soviet mysticists who had engaged in self-experiments and taken an interest in
various forms of esotericism and extremism. The Eurasianists in contrast had, most-
ly, grown up in the liberal atmosphere of late Tsarist St. Petersburg. Before fleeing
Russia, they had been part and parcel of Russia’s intellectual elite, and received reg-
ular under- and post-graduate university training. In spite of their radical anti-
Westernism and rejection of dry empiricism, they continued to view themselves as
academics engaged in scholarly research. While also holding metaphysical, rather
than rationalist world views, they still valued scientific analysis. Savitskii, for instance,
took an interest in quantitative techniques and attempted to apply natural science
methods to the humanities.599
Dugin’s Late Embrace of Russian Eurasianism
Dugin, apparently, started reading seriously Eurasianist texts only after he had been
formed intellectually by Western Traditionalism and mysticism, the German “Con-
596
Laryuel’, Ideologiya russkogo evraziistva, 134.
597
Dugin, Konservativnaya Revolyutsiya, 21.
598
Rossman, Russian Intellectual Antisemitism.
599
Laryuel’, Ideologiya russkogo evraziistva, 70-72.
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 157
servative Revolution” and Nazism, as well as the ideas of the French Old and New
Right. Thus, in his seminal article “The Great War of the Continents” written in 1991,
Dugin mentions the classical Eurasianists only en passant, and in connection with
German geopolitics.600 When, in 1992, Dugin held an important roundtable with rep-
resentatives of Western and Russian extremely right-wing political and intellectual
circles, its subject was the geopolitics of “Eurasia.” However, as Stefan Wiederkehr
commented,
[t]his debate […] represented not Eurasianism in the sense of the
émigré movement between the world wars. […] Dugin, to be sure,
mentioned in passing classical Eurasianism when he recalled, for his
conversation partners, the history of Russian geopolitical thought; yet
he mixed up Nikolai Trubetskoi with his uncle Evgenii and called Petr
Savitskii erroneously N. Savitskoi […]. These mistakes make clear
how little Dugin was, at this point, familiar with classical Eurasianism.
He used the term “Eurasia,” but in the sense of Western geopolitical
thought.601
In his major 1994 political manifesto The Aims and Tasks of Our Revolution, Dugin
still hardly mentions Eurasianism.602
Whereas classical Eurasianism has, in spite of its radical anti-Westernism, continued
to be viewed, by Western observers, with a certain—sometimes, considerable—
degree of empathy, if not sympathy, “neo-Eurasianism” has been, aptly, labelled by
Western observers “geopolitical anti-Semitism,”603 “neo-National Bolshevism,” 604
“fascism,”605 or “neo-fascism.”606 Though having been a former student of Professor
Aleksandr Panarin who, shortly before his death, endorsed Dugin, the Russian émi-
gré political scientist Andrei Tsygankov too has put Dugin under the unsympathetic
600
Dugin, Konspirologiya, 94-95.
601
Wiederkehr, “‘Kontinent Evrasija’,” 127-128.
602
Aleksandr Dugin, Tseli i Zadachi Nashei Revoyutii (Moskva: Fravarti, 1995), 19.
603
Rossman, Russian Intellectual Antisemitism in the Post-Communist Era, 61.
604
Markus Mathyl, “Der ‘unaufhaltsame Aufstieg’ des Aleksandr Dugin: Neo-
Nationalbolschewismus und Neue Rechte in Russland,” Osteuropa 52, no. 7 (2002):
885-900; Mischa Gabowitsch, “Der russische ‚Nationalpatriotismus’ der Gegenwart und
sein Verhältnis zum Kommunismus,“ in: Uwe Backes, ed., Rechtsextreme Ideologien in
Geschichte und Gegenwart (Köln: Böhlau, 2003), 311-318.
605
E.g. Allensworth, The Russian Question, 243-262; Shenfield, Russian Fascism, 190-220;
John B. Dunlop, “Aleksandr Dugin’s ‘Neo-Eurasian’ Textbook and Dmitrii Trenin’s Am-
bivalent Response,” Harvard Ukrainian Studies 25, no. 1/2 (2001): 91-127; as well as
other authors quoted above and below (including myself).
606
E.g. Ingram, “Alexander Dugin.”
ANDREAS UMLAND 158
and apt label of “revolutionary expansionism.” 607 Another, well-informed Russian au-
thor even presented Dugin—in view of his temporary affiliation with Limonov’s above
mentioned National-Bolshevik Party in 1994-1998—under the heading Nazism in
Russia.608
Apart from significant differences in the degree of hostility towards perceived foreign
and domestic enemies of Russia, there are also disparities in basic concepts of both
ideologies.609 By way of acclaiming the heritage of the classical Eurasianists, Dugin
607
Andrei P. Tsygankov, “From Internationalism to Revolutionary Expansionism: The For-
eign Policy Discourse of Contemporary Russia,” Mershon International Studies Review
41, no. 2 (1997): 247-268.
608
Likhachev, Natsizm v Rossii. While the intention of Likhachev’s classification is under-
standable, it might, for methodological reasons, be more useful to consider Dugin not a
neo-Nazi, but, perhaps, “merely” a neo-fascist. On this issue, see Umland, “The Post-
Soviet Russian Extreme Right;” idem, “Concepts of Fascism in Russia and the West,”
and idem, “Tri raznovidnosti postsovetskogo fashizma.” What is more worrying (and, al-
so, more typical of Russian reflections on this issue) is Mitrofanova’s defense of “neo-
Eurasianism” against its classification as “fascist” on the basis that “neo-Eurasianism” is
not racist. Without reference to the literature on comparative fascism, Mitrofanova an-
nounces that one could only regard “neo-Eurasianism” as fascist, if one decided to “call
fascist generally all non-democratic ideologies.” Mitrofanova, Politizatsiya “pra-
voslavnogo mira,” 142. Not only is the question whether Dugin’s ideology can be classi-
fied as racist or not hardly answerable as quickly as Mitrofanova does in her book. What
is more important is that narrowly biological racism cannot be regarded as a definitional
core-criterion of generic fascism. Such a conceptualization would imply that Italian Fas-
cism (at least, in the form it had taken before it became influenced by Nazism in the late
1930s) would have to be regarded as only partly fascist, or even non-fascist. It is also not
trivial that one of the persons who has explicitly demonstrated that Dugin is pro-fascist is
Dugin himself. See Aleksandr Dugin, “Fascism—Borderless and Red,” in: Griffin, Loh
and Umland, Fascism Past and Present, 505-510. Judging from this and other publica-
tions of Dugin on the issue, it seems that Dugin may have a better understanding of the
nature of generic fascism than Mitrofanova. Moreover, it appears that, at a later point in
her book, Mitrofanova contradicts herself when she argues now that, for inter-war Rus-
sian émigré “fascism [sic!], racism was absolutely not characteristic—apparently, be-
cause its leaders took as a basis not German Nazism, but Italian Fascism.” Mitrofanova,
Politizatsiya “pravoslavnogo mira,” 156. Finally, Mitrofanova’s assertion in her book (ibid.,
142) that “anti-Semitism is not characteristic of the Eurasianists [i.e. of Dugin and his fol-
lowers—A.U.]” seems oblivious of the relevant scholarly literature on this issue, above
all, of the findings of Rossman, Russian Intellectual Antisemitism, 23-71, and Likhachev,
Politicheskii antisemitizm v sovremennoi Rossii, 34-42.
609
Some recent important analyses of classical Eurasianism include, in chronological order,
Leonid Luks, “Die Ideologie der Eurasier im zeitgeschichtlichen Zusammenhang,“
Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas 34 (1986): 374-395, reprinted in idem, Der
russische “Sonderweg”? Aufsätze zur neuesten Geschichte Russland im europäischen
Kontext. Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics & Society 16 (Stuttgart: ibidem, 2005), 65-97;
idem, “Evraziistvo,“ Voprosy filosofii, no. 6 (1993): 105-114; Viktor Shnirel’man, “Evrazi-
iskaya ideya i teoriya kul’tury,” Etnograficheskoe obozrenie, no. 4 (1996), 3-16; idem,
“Evraziitsy i evrei;” idem, “Evraziistvo i natsional’nyi vopros (vmesto otveta V.V. Kar-
lovu),” Etnograficheskoe obozrenie, no. 2 (1997), 112-125; Dmitrii V. Shlapentokh, “Eur-
asianism: Past and Present,” Communist and Post-Communist Studies 30 (1997): 129-
151; Marlène Laruelle, L’idélogie eurasiste russe ou comment penser l’empire. With a
foreword by Patrick Sériot (Paris: L'Harmattan, 1999); Viktor Shnirel’man, “Russkie, ne-
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 159
manipulates their legacy in a way reminding a similar strategy by the above men-
tioned late Soviet geographer-ethnologist Lev N. Gumilëv. The following short excur-
sus illustrates the point.
III.5.4 Excursus I: Gumilëv’s “Eurasianism”
The Gumilëvian World View
Gumilëv’s rabidly antisemitic theory of ethnogenesis amounts to an attempt to give a
peculiar, novel kind of racism a (pseudo-) scientific basis.610 His teaching constitutes,
“in terms of its breadth and complexity, a hard to grasp collection of speculative hy-
potheses, unproven claims, questionable psychologisms and pseudo-scientific prop-
ositions.”611 It claims that ethnies are not only culturally, but also biologically defined,
literally natural groups who, over the period of several centuries, cyclically rise and
fall—a view reminiscent of the ideas of Nikolai Danilevskii and Oswald Spengler.612
Their ascent is determined—and here Gumilëv goes beyond Danilevskii and Speng-
ler—by “micromutations” caused by solar or galactic emissions leading these ethnies
to become particularly passionate and to give birth to selfless, heroic leader figures
driven by moral goals and prone to an ethic of self-immolation.613 The ethnies’ or
larger “superethnies” descent, in turn, can be triggered by intermixture with other,
russkie i evraziiskii federalism: evraziitsy i ikh opponenty v 1920-e gody,” Slavyan-
ovedenie, no. 4 (2002): 3-20; Viktor Shnirel’man, Intellektual’nye labirinty: Ocherki ide-
ologii v sovremennoi Rossii (Moskva: Academia, 2004), 18-103.
610
On anti-Semitism: Rossman, Russian Intellectual Antisemitism, 72-100; Andrei Roga-
chevskii, “Lev Gumilev i evreiskii vopros (po lichnym vospominaniyam),” Solnechnoe
spletenie (Jerusalem), no. 18/19 (2001): 358-368. On Gumilëv’s scientific pretenstions:
Yasmann, “Red Religion;” Bruno Naarden, “’I am a genius, but no more than that:’ Lev
Gumilev (1912-1992), Ethnogenesis, the Russian Past and World History,” Jahrbücher
für Geschichte Osteuropas 44 (1996): 54-82; D. Dragunskii, “Massovaya kul’tura dlya iz-
brannykh,” Itgoi, no. 9(94) (1998): 50-53; Kochanek, “Die Ethnienlehre Lev N. Gumilevs;“
Ryszard Paradowski, “The Eurasian Idea and Leo Gumilëv’s Scientific Ideology,” Cana-
dian Slavonic Papers 41, no. 1 (1999): 19-32; Vladimir Korenyako, “Etnonatsionalizm,
kvaziistoriografiya i akademicheskaya nauka,” in: A. Malashenko and M.B. Olkott, eds.,
Real’nost’ etnicheskikh mifov (Moskva: Moskovskii tsentr Karnegi, Gendal’f, 2000), 34-
52, here 39-44; Marlène Laruelle, „Lev N. Gumilev (1912-1992): biologisme et eurasisme
en Russie,“ Revue des Ètudes slaves 72, no. 1-2 (2000): 163-189; Victor Shnirelman
and Sergei Panarin, “Lev Gumilev: His Pretensions as a Founder of Ethnology and his
Eurasian Theories,” Inner Asia 3, no. 1 (2001): 1-18; Assen Ignatow, “Esoterik als Ges-
chichtsdeutung: Lev Gumilevs ‘historiosophische’ Lehren,” Forum für osteuropäische
Ideen- und Zeitgeschichte 6, no. 1 (2002): 13-41. I would agree with Stephen Shenfield
that “[a] full book-length study [of Lev Gumilëv] is sorely needed.” Shenfield, Russian Fa-
sicsm, 271.
611
Kochanek, “Die Ethnienlehre Lev N. Gumilevs,“ 1186.
612
Parland, The Extreme Nationalist Threat in Russia, 22.
613
Rossman, Russian Intellectual Antisemitism, 73-74.
ANDREAS UMLAND 160
often parasitic peoples (e.g. Jews)—a dangerous process that leads to the formation
of “chimerical” civilizations destined to decline.614 Vadim Rossman has pointed to the
strange terminology that Gumilëv uses describing the latter process: “parasites,”
“vampires sucking human blood,” “cancerous tumour which devours healthy cells,”
and “tapeworms in the stomach of the animal.”615 It should not come as a surprise
that “scholarly” writings using such phrases have become popular in the post-Soviet
Russian extremely right-wing scene. “Many nationalist leaders and ideologists began
[in the 1990s] to use [Gumilëv’s] theories as legitimization for their political agenda,
using terminology from his theory of ethnogenesis, and even incorporating his pseu-
do-scientific language into their political programs.”616
Gumilëv’s bizarre theory is of interest here less in terms of its content or importance
for Russia’s ultra-nationalist discourse. What makes it interesting for this study and
for an understanding of post-Soviet Russian discourse, is that it has, in spite of hav-
ing won no notable support among geneticists or radiologists, 617 become incredibly
popular among Russian intellectuals, in general, and infiltrated deeply middle and
higher education programs, in particular. “[A]fter glasnost, […] millions of his books
were published, and an avalanche of other publications about his theories appeared
in Russian periodicals.”618 “The ethnogenetic special vocabulary developed by him
[…] enjoys wide application in popular-scientific specialized literature and publi-
cism.”619 In Victor Yasmann’s words,
[Gumilëv’s] books significantly contributed to the gigantic intellectual
counter-revolution that was taking place in the shadows of the collapse
of communism and the disintegration of the USSR. […] [I]n Russia and
other parts of the former Union, Gumilëv has had an enormous intellec-
tual impact, and […] has enjoyed immeasurable support from key intel-
614
Of his many books, the most important ones in this context are Lev Gumilëv, Konets i
vnov’ nachalo: Populyarnye lektsii po narodovedeniyu (Moskva: Rol’f, 2002), and idem,
Etnogenez i biosfera zemli (Sankt-Peterburg: Azbuka-klassika, 2002). It is telling that the
latter book was printed in the publisher’s series “Academia.”
615
Rossman, Russian Intellectual Antisemitism, 75.
616
Rossman, Russian Intellectual Antisemitism, 89. On Gumilëv’s impact on the post-Soviet
extremely right-wing publicist Yurii Borodai, and on the chairman of the fascist National-
Republican Party of Russia, Nikolai Lysenko, see Kochanek, “Die Ethnienlehre Lev N.
Gumilevs,“ 1196-1197.
617
The prominent Russian geneticist N. Timofeev-Resovskii, called Gumilëv, according to
Gumilëv’s widow, a “mad paranoic.” As quoted in Korenyako, “Etnonatsionalizm, kvaziis-
toriografiya i akademicheskaya nauka,” 51. See also Ignatow, “Esoterik als Ges-
chichtsdeutung,” 40.
618
Rossman, Russian Intellectual Antisemitism, 72.
619
Kochanek, “Die Ethnienlehre Lev N. Gumilevs,“ 1186.
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 161
lectual and political sectors. 620
“Moreover, an image has been created of Gumilëv as a great man, criticism of whom
is sacrilege.”621 A foreword to a recent edition of his most important book Ethnogene-
sis and the World’s Biosphere under the title of “A Gulliver among Liliputs” starts with
the following sentences:
Lev Nikolaevich Gumilëv was not simply an outstanding human being.
People like him do not exist in our times. The great attraction of his per-
sonality was the combination of a multiplicity of qualities, characteristics
and conditions. [His] mind and horizon, passion and irony, generosity
and simplicity… And in all this—a dimension of human personality un-
seen, unusual for the modern world, and measurable to nothing.622
The author goes on to compare Gumilëv to Charles Darwin, Galileo Galileus, Giro-
lamo Savonarola, Aristotle, Nicolaus Copernicus, and Isaac Newton.623 Even some
non-Russian authors who are, in general, critical of Gumilëv have, at times, paid trib-
ute to the “originality” of his ideas. 624 The recently founded elite Eurasian University
at Kazakhstan’s new capital Astana has been named after Lev Gumilëv. It has been
reported that President Vladimir Putin publicly praised Gumilëv at the celebration of
the 1000th birthday of the capital of Tatarstan Kazan’ on 26th August 2005.625 The
theories and concepts of Gumilëv are regular points of reference in major TV talk
shows and documentaries on Russian and world history. Korenyako comes to the
conclusion that
L[ev] Gumilëv has sharply lowered the level of academic professionalism
recognizable by the broad audience [of Russia], and has, thanks to a lit-
erary talent and an envying productivity shown […]: In the eyes of public
opinion, one can become a ”great scholar” and “master of thoughts [vlas-
titelem dum]” by not only refraining from trying to rise above the level of
620
Yasmann, “Red Religion,” 25.
621
Shenfield, Russian Fascism, 44.
622
A. Ikonnikov-Galitskii, “Gulliver sredi liliputov,” in: Gumilëv, Etnogenez i biosfera zemli, 7-
24, here 7.
623
Ibid., 12, 20.
624
Ignatow, “Esoterik als Geschichtsdeutung,” 14, 37. See also Naarden, “’I am a genius,
but no more than that’,“ or Paradowski, “The Eurasian Idea and Leo Gumilëv’s Scientific
Ideology.”
625
Dmitry Shlapentokh, “Russia’s Foreign Policy and Eurasianism,” URL (last accessed
October 2006):
http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/insight/articles/eav080205a.shtml.
ANDREAS UMLAND 162
a dilettante, but by also avoiding all reflection concerning one’s own, of-
ten most serious mistakes.626
Gumilëv and Classical Eurasianism
As Marlène Laruelle has shown, Gumilëv’s claim that he is the “last Eurasianist” and,
in Russia, widespread view that he is indeed the last representative of classical Eur-
asianism are doubtful.627 While the Eurasianist outlook was—in its debt to geogra-
phy, understanding of Russian national identity, sympathy for Asia and anti-
Westernism—partly similar to Gumilëv’s world view, the Eurasianists’ emphasis on
cultural difference between Eurasians and Europeans is fundamentally different from
Gumilëv’s socio-biological approach to ethnies or “superethnies”628—an attitude, ac-
cording to Laruelle, more related to certain tendencies in Soviet social sciences in the
1960s-1970s than to classical Eurasianism.629 In Ilya Vinkovetskii’s words,
[Lev Gumilëv] had read a few, but not many, Eurasian[ist] works. [His]
own ideas, including his theory of ethnogenesis and the concept of “pas-
sionarnost’ [drive, passion],” went well beyond the pale of traditional Eur-
asianism. His indulgence in cosmism was far more pervasive than that of
the Evraziya [the Eurasianists’ major periodical] contributors [who had
become followers of Nikolai Fedorov—A.U.] rejected by [the two major
theorists of classical Eurasianism Nikolai] Trubetskoi and [Petr] Savit-
skii.630
Laruelle also points out that the Eurasianists had a largely positive view of Islam
626
Korenyako, “Etnonatsionalizm, kvaziistoriografiya i akademicheskaya nauka,” 44.
627
Lev N. Gumilëv, “Zametki poslednego evraziitsa.” Nashe nasledie,. no. 3 (1991): 19-34;
idem, “Menya nazyvayut evraziitsem….,” Nash sovremennik, no. 1 (1991): 62; idem,
“’...Esli Rossiia budet spasena, to tol’ko cherez evraziistvo:’ Interv’yu s L.N. Gumilevym,”
Nachala, no. 4 (1992): 4-16; Marlen Laryuel’, “Kogda prisvaivaetsya intellektual’naya
sobstvennost’, ili O protivopolozhnosti L.N. Gumilëva i P.N. Savitskogo,” Vestnik Ev-
razii—Acta Eurasica, no. 4(15) (2001): 5-19. Dugin’s claim that Savitskii and Gumilëv
once met in prison seems to not have been the case. In this regard, Shenfield’s other-
wise reliable study needs to be corrected. Shenfield, Russian Fascism, 37.
628
Recent editions that include the core of Gumilëv’s theory of ethnogenesis include Lev
Gumilëv, Etnogenez i biosfera zemli (Sankt-Peterburg: Azbuka-klassika, 2002); idem,
Konets i vnov’ nachalo: Populyarnye lektsii po narodovedeniyu (Moskva: Rol’f, 2002).
629
Laryuel’, “Kogda prisvaivaetsya intellektual’naya sobstvennost’,” 6, 11. Kochanek sees
also connections with the teaching of the geochemist Vladimir I. Vernadskii (1863-1945),
cosmobiologist Aleksandr L. Chizhevskii (1897-1964), and agronomist Trofim D. Lysenko
(1898-1976). Kochanek, “Die Ethnienlehre Lev N. Gumilevs,“ 1186, 1189, n. 26.
630
Vinkovetsky, “Eurasianism in Its Time: A Bibliography,” in: Vinkovetsky and Schlacks,
eds., Exodus to the East, 153.
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 163
whereas Gumilëv, more often than not, saw Islam negatively.631 One could list other
divergences.
In Laruelle’s words, “[t]he idea of a synchrony between the work of the Eurasianists
and Gumilëv is [however] of principal importance for his disciples: With his assis-
tance, they are trying to misappropriate somebody else’s intellectual property.” 632
With regard to the major ideas of both classical Eurasianism and “neo-Eurasianism,”
it is doubtful that, as Thomas Parland has written, Gumilëv “served as a bridge be-
tween classical Eurasianism and its contemporary equivalent neo-Eurasianism.”633
Neither did Gumilëv need much of classical Eurasianism for his theory of ethnogene-
sis, nor did Dugin, initially, use either classical Eurasianism (as indicated above and
illustrated below) or Gumilëv’s theory of ethnogenesis for the development of his
views on word history. Rather, Dugin, only later, inserted a number of the classically
Eurasianist ideas and some of Gumilëv’s terminology into his writings.
III.5.5 Dugin’s Re-Interpretation of “Eurasia”
Eurasia and Europe
One of the differences between the Eurasianists and Gumilëv is reminiscent of the
disparities between the former and Dugin.634 Though it might not be the most essen-
tial incongruence between classical Eurasianism and “neo-Eurasianism,” it is, per-
haps, the most visible one: The denotation of Eurasia itself in the works of the Eura-
sianists, on the one side, and Gumilëv and Dugin, on the other. 635 While the specifi-
631
Laryuel’, “Kogda prisvaivaetsya intellektual’naya sobstvennost’,” 14. However, Gumilëv
saw Islam is much more positively than Judaism. See Rossman, Russian Intellectual An-
tisemitism, 81.
632
Laryuel’, “Kogda prisvaivaetsya intellektual’naya sobstvennost’,” 10. See also
Shnirel’man, Intellektual’nye labirinty, 103-122
633
Parland, The Extreme Nationalist Threat in Russia, 118.
634
Dugin, in his turn, has adopted certain of Gumliëv’s concepts, like passionarnost’. See
Dugin, Tseli i Zadachi Nashei Revoyutii, 19.
635
It should come as no surprise, in view of the above, that one channel for Dugin’s entry
into the academic mainstream (to be described in more detail below) has been—what
one may call—“Gumilëvism.” See, for instance, Aleksandr G. Dugin, “Evolyutsiya
Natsional’noi Idei Rusi (Rossii) na raznykh istoricheskih etapakh,” in: Lev Nikolaevich
Gumilëv: Teoriya etnogeneza i istoricheksie sud’by Evrazii. Materialy konferentsii. 2nd
Vol. (Sankt-Peterburg: Evropeiskii Dom, 2002), 9-35. This can, however, not be taken to
be a sign of closeness between Dugin’s and Gumilëv’s ideas as might be concluded from
a comment by Kaledin, “Terapiya okazalas’ bessil’noi pered maniei Dugina-mladshego
pereustroit’ mir.” What links Gumilëv and Dugin, apart from their radical anti-Westernism,
are less their particular ideas or their supposed debt to Eurasianism than their equally
unfounded claims to represent legitimate successors of classical Eurasianism and their
ANDREAS UMLAND 164
cally Eurasianist concept of Eurasia was largely congruent with the territory of the
Soviet Union of the 1920s-1930s,636 Gumilëv includes, for historical reasons, Tibet
into his understanding of the Eurasian community—thus, according to a note by
Laruelle, departing from the conceptualization of Eurasia by the classical Eura-
sianists.637 Dugin goes much further and includes most of the landmass of Europe
and Asia into his concept of Eurasia 638—territories that would, by the classical Eura-
sians, be regarded as parts of Asia, and not Eurasia.639 Dugin has gone as far as to
label Charles de Gaulle a representative of the “Third Way,” an ideology he himself
adheres to.640 Though Dugin has mentioned Great Britain and, for some reason, Chi-
na as not belonging to the “Eurasian,” but as being part of the “Atlanticist” civiliza-
tion,641 and interpreted Japan, following Sir Halford Mackinder, as a continental Eur-
asian civilization,642 his conceptualization of “Eurasia” is thus closer to the geological
meaning that the term originally had. The concept of “Eurasia”—as a unified tectonic
unit—had been first elaborated on by the Austrian geographer Eduard Suess (1831-
1914) in his three-volume work Das Antlitz der Erde (The Earth’s Face) published in
1885-1901. Suess, in turn, had apparently adopted the term from the famous Ger-
pretenstions be be innovative scholars. In the words of Michael Hagemeister, Gumilёv
“represents a type of intellectual, much revered in Russia; he lectures with pseudo-
scientifical erudition on the phantastic principles of world history.” As quoted in Vinko-
vetsky, “Eurasianism in Its Time: A Bibliography,” in: Vinkovetsky and Schlacks, eds.,
Exodus to the East, 153. To be sure, some of Gumilëv’s empirical-historical work, proba-
bly, does have—unlike his abstruse theory of ethnogenesis—scholarly value. In contrast,
Dugin’s writings constitute little more than a combination of more or less adequate re-
statements of the ideas of numerous representatives of Western and Eastern intellectual
history with his own esoteric mumblings on them.
636
It should be noted though that, according to Tsymburskii, the Eurasianists’ usage of the
term “Eurasia” was not always consistent. Seemingly, they used the term occasionally
also for the Euro-Asiatic continent, as a whole. See Vadim Tsymburskii, “Dve Evrazii:
omonimiya kak klyuch k ideologii rannego evraziistva,” Acta Eurasica—Vestnik Evrazii,
no. 1-2(4-5) (1998).
637
Laryuel’, “Kogda prisvaivaetsya intellektual’naya sobstvennost’,” 14. However, in her
book on Eurasianism, Laruelle refers to a letter of Savitskii to Gumilev in which Savitskii
too wrote that Tibet belongs to Eurasia, but in which Savitskii “did not mention where
such a statement had been published.” Laryuel’, Ideologiya russkogo evraziistva, 114.
638
Andrei Ignat’ev, “Anti-Dugin ili mify geopolitik i real’nosti,” URL (last accessed October
2006): http://www.kontrudar.ru/article_14.html. See also Wiederkehr, “‘Kontinent Evrazi-
ia’;“ idem, “‘Kontinent Evrasija’,” 129.
639
Otto Böss, Die Lehre der Eurasier: Ein Beitrag zur russischen Ideengeschichte des 20.
Jahrhunderts (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1961), 26; Markus Kaiser, “Postsowjetisches
Eurasien—Dimensionen der symblolischen und realen Raumaneignung,” in: Idem (ed.),
Auf der Suche nach Eurasien: Politik, Religion und Alltagskultur zwischen Russland und
Europa (Bielefeld: transcript, 2004), 79-106, here 81.
640
Dugin, Konservativnaya Revolyutsiya, 29.
641
In this regard, there is another partial resemblance with the ideas of Savitskii who also
regarded China as part of the maritime principle. See Laryuel’, Ideologiya russkogo ev-
raziistva, 122.
642
Dugin, Konspirologiya, 93. See on this issue also Shenfield, Russian Fascism, 198.
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 165
man scientist Alexander von Humboldt.643
Manifestly contradicting the classical Eurasians, Dugin, in his various writings, in-
cludes large parts of continental Europe, not the least some of its Western parts, into
“Eurasia.” For instance, he writes in his seminal article “The Great War of the Conti-
nents” that
Jean Parvulesco [a major source for Dugin, as repeatedly docu-
mented in the here quoted article—A.U.] comprises within the
concept of “ours” the whole network of adherents of the Great
Continental Bloc—from Japan to Belgium, from China644 to
France, from India to Spain, from Iran to Germany, from Russia to
Italy. For Parvulesco, “ours” means that the Eurasianist Order it-
self is synonymous with all of its brands and groups which are,
consciously or not, manifestly or latently, in the zone of its geopo-
litical, mystical and metaphysical influence. “Ours”—this is the
united eschatological front of the Continent, the Front of the Land,
the Front of the Absolute East, the Western province of which is
Europe itself, “our” Europe, a Europe rejecting “the West,” the Eu-
rope of Tradition, Soil [and] Spirit.645
The classical Eurasianists, in contrast, saw Western Europe—all of it—as constituting
“Romano-Germanic Europe” that does not belong to “Eurasia,” but is Russia’s or
even humankind’s greatest enemy. Nikolai Trubetskoi, for instance, proclaimed in
1920: “There is only one true contradiction: the Romano-Germans and the other
peoples of the world, Europe and humanity.”646 Dugin, on his part, wrote in 1992:
In the geopolitical system of coordinates for the last centuries, one
can clearly trace a fundamental opposition of two continents: Ameri-
ca and Eurasia. […] The basic principle of this contradiction is: Eu-
rope together with Russia against America. Its continuation is the op-
position of Eurasianism and Atlanticism. The term “West” simply
does not exist in this conception. Europe is here the geopolitical an-
643
Ibid., 82; Böss, Die Lehre der Eurasier, 25; Laryuel’, Ideologiya russkogo evraziistva,
108; URL (last accessed October 2006): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eduard_Suess.
644
The inclusion of China in this list contradicts Dugin’s own later elaborations on China’s
role in the contemporary world.
645
Dugin, Konspirologiya, 130.
646
Trubetskoi, Nasledie Chingis-Khana, 90, as quoted in Wiederkehr, “‘Kontinent Evrasija’,”
128.
ANDREAS UMLAND 166
tithesis to the West.647
Eurasia and the US
Thus, the United States, in Dugin’s world view, “replace ‘Romano-German Europe’ as
the enemy image.”648 Writes Dugin:
The USA is a chimerical [a Gumilëvian term—A.U.], anti-organic,
transplanted culture which does not have sacral state traditions and
cultural soil, but, nevertheless, tries to force upon the other continents
its anti-ethnic, anti-traditional [and] “babylonic” model. 649
This contradicts, for instance, the Eurasianist and Orthodox theologian Georgii Flo-
rovskii (1893-1979) who, at one point, praised “genuine American pragmatism,” and
wrote that it is exactly “on ‘European’ soil [on which] Pragmatism becomes colourless
and impersonal.”650 In another article, Florovskii wrote, among other affirmative
statements on the US, that America has developed “a tradition of radical rejection of
philistinism.”651 Even Petr N. Savitskii (1895-1968)—who is Dugin’s primary point of
reference in Eurasianism—seemed to have an ambivalent image of the United
States. He compared Russia-Eurasia with the US and, for instance, wrote that
[i]t is possible to think that the leading centres of culture, its most influ-
ential concentrations, are already located not only in Western Europe
as had been the case not long ago, but also in Russia-Eurasia and in
North America, and that these two regions, or, to be more precise, two
continents, are lining up next to Europe and “replacing” it in the sense of
taking upon themselves part of the activity of cultural creativity […].652
It contradicts the core of Dugin’s conceptualization of world history when Savitskii, in
1921, went on to predict that “[w]ith the passage of time North America is of course
developing, and will successfully develop, an independent tradition. But at its source,
647
Den’, no. 2(30) (1992): 2.
648
Wiederkehr, “‘Kontinent Evrasija’,” 128.
649
Den’, no. 2(30) (1992): 3.
650
Georgii V. Florovskii, “The Cunning of Reason,” in: Vinkovetsky and Schlacks, eds., Ex-
odus to the East, 30-40, here 34.
651
Georgii V. Florovskii, “About Non-Historical Peoples (The Land of the Fathers and the
Land of the Children),” in: Vinkovetsky and Schlacks, eds., Exodus to the East, 52-68,
here 66.
652
Petr N. Savitskii, “The Migration of Culture,” in: Vinkovetsky and Schlacks, eds., Exodus
to the East, 41-51, here 48.
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 167
it carries only that tradition which is present in the culture of [Romano-Germanic]
Western Europe.”653 This is the exact opposite of what Dugin has been opining on
the US.
Moreover, the classical Eurasianists were prepared to take the US in certain regards
as a model. This concerns, for instance, economic nationalism, the Monroe Doctrine,
the unification of the North and South of the American continent, a continental self-
consciousness, or the US’s non-membership in the League of Nations. 654 Yet, be-
cause of the presence of cultural traits of the Romano-Germanic world—i.e. those
cultures that Dugin is prepared to include into his idea of “Eurasia”—in the North
American tradition (and not, as Dugin would argue, some specific “Atlanticist” ele-
ment), the US remained ultimately suspect to the classical Eurasianists.655
Geopolitics, Conservative Revolution, and Obfuscation
The substantial change of emphasis in the image of Russia’s major enemy from Eu-
rope to the US is, according to Ignat’ev, “a result of the fact that [Dugin] artificially
mixes Eurasianism with geopolitics and accepts the so-called ‘first law of geopoli-
tics’—the idea of the eternal fight between continental and maritime civilizations
[…].”656 Earlier, Vinkovetskii had remarked that Dugin
seems to owe a much greater debt to the likes of [Karl] Haushofer and
the German political philosopher Carl Schmitt 657 than to [Petr] Savitskii
and [Nikolai] Trubetskoi. His occult-laced “Eurasianism” is based on a
vision of an age-old incessant struggle for world domination between
the secret orders of “Eurasianists” (“the Great Land,” traceable to
Rome) and “Atlanticists (“the Great Ocean,” traceable to Carthage). The
authors of Exodus to the East [the manifesto of classical Eurasianism of
1921—A.U.] are depicted not as creators of Eurasianism, but merely as
members of the secret Eurasian order acting, along with Haushofer, as
653
Ibid., 50. On the classical Eurasianist philosophy of history, see further Heinrich A.
Stammler, “Europa-Russland-Asien: Der ‘eurasische’ Deutungsversuch der russischen
Geschichte,” Osteuropa, no. 12 (1962): 521-528.
654
Laryuel’, Ideologiya russkogo evraziistva, 125-126.
655
Laryuel’, Ideologiya russkogo evraziistva, 121.
656
Ignat’ev, “Anti-Dugin ili mify geopolitik i real’nosti.”
657
On the issue of Schmitt’s fascism, see Nikolaus Lobkovits, “Karl Shmitt—katolicheskii
fashist?” Forum noveishei vostochnoevropeiskoi istorii i kul’tury 1, no. 1 (2004), URL (last
accessed October 2006): http://www1.ku-eichstaett.de/ZIMOS/forum/docs/lobkowicz.pdf.
ANDREAS UMLAND 168
its “disclosers.” Whatever Dugin […] is trying to achieve, it seems to
have very little to do with Eurasianism in the classic sense.658
While thus Dugin’s teaching can be classified—like the classical Eurasianists’ theo-
ry—as a “geosophy,” the two geographical determinisms present here are different:
Whereas the classical Eurasianists emphasised various characteristics of Russia’s
climate, landscape and culture as unifying and defining “Eurasia,”659 Dugin uses ge-
opolitical ideas adopted from Western thinkers like Alfred Thayer Mahan (1840-
1914), Friedrich Ratzel (1844-1904), Halford John Mackinder (1861-1947), Johan
Rudolf Kjellén (1864-1922), or Karl Haushofer (1869-1946), and culturalist arguments
copied from the German “Conservative Revolution” to argue for the uniqueness of his
much larger “Eurasia.” The classical Eurasianists, to be sure, also were aware of
Western geopolitics and wrote, like Dugin, about the contradiction between oceanic
and continental civilizations and their affinities to parliamentarianism and authoritari-
anism respectively. Yet these considerations had little consequences for their defini-
tion of “Eurasia.”660
The relative resemblance between the geological meaning of “Eurasia” and the deno-
tation the term has in most of Dugin’s theories is thus, obviously, no indicator of
moderation or common sense in “neo-Eurasianism.”661 Rather, Dugin’s various re-
conceptualizations of “Eurasia” are a symptom of the instrumental function that “Eur-
asianism” has for him. He skilfully uses the ambivalence of the concept of Eurasia as
connoting a peculiar synthetic culture (as in classical Eurasianism), on the one side,
and the European-Asian landmass (as in geology), on the other, for his purposes. In
Vinkovetskii’s opinion, he “appears to use obfuscation as deliberate strategy.”662
Dugin’s one-time collaborator Eduard Limonov confirms that “Dugin is a paradoxical
man who can support ten points of view or more at the same time.” 663 In the words of
Ignat’ev, “Dugin perverted Eurasianism and transformed it into an eclectic mixture
adding to it, apart from geopolitics, elements of European Traditionalism and rac-
658
Vinkovetsky, “Eurasianism in Its Time: A Bibliography,” in: Vinkovetsky and Schlacks,
eds., Exodus to the East, 153-154.
659
Laryuel’, Ideologiya russkogo evraziistva, 118.
660
Laryuel’, Ideologiya russkogo evraziistva, 120.
661
This is also illustrated by the fact that, as Mitrofanova points out, Dugin, in one of his
publications, includes into the “Great Eurasian Empire of Thousand Flags” not only the
Eurasian continent, but also Australia, parts of Africa and Greenland. Mitrofanova, Politi-
zatsiya “pravoslavnogo mira,” 243.
662
Vinkovetsky, “Eurasianism in Its Time: A Bibliography,” in: Vinkovetsky and Schlacks, Jr.,
eds., Exodus to the East, 154.
663
As quoted in Lee, The Beast Reawakens, 320. See also Shenfield, Russian Fascism,
197.
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 169
ism.”664 Dugin may, in doing so, have profited from the general lack of terminological
and conceptual discipline in post-Soviet social scientific and journalistic discourse.
He is able to present his fundamentally Western-inspired world view as resulting from
a, supposedly, adequate adaptation of a well-respected Russian theory to post-
Soviet circumstances.
It is true that one of the most important sources of Dugin’s thought, the German
“Conservative Revolution” of the 1920s-1930s, displayed considerable similarities
with classical Eurasianism and was also of relative high intellectual quality. At the
same time, however, it is also the case that “disgust towards the West and liberalism
took, in the case of the German anti-Westerners, an even more decisive form than in
the case of the Eurasianists.”665 It is exactly the German “conservative revolutionar-
ies’” moralistic amoralism, their megalomania, craving for a new “Caesar,” and plans
for German world-rule, as well as their open propagation of war and terror 666—all el-
ements for which no equivalents can be found in classical Eurasianism—which
seems to have made their ideas particularly attractive for Dugin.667
The Eurasianist Label and Interpretation of Dugin
The term “neo-Eurasianism” serves Dugin not only to dilute the extremist aspects of
his ideology, but also to cover the largely Western sources of his thought. One Rus-
sian commentator has called Dugin’s ideology a “cleverly marketized import prod-
uct.”668 Eduard Limonov called Dugin Russia’s “Cyril and Methodius of fascism”—in
as far as Dugin brought from the West a new belief. 669 The latter is a circumstance
that, if it were to come to the forefront, would contradict his public profile as a Rus-
sian patriot and create for him image problems similar to the ones mentioned above
with regard to Zhirinovskii’s, Barkashov’s, Limonov’s and Zyuganov’s public stand-
664
Ignat’ev, “Anti-Dugin ili mify geopolitik i real’nosti.”
665
Leonid Lyuks, “Evraziistvo i konservativnaya revolyutsiya: Soblazni antizapadnichestva v
Rossii i Germanii,” Voprosy filosofii, no. 3 (1996): 57-69, here 61.
666
Ibid., 61-62, 64. One might add that some “conservative revolutionaries,” like Ernst
Jünger and Ernst Niekisch, in a certain way previewed a statement by Dugin (see Ap-
pendix), in that they attacked Hitler before he came to power as being too much of an
opportunist. Lyuks, “Evraziistvo i konservativnaya revolyutsiya,” 66.
667
It is noteworthy that, in the early 1930s, the far-reaching geopolitical plans of the “con-
servative revolutionaries” caused concern by a Eurasianist publicist of this time, A. An-
tipov. See Lyuks, “Evraziistvo i konservativnaya revolyutsiya,” 67.
668
Polyannikov, “Po tropam Khimery, ili razmyshlenniya o evraziistve i ‘novom mirovom
poriadke.’”
669
As quoted in Kaledin, “Terapiya okazalas’ bessil’noi pered maniei Dugina-mladshego
pereustroit’ mir.”
ANDREAS UMLAND 170
ing.670 Similar motivations might be behind Dugin’s recent posing as an Orthodox Old
Believer and Christian fundamentalist although it is—contrary to a claim by Anastasi-
ya Mitrofanova671—“difficult to call Dugin’s political philosophy and practice [Chris-
tian] Orthodox.”672 As mentioned, Dugin formally committed himself to the Old Belief
only relatively late, in 1999.673
In conclusion, “neo-Eurasianism” is a term that should be used carefully with regard
to Dugin. It is a construct in so far worth paying attention to as it has been the term
chosen, especially since the late 1990s, by Dugin himself as the major label for the
classification of his views. Contrary to an assertion made by A. James Gregor in a
discussion on Dugin’s ideology and sources, 674 the descriptions that political actors
create for themselves should be of interest to taxonomists in the social sciences.
However, an uncommented application of the term Eurasianism without quotation
marks to the Dugin phenomenon would not only be misleading. In as far as the social
sciences belong to the world of their objects of study, it could, in view of the above
contextualization, be seen as supporting Dugin’s tactics of political mimicry, and as
helping him in his efforts to infiltrate the Russian political mainstream and Ivory Tow-
er. Dugin’s embrace of Eurasianism appears as part and parcel of his strategy to be-
come accepted in Russia as a serious academic scholar and political analyst.
In as far as Western views of Russian politics sometimes exert a certain impact on
Russian public and scholarly debates, authors in the West too might want to use
“Eurasianism” with regard to Dugin with care. This is because such a classification
would suggest that as bizarre a publicist as Dugin is vindicated as a successor of the
670
This is in spite of the fact, the the classical Eurasianists were themselves influenced by
Western philosophers, such as Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), Oswald Spengler
(1880-1936), and Henri Bergson (1859-1941), and especially German Naturphilosophie.
See Laryuel’, Ideologiya russkogo evraziistva, 56-57. Interestingly, the classical Eura-
sians were aware of possible image problems arising from this circumstance too. Writes
Laruelle: “Eurasianism experienced a deep influence of the classics of German philoso-
phy and their contemporaries in the West. At the same time, the Eurasians never quoted
the authors on whose works they relied (with the exception of O. Spengler), because
these thinkers were regarded as Romano-Germanic and, therefore, worthy of criticism.”
Laryuel’, Ideologiya russkogo evraziistva, 50. Victor Yasmann claims that the classical
Eurasianists were also heavily influenced by geopoliticians, such as Sir Halford Mackin-
der, Karl Haushofer, Friedrich Ratzel, Carl Schmitt, Oswald Maull and Rudolf Kjellén.
See Yasmann, “Red Religion,” 22. While some Eurasianists were aware of these authors
and used their ideas, Western geopolitics still did not exert, as Yasmann seems to sug-
gest, a formative impact on Eurasianist thought.
671
Mitrofanova, Politizatsiya “pravoslavnogo mira,” 174-189.
672
Verkhovskii, Politicheskoe pravoslavie, 9, 124, 251.
673
Shenfield, Russian Fascism, 197.
674
Gregor, “Andreas Umland and the ‘Fascism’ of Alexander Dugin.”
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 171
founders of phonology and Prague Linguistic Circle (Trubetskoi, Yakobson) as well
as of Structural Geography (Savitskii).675 Dugin would be put in a position to claim
the legacy of an, in Leonid Luks’ words,
[…] conception [in the development of which] ethnologists, geographers,
linguists, historians, jurists, etc. took part. This [circumstance] sharply dis-
tinguishes [classical] Eurasianism from the majority of ideologies that
emerged in inter-war Europe. In this case, those involved [i.e. the classical
Eurasianists—A.U.] were not dilettantes and political doctrinists, but peo-
ple who had passed the school of science [and] mastered the art of so-
phisticated analysis.676
When seen as a proper neo-Eurasianist, Dugin—in spite of the dubious course of his
academic career—appears as a scholar stepping into the footsteps of former Profes-
sors at the Philology Department the University of Vienna (Trubetskoi), Russian Law
School in Prague (Alekseev and Shakhmatov), Russian Agricultural Institute at Pra-
gue (Savitskii), and Kaunas University Department of History (Karsavin). Three
members of the original Eurasian circle later became tenured professors at respected
US universities: Vernadskii at Yale’s Department of History, Yakobson at Harvard’
Department of Philology, and Florovskii at Columbia’s Department of Theology.677
Classical Eurasianism’s relative popularity among Russian intellectuals was and is
determined, not the least, by the considerable intellectual acumen of its followers,
and their international eminence, not the least by the respect they enjoy in the
West.678 Dugin, obviously, wants to profit from this reputation.
Dugin seemingly also wants to capitalize on the particular admiration that the classi-
cal Eurasianists enjoy among sections of the Russian state apparatus. Victor Yas-
mann quotes an unnamed Soviet author who wrote in September 1991 that “for long
time the slogan ‘Evraziistvo’ was subtly cultivated by the General Staff, the KGB and
the Party apparatus.” Yasmann adds that “[i]n a classic sense of clientelism, key
members of the KGB who monitored the émigré community and also handled ethnic
issues found themselves persuaded by the ideology they were supposedly combat-
675
Laryuel’, Ideologiya russkogo evraziistva, 32, 110.
676
Lyuks, “Evraziistvo i konservativnaya revolyutsiya,” 59.
677
Böss, Die Lehre der Eurasier , 7-8; Vinkovetsky, “Eurasianism in Its Time: A Bibliog-
raphy,” in: Vinkovetsky and Schlacks, Jr., eds., Exodus to the East, 143-174, here 150.
678
Laryuel’, Ideologiya russkogo evraziistva, 128-129.
ANDREAS UMLAND 172
ing.”679
Last but not least, an unqualified scholarly classification of Dugin’s view as a form of
Eurasianism would constitute a contribution to the terminological confusion and con-
ceptual stretching which is so characteristic of contemporary Russian political, publi-
cistic and scientific discourse, and which seems to be deliberately fostered by various
political entrepreneurs and technologists for whom a devaluation of the value of seri-
ous political discourse is beneficial. Dugin’s tactics are nothing peculiar in post-Soviet
Russia. Ilya Vinkovetsky wrote already in 1996 that
ideologues and popularizers of all stripes have twisted Eurasian
ideas to fit their own particular aspirations. Their creations, which
differ greatly from the original ideas of Eurasianism, cannot be
termed “Eurasian,” and it is even debatable if they should properly
called “neo-Eurasian.”680
In quotation marks or/and with the prefix “so-called,” the construct “neo-Eurasianism”
can and, perhaps, even should be used in outlines of Dugin’s political tactics similar
to the one tried here. But it should be applied with caution and caveats in ideological
analyses aiming to informatively conceptualize his political ideology and intellectual
position in comparative and historical terms.
III.5.6 Excursus II: Conceptualizing “Duginism”
Yet, what is then the core myth of Dugin’s thought? Which are the most relevant
sources of Dugin’s thought? And which term would be most suitable to describe the
crux of his ideology and strategy?681 Though we have a number of more or less well-
informed Russian and Western-language interpretations of Dugin’s numerous writ-
ings, these questions are—in view of Dugin’s considerable erudition, the multifari-
ousness of his statements and the fluidness of his views—difficult to answer. As one
679
Yasmann, „Red Religion,“ 24. If that were true, it would create additional problems of
interpretation concerning Dugin’s early seminal article “The War of the Continents” where
he claimed that the KGB was and is an agent of “Atlanticism” and not “Eurasianism” (in
the peculiar Duginian sense) in Russia. See Dugin, Konspirologiya, part II.
680
Vinkovetsky, “Eurasianism in Its Time: A Bibliography,” in: Vinkovetsky and Schlacks,
eds., Exodus to the East, 143-174, here 153.
681
The reason for asking this particular question and for the entire discussion set out here is
well expressed in Sartori’s memorable phrase: “As we are […] prisoners of the words we
pick, we had better pick them well.” See Giovani Sartori, “Guidelines for Concept Analy-
sis,” in: idem, ed., Social Science Concepts: A Systematic Analysis (Beverley Hills: Sage,
1984), 15-48, here 60.
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 173
Russian observer has commented, Dugin’s doctrine has been “compiled from ideas
of thinkers of various times and peoples.”682
“Revolutionary Expansionism,” “Geopolitical Anti-Semitism,” “National Bolshevism,”
“Geopolitics,” “Traditionalism”
The following excursus departs from the study’s primary focus on identifying Russian
uncivil society as an understudied sub-sector of the post-Soviet extreme right. It in-
stead surveys several scholarly conceptualizations of Dugin’s ideology that provide
alternatives to the partly misleading classification of his views as simply neo-
Eurasianist. In that regard, the excursus follows a secondary aim of this study to
show that “neo-Eurasianism” serves as a cover-up for an ideology much less moder-
ate than Dugin’s self-image of the last years would suggest. Those scholars who
have interpreted Dugin’s ideology from a comparative perspective have formulated
concepts that go beyond of what “neo-Eurasianism” might imply. While these terms
are better suited to explicate the core ideas and aggressiveness of Dugin’s world
view, some seem still insufficient to capture the essence of his beliefs.
For instance, Tsygankov’s and Rossman’s above-mentioned constructs “revolution-
ary expansionism” and “geopolitical anti-Semitism” are both apt and well-chosen.
However, while they can and, perhaps, should be employed to describe Dugin’s
views, they (were meant to) only highlight selected aspects of his ideology. “Geopolit-
ical anti-Semitism” would in so far be insufficient for characterizing Dugin’s views as it
is the United States, rather than the Jews, that appear as the most relevant enemies
of Russia, in Dugin’s writings. Also, at times, Dugin has retracted from the rabid anti-
Semitism he had presented, for instance, in the first edition of his above-mentioned
major work Osnovy geopolitiki, and detected, in the Jewish national and revolutionary
movements, sections that he views as belonging to, or compatible with, “neo-
Eurasianism.” Notably, his movement “Eurasia” included some marginal Jewish rep-
resentatives from not only Russia, but also Israel.
Concerning the, also in general adequate, construct “revolutionary expansionism”
proposed by Tsygankov, somewhat different qualifications have to be made. Though
Dugin’s ideology is—like, for instance, Zhirinovskii’s blueprint of a “last dash to the
south”—both “revolutionary” and “expansionist,” it is—unlike Zhirinovskii’s plan—
682
Kaledin, “Terapiya okazalas’ bessil’noi pered maniei Dugina-mladshego pereustroit’ mir.”
ANDREAS UMLAND 174
more than that. In 1993, Zhirinovskii envisaged, in his party’s newspaper Liberal and
the first edition of his main book Poslednii brosok na Yug, Russia’s rebirth mainly
through her military territorial expansion towards the South, and an annexation of
Turkey, Afghanistan and Iran (as well as, by implication, other countries, such as Pa-
kistan).683 To be sure, territorial expansion plays an important part in Dugin’s vision of
Russia’s future too. But it is merely one part of Dugin’s envisaged fundamental re-
make of both, world politics and Russian society. Zhirinovskii seemed, in his 1993
blueprint, prepared to merely reform Russia’s political system (without remaking Rus-
sian society entirely), and leave current international relations to a considerable de-
gree intact. Zhirinovskii was “only” proposing to divide the less developed parts of the
world into new influence zones. Moreover, he was, as he mentioned in a conversa-
tion with me in August 1993, counting on the West’s cooperation in this new division
of the world, leaving, for instance, Africa to Western Europe and Latin America to the
US.684
In contrast, Dugin’s vision goes both, domestically and internationally, beyond
Zhirinovskii’s 1993 plans. “Neo-Eurasianism” is even more utopian than Zhirinovskii’s
doctrine as it implies a thorough de-liberalization and de-Westernization of Russian
society and fundamental reconstitution or abolishment of major international organi-
zations including NATO, the EU, G8, OSCE, Council of Europe and so forth. Not only
would Russia leave, or behave differently towards, these organizations—as implied
in Zhirinovskii’s blueprint. As Dugin sees continental Europe, Japan, the Muslim
world and other countries as potential allies in a world-wide anti-American alliance,
world politics, as we have come to understand, would cease to exist, and be replaced
by a new Cold War—if not eventually by World War III. While the latter outcome
could also happen in the case of an implementation of Zhirinovskii’s 1993 plan,
Dugin’s view of the world’s future, in some of its permutations, amounts to an open
advocating of confrontation with the United States. Thus, “revolutionary expansion-
ism” might be a term that is not only insufficient as it refers to just the foreign policy
part of a larger agenda. It might, paradoxically, be “too soft” for an adequate charac-
terization of Dugin’s foreign policy agenda.
The above mentioned term “neo-National Bolshevism” introduced by Markus Mathyl
683
Umland, “Vladimir Zhirinovskii in Russian Politics;” idem, “Tri raznovidnosti postso-
vetskogo fashizma,” here 241-252.
684
Andreas Umland, “The Zhirinovsky Interview,” Woodstock Road Editorial: An Oxford
Magazine of International Affairs, no. 16 (1994): 3-5.
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 175
and taken up by Mischa Gabowitsch seems, in a number of ways, more suitable than
“revolutionary expansionism” and “geopolitical anti-Semitism.”685 It indicates the radi-
calness of Dugin’s views and expresses well the synthesis of various ideas that “neo-
Eurasianism” in fact represents. It can be also seen as an adequate reflection of how
Dugin himself continues to see his world-view. For instance, in March 2005, he ad-
dressed a conference entitled “National Bolshevism: Lessons for the 21st Century”—
in spite of his recent tactics to replace “National Bolshevism” with “neo-Eurasianism”
as the major label describing his ideology. At this conference, “he repeated his previ-
ous position that today National Bolshevism (or Eurasianism) entails supporting Putin
in spite of [the latter’s] liberalism and other shortcomings.”686 In statements such as
these, Dugin tries to reconcile his surprising turn to a “radically centrist,” often enthu-
siastic support for Putin’s regime, and his earlier role as a co-founder of the anti-
systemic National-Bolshevik Party.
“National Bolshevism” could thus be seen as not only being able to comprise “revolu-
tionary expansionism” and “geopolitical anti-Semitism,” but even as representing an
adequate terminological solution for a conceptualization of Dugin’s ideology. Alas,
the concept “National Bolshevism” itself appears as too fluid and to have been
stretched too many times in order to serve as a useful taxonomic tool, in general. 687
The construct has been used for such different phenomena as pro-Soviet Russian
émigré nationalism, Stalinism, a particular variety of leftish German inter-war ultra-
nationalism, certain varieties of late Soviet Russian ultra-nationalism, and
Zyuganov’s synthesis of the Russian Idea and socialism. Further applications of the
term could be listed.688
Some of the confusion about this term may stem from the fact that “Bolshevism” itself
has been used with different implications: Sometimes it is synonym for Russian
communism, sometimes for its particular Leninist interpretation only (excluding, for
instance, Trotskyism). In some cases, it refers to radical egalitarianism; in others, on
685
Mathyl, “Der ‘unaufhaltsame Aufstieg’ des Aleksandr Dugin,” Osteuropa 52, no. 7 (2002):
885-900; Gabowitsch, “Der russische ‚Nationalpatriotismus’ der Gegenwart und sein
Verhältnis zum Kommunismus.“
686
Mitrofanova, The Politicization of Russian Orthodoxy, 193.
687
On conceptual stretching, see Giovanni Sartori ,”Concept Misformation in Comparative Poli-
tics,” American Political Science Review 64, no. 4 (1970): 1033-1053.
688
Erik van Ree, “The Concept of ‘National Bolshevism:’ An Interpretative Essay,” Journal of
Political Ideologies 6, no. 3 (2001): 289-307; Andreas Umland, “National Bolshevism,” in:
Cyprian Blamires, ed., World Fascism: A Historical Encyclopedia (Santa Barbara, CA:
ABC-Clio, 2006, in print).
ANDREAS UMLAND 176
the contrary, it implies strict elitism. 689 It is thus not even entirely clear what exactly
would become nationalized in “National Bolshevism.” Would “National Bolshevism”
be a right- or left-wing ideology, or neither, or both? While “neo-National Bolshevism”
is, in terms of its extension, not as limited as “revolutionary expansionism” and “geo-
political anti-Semitism,” its intension seems too nebulous in order to serve as a useful
concept in social analysis. 690
A different approach might be read into Mark Sedgwick’s informative work that deals
extensively with the Dugin phenomenon in the context of a history of the international
pan-religious movement of Traditionalism that has already been mentioned above in
connection with the importance of Guénon for Dugin’s intellectual biography.691 An
important advantage of this approach is that it emphasizes the non-Russian origins of
Dugin’s world view. On the other hand, it seems an open question whether Dugin is
justified in claiming—as he has done many times (especially, for the benefit of his
club of trusted supporters)—that he is indeed a Traditionalist. It would seem to de-
pend on one’s opinion on what terrain of ideas Traditionalism as a concept referring
to Guénon’s perennial philosophy is supposed to cover. Above all, it would depend
on ones assessment of which practical political implications Traditionalism may be
allowed to have or not have. Should the term be applied at all to those actors whose
ambitions are manifestly political?692
To be sure, Traditionalism did, as appears from many sources, play an important role
in the formation of Dugin’s world view. Above all, Traditionalism’s manifest rejection
of the contemporary world and Cartesian approach to empirical reality have been
reproduced in Dugin’s writings many times. However, apart from elements such as
these, it remains unclear what the substance of Dugin’s ideology really owes to Tra-
ditionalism. For instance, it seems doubtful that Dugin’s identification of the Tradition
with the original culture of “Eurasian civilization” is still within the realm of perennial
philosophy. Rather, it appears that, for Dugin, the importance of Traditionalism is sim-
ilar to the role it played for the intellectual development of his long-term associate
689
Andreas Umland, “Bolshevism,” in: Blamires, ed., World Fascism.
690
Sartori, “Guidelines for Concept Analysis.”
691
Sedgwick, Against the Modern World.
692
In a way, the issue resembles a problem inherent in all assessments of religious
fanatism: Should a monk, on the one side, and a religiously inspired terrorist, on the oth-
er, be both covered under the same heading just because they both are radical believers
in the same faith? How important is the religion in religious fundamentalism? For this par-
ticular case: What relevance did Traditionalism really have for the formation Dugin’s
world view? For a further discussion of this issue, see Mitrofanova, The Politicization of
Russian Orthodoxy, 21-30.
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 177
Geidar Dzhemal for whom, in Sedgwick’s words, “Traditionalism became a stepping-
stone rather than a destination.” 693 Last but not least, it is debatable whether it was
really Guénon, i.e. the actual founder of Traditionalism, who constitutes the most im-
portant reference point for the Russian Traditionalists. As again Sedgwick noted,
“Russian Traditionalists, though taking their lead from Guénon’s explanation of mo-
dernity, generally reacted to (after 1991, at least) more on the model of [Julius] Evo-
la.”694
A further attribution found in most writings on Dugin is that he is a contemporary pro-
ponent of geopolitics in the tradition of Sir Halford Mackinder and Karl Haushofer.
This is in many regards a correct classification. It is also an element in Dugin’s
thought that sets him apart from another self-proclaimed “Eurasianist,” the above-
mentioned late Lev Gumilëv who “never addressed the problem of geopolitics explic-
itly, and did not employ conventional geopolitical distinctions, like that between Atlan-
ticism and Eurasianism that figures so prominently in the works of Aleksandr
Dugin.”695 But even with regard to Dugin’s relationship to geopolitics, one would have
to make qualifications. As Stephen Shenfield noted
[w]hen […] we look more deeply into Dugin’s geopolitical ideas, we
discover an essential difference marking Dugin off from the main-
stream of the Mackinder school. For the other geopoliticians, the con-
trontation between sea power and land power is a historical generali-
zation open to sociological explanation and empirical criticism. Dugin
traces the roots of confrontation to other realms lying well beyond the
reach of empirical investigation—to a conspiratorial contest between
ancient secret orders of Eurasianists and Atlanticists, and ultimately to
a clash of forces emanating from two of the four elements of alche-
my—namely, water and fire. In Dugin’s world view, even geopolitics is
built on mystical foundations.696
Reminding the function of other terms that Dugin uses for self-description—
693
Sedgwick, Against the Modern World, 260.
694
Sedgwick, Against the Modern World, 222. Giovanni Montini, the future Pope Paul VI,
wrote in 1928 about the twenty-six-year-old Evola that the latter was “surrendering the
search for truth in favor of intellectual excitation, that is to say those strange forms of
cerebralism and neurasthenia, of intensive cultivation of incomprehensibility, of pseudo-
mystic preciosity, of cabalistic fascination magically evaporated by the refined drugs of
Oriental erudition.” As quoted in Laqueur, Fascism, 97.
695
Rossman, Russian Intellectual Antisemitism, 94.
696
Shenfield, Russian Fascism, 196.
ANDREAS UMLAND 178
Eurasianism, National Bolshevism, Traditionalism, Conservative Revolution—the elu-
siveness of “geopolitics” serves him well to interpret the concept in his own way.697
The Connection to the European “New Right”698
In conclusion it seems that—as, for instance, Crèmet in 1998 and Laruelle recently
suggested—the best general category to put the Dugin phenomenon under is the
above-introduced neo-Gramscian European “New Right” (henceforth ENR).699 While
this construct itself is, like “National Bolshevism” or “Conservative Revolution,” of
questionable conceptual value, 700 the phenomena that have been described as pre-
cursor or varieties of the ENR might provide the best points of departure for a com-
parative interpretation of both the strategy and the ideology of Dugin. This concerns
the substance and development of the Dugin phenomenon as well as some direct
links between the ENR and Dugin’s movement.
It was no other than Dugin’s earliest guru Julius Evola who formulated already in
1950 what would become the central motto of both, the ENR and the Dugin move-
ment decades later: “The essential task is to prepare silently the spiritual ambience in
which a new form of authority might take shape.” 701 Not only is this, as should have
become obvious in the above descriptions of the ENR and Dugin’s rise, a fundamen-
tal similarity between the strategy of the West European and Russian “New Right.” 702
697
Gerhard Sander, “Deterministische Wurzeln und funktionaler Einsatz des ‘Geo’ in Geo-
politik,” WeltTrends, no. 4 (1994): 8-20.
698
On de Benoist, see for instance, Roger Griffin, “Plus ça change! The Fascist Mindset
behind the Nouvelle Droite’s Struggle for Cultural Renewal,” in: Edward Arnold, ed., The
Development of the Radical Right in France 1890-1995 (London: Routledge, 2000), 217-
252; idem, “Between Metapolitics and Apoliteia: The New Right’s Strategy for Conserv-
ing the Fascist Vision in the ‘Interregnum’,” Modern and Contemporary France 8, no. 2
(2000): 35-53; Tamir Bar-On, “The Ambiguities of the Nouvelle Droite, 1968-1999,” The
European Leagacy 6, no. 3 (2000): 333-351; Alberto Spektorowski, “The New Right:
Ethno-regionalism, Ethno-pluralism and the Emergence of a Neo-fascist ‘Third Way’,”
Journal of Political Ideologies 8, no. 1 (2003): 111-130.
699
Jean Crèmet, “Crossover in Moskau: Russlands ‘Neue Rechte’ befindet sich auf dem
Vormarsch,” Jungle World, 9th September 1998, URL (last accessed October 2006):
http://www.nadir.org/nadir/periodika/jungle_world/_98/37/15a.htm; Marlène Laruelle,
“Aleksandr Dugin: A Russian Version of the European Radical Right?” Kennan Institute
Occasional Papers, no. 294 (2006), URL (last accessed October 2006):
http://www.wilsoncenter.org/news/docs/OP294.pdf.
700
Umland, “‘Konservativnaya revolyutsiya.’”
701
As quoted in Richard Drake, The Revolutionary Mystique and Terrorism in Contemporary
Italy (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1998), 229.
702
In the words of Stephen Shenfield, “[m]ost of Dugin’s writings serve the purpose of creat-
ing an intellectual climate that will make [the, what he calls, Last] revolution possible.”
Shenfield, Russian Fascism, 195.
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 179
The contents and structure of their thinking are also similar in a number of ways. Wal-
ter Laqueur, in the mid-1990s, still wrote that “[t]he Nietzschean, elitist doctrines of
Evola and the French New Right have been rejected by most Russian right-wing ex-
tremists as unsuitable and even counterproductive on Russian soil.”703 This seems to
be not any longer the case. One could argue that, in the meantime, actually the re-
verse has happened: One the one side, the leaders of the French New Right have
been moving away from a purely Evolian world view and incorporated many seem-
ingly left-wing elements.
For one of the leading writers and publishers of the European New Right,
Alain de Benoist, Evola and Guénon were of interest—especially historical
interest—but no longer of great importance. De Benoist had read most of
their works, and had even written on them, but his own ideas explored in
the various journals and magazines he controlled were often constructed
on bases incompatible with any variety of Traditionalism.704
In Russia, on the other side, Dugin’s growing influence has meant that Evola’s name
and basic ideas are now well-known among many Russian right-wing intellectuals.
Dugin is now recognized as a theoretician of anti-Americanism even in West Europe-
an New Right circles. It is thus doubtful that the following 1996 statement of Walter
Laqueur still fully applies today:
Patriots in Moscow claim, not without justice, that the Russians have a
tradition of ultranationalism and socialism and that the new-fangled
doctrines of Western metaphysicians have no relevance to their coun-
try. [T]he Russian cult of anti-Satanism, the adulation of the tsar and
(state) church, and the all pervasive Konspiratologia [in turn] are out of
place in Western Europe.705
In any way, the interconnections between the West European and Russian New
Right are multifarious as indicated in the above summary on the ENR and description
of Dugin’s ideology and strategy. It is interesting that the ties between the Western
and Russian counter-cultural scene go back to Soviet times. When, in the 1980s, lat-
er NBP-co-founder and Dugin-associate Eduard Limonov moved to Paris, he met
Alain de Benoist and worked for a while as editor for de Benoist’s Idiot International,
703
Laqueur, Fascism, 143.
704
Sedgwick, Against the Modern World, 187. See also Alain de Benoist, “Tradition?” URL
(last accessed October 2006): http://es.geocities.com/sucellus23/telos17.htm.
705
Laqueur, Fascism, 144.
ANDREAS UMLAND 180
a journal of left and right extremism once founded by Jean-Paul Sartre.706 It does not
surprise thus that, according to Walter Laqueur, “[t]he French and Belgian New Right
supplied literature and apparently also some money to Russian neofascist groups.”707
It is also noteworthy that the francophone Nouvelle Droite had been exerting influ-
ence on the Russian elite’s thinking already before it became popular within the Rus-
sian extreme right as a result of Dugin’s purposeful adoption of the ENR’s strategies
and ideas since his visit to Western Europe in 1989 and meetings with ENR repre-
sentatives in the early 1990s. For example, Mitrofanova reported in 2005 that
many politicized [Christian] Orthodox intellectuals are enthusiastic
about the ideas of the French New Right theorist Alain de Benoist
and tend to present him as their own “discovery.” However, the au-
thor of this book [i.e. Mitrofanova], as a 1994 graduate of the De-
partment of Philosophy of […] Moscow State University, may confirm
that de Benoist’s theories were being analyzed by professional phi-
losophers as early as in the end of the 1980s and presented to stu-
dents during various courses in contemporary French thought.708
While Dugin’s adaptation of West European “New Right” for Russian conditions had
thus a certain pre-history and can be seen as critical for an understanding of the sub-
stance and functions of his ideas, in this case too, the connection between Duginism
and the “New Right” is not a straightforward one. That is because
Dugin’s enthusiasm for this connection was not shared by de
Benoist himself […]; he originally advised Dugin against the use
of the name Elementy [Dugin’s major journal in the 1990s titled
after the ENR’s journals in Western Europe], and as soon as [de
Benoist] became aware that he was on the editorial committee
[of Dugin’s new journal], he wrote requesting that he be removed
from it. De Benoist later explained that although he liked Dugin
personally and was sympathetic towards his views, he felt that he
and Dugin were following very different intellectual lines in very
different circumstances and he did not want any responsibility for
a publication in a language he could not read.709
706
Shenfield, Russian Fascism, 203.
707
Laqueur, Fascism, 142.
708
Mitrofanova, The Politicization of Russian Orthodoxy, 146.
709
Sedgwick, Against the Modern World, 333.
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 181
In conclusion, it seems only safe to locate Dugin’s ideology under the generic con-
cept of fascism and to call him a neo-fascist. This classificatory solution has been
repeatedly argued by students of “neo-Eurasianism” including Alan Ingram, Stephen
Shenfield, Markus Mathyl as well as myself, and validated by Dugin himself—which is
why it has been not further discussed here. 710 A neat terminological solution for the
issue of how to label the peculiar variety of neo-fascism that Dugin presents can,
however, not be presented here. For doing this, further in-depth research into the
political writings and behaviour of Dugin and their analysis from a comparative per-
spective would be necessary. To come to a final conclusion for how to classify him,
one may have to wait until Dugin ceases to publish and be active politically. It cannot
be excluded that Dugin may introduce—apart from “Traditionalism,” “Conservative
Revolution,” “National Bolshevism,” “Neo-Eurasianism,” etc.—further concepts and
terms expressing his views.
In any way, for the purposes of the present study, deeper elaboration of this issue is
not necessary. What this section merely argued is that Dugin’s various self-
descriptions should neither be ignored entirely nor be always taken at face value.
While certain statements on the nature of his ideology are valuable clarifications of
“where he comes from,” other terms and concepts that Dugin has introduced in pre-
senting his views have an apologetic and manipulative character. In German, one
would call some of Dugin’s terminology an Etikettenschwindel—a “labelling fraud.”
Rather than adequately reflecting the origins and nature of his views, they fulfil im-
portant roles within Dugin’s Gramscian strategy of reforming civil society discourse,
and gaining, via “political mimicry,” influence on mainstream elites in Russia’s gov-
ernments, parliaments, mass media, universities, etc. They are designed to reassure
the Russian elites of the benevolence, rootedness and conservatism of his ideas. At
the same time, concepts such as “neo-Eurasianism” justify a continued expression of
the extremely anti-Western core of Dugin’s ideology that had been less cryptically
expressed during the early and mid-1990s. His various neologisms are important for
the current analysis in that they are tools that enemies of democracy in Russia and
elsewhere have been using to blur the distinction between “civil” and “uncivil society.”
710
Ingram, “Alexander Dugin;” Shenfield, Russian Fascism; Mathyl, “The National-Bolshevik
Party and Arctogaia;” idem, “‘Die offenkundige Nisse und der rassenmäßige Feind;’” Um-
land, “Tri raznovdinosti postsovetskogo fashizma,” 252-262; Dugin, Konservativnaya
revolyutsiya, 9-36; idem, “Fascism—Borderless and Red.”
ANDREAS UMLAND 182
III.5.7 Dugin’s Relevance in Context
It would be too early to speak of a deep contamination of Russian civil society re-
sembling that of the German voluntary sector during the Weimar Republic, and a
principal subversion of intellectual discourse by anti-democratic ideas similar to the
one in many European countries in inter-war Europe.711 Mitrofanova even stated as
late as 2005 that, “at the moment, nothing indicates that […] a transition [to an intel-
lectual domination by Dugin and similar people] will transpire in the foreseeable fu-
ture.”712 This might be overly deterministic and would appear to be, partly, in contra-
diction to Mitrofanova’s own findings. However, it seems also doubtful that, as
Charles Clover claimed in a 1999 Foreign Affairs article, the certainly existent “corre-
lation between Dugin’s ideas and those of the Russian establishment” was, already
in the late 1990s, much more than mere co-variation and an expression of the gen-
eral shift to the right in Russian foreign policies.713 This process had started as early
as 1993, i.e. even before Zhirinovskii’s rise.714 Although Dugin presumably had, in
the late 1990s, some impact on the thinking of Russia’s elites, the sources of some
711
Günter Rohrmoser, “Menetekel Weimar über Jelzin? Das russische Volk kämpft geistig
um das eigene Überleben,” Die Welt, 30th October 1993; Valentin Zapovelov, “Weimarer
Verhältnisse?” Der Tagesspiegel, 19th December 1993; Grigorij Jawlinskij, “Gedemütigt,
wie Deutschland nach dem Versailler Frieden,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 9th De-
cember 1994; George Breslauer, Gerald Feldman, Harold James and Andrei Melville,
“Weimar and Russia: Is There an Analogy?” at: URL (last accessed October 2006):
http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/pubs/breslauer.html, URL (last accessed October 2006):
http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/pubs/feldman.html, URL (last accessed October 2006):
http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/pubs/james.html, URL (last accessed October 2006):
http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/pubs/melville.html; Galina Starovoitova, “Modern Russia
and the Ghost of Weimar Germany,” in: Heyward Isham, ed., Remaking Russia (Armonk,
NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1995), 129-145; Yanov, Weimar Russia; Hanson and Kopstein, “The
Weimar/Russia Comparison;” Rogers Brubaker, “Homeland nationalism in Weimar Ger-
many and ‘Weimar Russia,’” in his Nationalism Reframed: Nationhood and National
Question in the New Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 107-147;
Timm Beichelt, “Konsolidierungschancen des russischen Regierungssystems,” Osteuro-
pa 46, no. 6 (1996): 597-609; Gleb Misukhin, “Rossiya v veimarskom zerkalie, ili
Soblazn’ legkogo uznavaniya,” Pro et Contra 3, no. 3 (1998): 111-123; Christian Caryl,
“Is this Weimar Russia? Eerie Parallels to Germany during Hitler’s Rise to Power,” US
News and World Report, 16th November 1998; Shenfield, Russian Fascism; Niall Fergu-
son, “Look back at Weimar and start to worry about Russia,” The Daily Telegraph, 1st
January 2004. See also the theses: Toby Mathew Edwards, “Prelude to Fascism: A
Comparative Examination of the Economic, Political, and Social Issues of Pre-Fascist
Italy and Post-Soviet Russia,” California State University at Fresno, 1995; Gary P. Rus-
sell, “Exploring the ‘Weimar Russia’ Analogy,” Monterey Institute, 1999; Tim Peters, “Der
Reichspräsident in der Weimarer Republik und der Präsident der Russischen Föderation
im Vergleich,” unpublished MA thesis, University of Bonn, 2002.
712
Mitrofanova, The Politicization of Russian Orthodoxy, 193, emphasis added.
713
Clover, “Dreams of the Eurasian Heartland.”
714
Suzanne Crow, “Why has Russian Foreign Policy Changed?” Radio Free Europe/ Radio
Liberty Research Report 3, no. 18 (1994): 1-6.
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 183
Russian actions, mentioned by Clover, as the discussion of the possibility of a return
of the Kuril Islands to Japan (once proposed by Dugin in order to recruit Japan into
the Eurasian anti-American alliance), or a rapprochement with Iran and Iraq, proba-
bly, laid elsewhere.
What seems at hand in Clover’s article of 1999 and in other early warnings concern-
ing Dugin may be an example of the well-known “omitted variable bias” described in
the social science methodology literature. In view of the general shift of Russian for-
eign policies towards a more anti-Western line and the concurrent rise of Dugin al-
ready under El’tsin, one could, indeed, get the impression that Dugin started to influ-
ence Russian high politics as early as in the late 1990s. Yet, it is more likely that both
of these changes were due to various third factors—above all the effects on Russian
public opinion of NATO’s eastward expansion and military activities in the Balkans. 715
These and other developments (omitted variables) contributed to a rise of anti-
Westernism in Russian society at large, if not a re-configuration of the Russian politi-
cal discourse and spectrum—largely, independently of Dugin’s activities, at that
time.716 While Dugin’s ideas, on the one side, and official Russian policies, on the
other, thus started to display some congruence, the relationship between them was,
at least in the late 1990s, still a spurious one. 717 There is, as Walter Laqueur has
noted, the danger of crying “wolf” too often. 718
With hindsight, the main thrust of Clover’s warning of 1999 has, in view of Dugin’s
continuing rise in the new century, proved to be, of course, apt. More recently, the
importance of ideas posing under the label “Eurasianism”, in general, in post-Soviet
discourse has certainly risen. 719 While it would still be an exaggeration to claim, as a
715
J.L. Black, Russia Faces NATO Expansion. Bearing Gifts or Bearing Arms? (Lanham,
Boulder: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2000).
716
Andreas Umland, „Die Rezeption der Entscheidung zur NATO-Osterweiterung in
Rußland,“ Neue Politische Literatur 48, no. 3 (2003): 467-473.
717
Gerring, Social Science Methdology, 199.
718
Laqueur, Fascism, 121.
719
Although, Markus Kaiser might, in his article on Eurasianism in the post-Soviet sphere,
have been overstating his case with regard to the propagation of quasi-Eurasianist ideas
by Nursultan Nazarbaev (greatly admired by Dugin). Kaiser also claimed that, by 2004,
“[t]he Russian President Vladimir Putin [had] acknowledged the idea [of a Eurasian Un-
ion], but not done a single step towards its political implementation.” Markus Kaiser,
“Einführung: Die russischen Debatte und ihre Re-Orientierung zwischen Asien und Euro-
pa,” in: in: Idem (ed.), Auf der Suche nach Eurasien, 111-124, here 116. This may, in
turn, have been an underestimation of the repercussions of the rise of Eurasianism—
however understood—on politics. In addition, Kaiser does not sufficiently highlight, in his
altogether informative paper, extreme anti-Americanism as a major ideological tenet of
“neo-Eurasianism.” Instead, he mentions Eurocentrism as “neo-Eurasianism’s” opposing
ANDREAS UMLAND 184
German proponent of geopolitics did in 2004, that “Dugin’s book Foundations of Ge-
opolitics is today the most successful political science work in Russian language,” 720
Dugin’s role in Russia has indeed grown. At a roundtable on radio Ekho Moskvy in
August 2006, Emil Pain compared it to the position of Samuel Huntington in the
US.721 The outspoken political newspaper commentator Andrei Piontkovskii observed
in October 2006: “The Nazi scoundrel [gadina] Dugin—openly in love with the aes-
thetics and practice of the SS men (read his [major above-mentioned 1990s journal]
Elementy)—does not disappear from the state television channels having become
one of the leading official ideologues of the regime.” 722 Therefore, the indirect, long-
term repercussions of the manifold activities of intellectuals like Dugin in Russia
could, at one point or another, make a difference in Russian domestic and foreign
policies. The question would, however, still be—how much of a difference?723
In any way, it is, in view of the above, doubtful that some of the more optimistic re-
cent accounts on Russian uncivil society—i.e. prognoses predicting its stagnation or
descent—are adequate. For instance, Likhachev made, with regard to the extremely
right-wing electronic and print organs, the following statement in 2002:
The [ultra-nationalist] opposition has lost the fight for print mass me-
dia (not to mention electronic ones). Of course, such newspapers as
[the daily] Sovetskaya Rossiya [Soviet Russia] and [the weekly]
Zavtra have a circulation [300,000 & 100,000 respectively—A.U.]
that is only little smaller than that of the main all-Russian publica-
tions of a centrist and liberal orientation. However, with regard to a
principle. Ibid., 117. While such a juxtaposition is appropriate for the classical Eura-
sianists of the inter-war period, it is today valid only partly. Rather, it is, as extensively
argued above, in its opposition to the US and its representatives in Europe—like Great
Britain—that “neo-Eurasianism” as an ideology proposing a unification of Russia, conti-
nental Europe and parts of Asia in order to fight “mondialist Atlanticism” makes sense
(within its own conceptual framework, of course).
720
Hans-Ulrich Seidt, “Eurasische Träume? Afghanistan und die Kontinuitätsfrage deut-
scher Geopolitik,“ Orient 45, no. 3 (2004): 1-20, here 15, URL (last accessed October
2006): http://www.pcg-projectconsult.de/geopolitische-analysen/literatur/orient.pdf.
721
“Ubiistvennaya ksenofobiya: organizovannya i neorganizovannaya,” URL (last accessed
October 2006): http://echo.msk.ru/guests/791.
722
Andrei Piontkowskii, “Anna i Prezident,” URL (last accessed October 2006):
http://grani.ru/opinion/piontkovsky/m.112577.html.
723
For example a recent statement by the Head of the Russian Ministry of Interior, Rashid
Nurgaliev, sounds frighteningly similar to Dugin’s thinking. Nurgaliev opined that “[t]oday
[the terror’s inspirers’] main goal is to step up anti-constitutional activity in our country, to
change Russia’s position in the interests of Western countries.” As quoted in Kyiv Post,
17th February 2005, 6. The linking of Western interests and policies with terrorist acts by
Muslims in Russia has been a frequent theme in “neo-Eurasian” publications.
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 185
whole range of indicators—volume, frequency of appearance [peri-
odichnost’], informational value, flexibility [operativnost’], analytical
value, [and] finally, layout—the gap between oppositional and “ordi-
nary” newspapers is more than obvious. And the influence of mass
media on the people’s consciousness and social attitudes is deter-
mined not only by circulation numbers, but also by the listed fac-
tors.724
Though this might be a valid statement with regard to the relative failure of certain
older Russian ultra-nationalists and their newspaper, journals and WWW-sites, it
seems less applicable to Dugin’s web-rings and books, in particular, and many simi-
lar publicists’ presence in mainstream electronic and print media, in general.725 Ra-
ther, there is a contrary trend of proliferation of such publications, and, in particular of
books and book-series. To be sure, as a Russian journalist visiting Moscow’s XVII
International Book Fair in September 2005, at which a scandal arose because of the
many ultra-nationalist and antisemitic books present there, observed
[t]here is nothing new in the fact of the existence of such literature (let’s
called it, for our purposes, “patriotic”). It always existed. What recently
changed is purely on the outside: how these books look like, where they
are sold, the status of the publishers, the circulation numbers and de-
mand of the readers. […] Gone are the days of low-paper quality [bum-
aga, sil’no smakhivayushchaya na obertochnuyu] and of printing that
made your hands dirty. Before us are not brochures, but books. Solid,
well-formatted with professional jackets. Colourful, attractive. […] Gone
are the days of trading with “patriotic” goods at “specially designed
places.” Now you do not need to make special efforts to buy a piece of
chauvinism. On the contrary: it is difficult to avoid. Because you can
meet it now everywhere. In book supermarkets and in WWW shops,
and even at an International Fair. […] The average circulation number
of literature under the slogan “One country, one nation, one Führer
724
Vyacheslav Likhachev, “Yazyk Vrazhdy v oppozitsionnykh politicheskikh izdaniyakh,” in:
Aleksandr Verkhovskii, ed., Yazyk moi…: Problema etnicheskoi i religioznoi neterpimosti
v rossiiskikh SMI (Moskva: Panorama, 2002), 82-99, here 85.
725
Likhachev’s statement (ibid.) would even with regard to Zavtra’s editor-in-chief Aleksandr
Prokhanov be in so far misleading as Prokhanov, certainly, did not reach a mass audi-
ence through Zavtra itself; yet, he had, as mentioned above, considerable success with
some other publications, such as his award-winning political novel Gospodin Geksogen
that were and are read far beyond the lunatic fringe.
ANDREAS UMLAND 186
[sic]” is, approximately, 3,000 copies. For non-commercial literature, this
number is very significant. 726
In summer 2006, Moscow’s XIX International Book Fair too was marked by a scandal
by the heavy presence of the antisemitic publishing houses Algoritm and Russkaya
Pravda.727
The perceptive Russian-Jewish émigré scholar and one of the founding fathers of
post-Soviet Russian right-wing extremism studies Aleksandr Yanov observed, in a
2005 article called “The War of Ideas,” that
there are now so many [ultra-nationalist publicists]—these home-made
neo-conservatives, eloquent and passionate defenders of the “Russian
civilization”—in Moscow, that one starts feeling uneasy. Even worse is,
however, the growing popularity of their propaganda among a significant
part of the political elite.
Yanov goes on to quote prominent ultra-nationalist publicist, Senior Fellow of Mos-
cow’s prestigious Institute of World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO)
and Rodina faction State Duma deputy Nataliya Narochnitskaya. In an interview for
the leading right-wing extremist weekly Zavtra, Narochnitskaya reported about the
reception of her major 2002 pamphlet Russia and the Russians in World History in
June 2003:
[M]y ideas, which in 1993-96 one could only publish in [the major russo-
phile “thick journal”] Nash sovremennik [Our Contemporary] or voice in
the [nationalist TV] program of Aleksandr Krutov, and which even for the
sympathizing, but within-system public appeared then as epatage, are
now on demand everywhere and in all offices, including the highest
ones. Take the fate of my book Rossiya i russkie v mirovoi istorii [which
is] an antiliberal and anti-Western bomb; yet it is read by everybody—
not only the opposition, but [also by] businessmen, professors and high-
ranking officials. There is a natural change of personnel on all levels of
726
Yan Shenkman, “Iz marginalov—v meinstrim: Ekstremistskuyu literaturu chitayt ne iz
printsipov, a ot skuki,” Nezavisimaya gazeta—Ex Libris, 22 September 2005, URL (last
accessed October 2006): http://exlibris.ng.ru/subject/2005-09-22/1_mainstream.html.
727
Aleksandr Voronov, “Knizhnuyu yarmarku obvinili v antisemitizme,” Kommersant’’, 9
September 2006, URL (last accessed October 2006):
http://www.kommersant.ru/doc.html?docId=703739. There is now also a special WWW
book shop called “Delokrat.Ru—The Right Ideas for Affordable Prices” where one can
buy many “patriotic” books, videos and music. URL (last accessed October 2006):
http://www.delocrat.ru/.
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 187
power, and in life, in general. […] Such a recovery of social and national
consciousness necessarily brings about positive fruits which is why our
militant Westerners are panicking. It is impossible not to see this
change. One has to carefully nurture it, it is unavoidable, and it already
starts to have a life of itself.728
Thus, Dugin’s impressive ascent—while having, so far, few immediate effects on
Russian high politics—is merely one sign that “[t]he ‘patriots’ have left their ghetto
and their books continuously appear as less and less marginal reading and enter the
mainstream.”729 Though Dugin is by no means yet a widely known figure among or-
dinary Russians, his position in Russian society, already in 2001, was, according to
Stephen Shenfield, “such that he [could, already then] not be dismissed out of hand
as a figure of the ‘lunatic fringe.’”730 Dugin has become a major actor on
what Thomas Metzger calls “the ideological marketplace,” the flow of
information and ideas, including those, which evaluate and critique
the state. This includes not only independent mass media but the
broader field of autonomous cultural and intellectual activity: univer-
sities, think tanks, publishing houses, theatres, filmmakers, and artis-
tic performances and networks.731
Dugin’s rise is only one among many indications that political liberalism, philosophical
rationalism, and ethical universalism are beaten in retreat in Russia’s public and intel-
lectual discourse today.732
The West European “New Right,” above all the French Nouvelle Droite and German
Neue Rechte, have now, inspired by the famous Gramscian theory, for more than
three decades been trying to erode the hegemony of the democratic ideal in main-
728
Aleksandr Prokhanov and Nataliya Narochnitskaya, “Rossiya—vsegda imperiia,” Zavtra,
no. 26(501), 25th June 2003, URL (last accessed October 2006):
http://zavtra.ru/cgi//veil/data/zavtra/03/501/21.hml.
729
Shenkman, “Iz marginalov—v meinstrim.”
730
Shenfield, Russian Fascism, 199.
731
Diamond, Developing Democracy, 222.
732
Mitrofanova came, in here study of “political Orthodoxy,” of 2005 to the conclusion “that
having had no signficant successes in the sphere of macropolitics, the political Orthodox,
namely, fundamentalists and nationalists, have managed within the last ten years to build
numerous alternative social institutions and paramilitary organizations at the grassroots
level. Leaning upon these institutions they have been able to influence larger and more
moderate political organizations and to infiltrate them thus contributing to [a] general ‘Or-
thodoxization’ of the political discourse.” Mitrofanova, The Politicization of Russian Or-
thodoxy, 204.
ANDREAS UMLAND 188
stream Western political thinking—with only limited success.733 In contrast, Dugin as
well as a whole number of similar publicists may, currently, be on their way to re-
orient a substantial section of post-Soviet Russia’s inexperienced social, cultural and
political elites towards a new anti-Western utopia.734
733
On this phenomenon, see, in chronological order, Alex Demirovic, “Kulturelle Hegemonie
von rechts: Antonio Gramsci—gesehen von der ‘nouvelle droite’,“ Die neue Gesellschaft:
Frankfurter Hefte 37, no. 4 (1990): 352-357; Armin Pfahl-Traughber, “’Gramscismus von
rechts’? Zur Gramsci-Rezeption der Neuen Rechten in Frankreich und Deutschland,“
Blick nach rechts, no. 21 (28 September 1992): 3-5; Richard Herzinger and H. Stein, En-
dzeit-Propheten oder die Offensive der Antiwestler: Fundamentalismus, Antiamerikanis-
mus und Neue Rechte (Reinbeck bei Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1995); Michael Minkenberg,
"The New Right in France and Germany: Nouvelle Droite, Neue Rechte and the New
Right Radical Parties," in: Peter H. Merkl and Leonard Weinberg, eds., The Revival of
Right-wing Extremism in the Nineties (London: Frank Cass, 1997), 65-90; Michael
Minkenberg and Ina Stephan, "Intellektualisierung von rechts? Die französische Neue
Rechte und ihr Einfluß auf die Politik," in: Frankreich Jahrbuch 1998 (Opladen: Les-
ke+Budrich, 1998), 151-167; Michael Minkenberg, "Context and Consequence: The Im-
pact of the New Radical Right on the Political Process in France and Germany," German
Politics and Society 16, no. 3 (1998): 1-23.
734
One is reminded of an observation by Herrmann Rauschning, once a supporter of the
“Conservative Revolution,” of inter-war Germany. Rauschning stated that German socie-
ty in the Weimar Republic was to such a degree infiltrated with various myths and leg-
ends that the population was close to mass psychosis. Mentioned in Lyuks, “Evraziistvo i
konservativnaya revolyutsiya,” 61.
IV Conclusions: Anti-Democratic Politics and
Uncivil Society in Post-Soviet Russia
Ultra-nationalist political blocs or politicians had so far only sporadic electoral appeal
and organizational success in Russia. This fact can, in view of the weighty symbolic
and ideological dilemmas the parties currently occupying this spectrum are facing,
however, be neither taken as a proof for some fundamental lack of susceptibility of
the majority of Russians to extremely right-wing ideologies, nor be interpreted as an
indication of some principal incapability of Russia’s ultra-nationalist forces to eventu-
ally convert putative, potential popular support into political power. One might even
argue that such figures as Zhirinovskii and Barkashov had a beneficial effect on Rus-
sia’s democratization: They quickly occupied the intra- and extra-parliamentary fas-
cist niches in the new post-Soviet political spectrum in the early 1990s, 735 and may
thus have helped to prevent the rise of a leader with, in Russian nationalist terms, a
more acceptable family background than Zhirinovskii’s, and a party with less offen-
sive political symbols than the RNE’s.736 Not entirely unlike the German post-war ex-
treme right, the Russian ultra-nationalists have, so far, been plagued by constant di-
visions.737 What Walter Laqueur wrote in the mid-1990s on Russian ultra-nationalism,
seems still valid today: “The extreme right wing is […] hopelessly divided […], but
altogether, it is not a negligible force.”738
In the last Russian parliamentary elections of December 2003, the official election
results for those three anti-Western ultra-nationalist groupings that, in the proportion-
al part of the voting, passed the 5%-threshold were:
- 12.61% for the KPRF,
- 11.45% for the LDPR, and
735
Andreas Umland, “Zhirinovskii as a Fascist: Palingenetic Ultra-Nationalism in the Ideolo-
gy of the Liberal-Democratic Party of Russia,” Paper presented at the 97th Annual Meet-
ing of the American Political Science Association, San Francisco, 30 August - 2 Septem-
ber 2001.
736
Walter Laqueur has remarked: “The Poles and other Slavic people have no reason to be
grateful to the Nazis and their racist theories of eastern Untermenschen. As a result,
there are few outright neo-Nazis in Russia and Eastern Europe, and most of the far
Right‘s leaders recognize that in the post-Communist era, different approaches and new
ideas must be used.” Laqueur, Fascism, 122.
737
Laqueur, Fascism, 115.
738
Laqueur, Fascism, 184.
ANDREAS UMLAND 190
- 9.02% for Rodina.
This and the additional 11 seats won by the KPRF and 8 seats won by Rodina in sin-
gle-member districts translated in December 2003 into 51 seats for the KPRF, 37
seats for the LDPR and 36 seats for Rodina, i.e. altogether 124 for these three par-
ties out of 450. 739
What is remarkable in these numbers is that the LDPR, after a continuing decline
since its triumph in December 1993 (22.92%), had, in the previous 1999 State Duma
elections, received merely 5.98%.740 In fact, the LDPR’s 11.45% in the proportional
part of the voting in last State Duma elections was the second best result it ever re-
ceived in federal-level elections.741 The party’s December 2003 success and
Zhirinovskii’s recent relatively good results in various opinion polls which put him
among the three most popular politicians in Russia have come to the surprise of
many observers, including myself, who, like Shenfield, found it, after the 1999 State
Duma elections, “very hard to envisage a dramatic and sustained reversal in the
[LDPR’s] fortunes.”742 Given the recent public opinion polling results, the LDPR is
well set to stay in Russian high politics for the years to come.
Rodina, on its part, managed to pass from scratch and with a remarkable margin the
5%-barrier and collected, in contrast to the LDPR, a respectable number of further
deputies (eight) in the single-member districts. This happened in spite of the fact that
Rodina had been created only a few months before the elections. What is further
noteworthy is that the spectrum of anti-Western parliamentary parties has with the
impressive return of the LDPR and surprising performance of Rodina in its first elec-
toral test become significantly more varied than in the previous Duma, and been filled
with some colourful personalities. The latter concerns, for instance, several veteran
ideologists and activists of Russian nationalism like Sergei Baburin, Nataliya
Narochnitskaya, Valentin Varennikov, Aleksandr Krutov, Nikolai Pavlov, Andrei
Savel’ev and Aleksandr Chuev—none of whom had been a member of the 3rd (post-
739
URL (last accessed October 2006): http://www.electionguide.org/resultsum/russia_par03.
htm.
740
URL (last accessed October 2006): http://www.nupi.no/russland/elections/1993_state_
duma_elections_Russia.htm; URL (last accessed October 2006): http://www.nupi.no/
russland/elections/1999_SD_final.html.
741
In May 1999, Zhirinovskii received 17.4% of the turnout and thus came in third in an elec-
tion of the Governor of Belgorodskaya oblast’. See URL (last accessed October 2006):
http://www.cityline.ru/politika/vybory/rre99t.html. In other regional elections, such as in
Tuva and Pskovskaya oblast’, the LDPR or its representatives also did pretty well.
742
Shenfield, Russian Fascism, 111.
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 191
Soviet) Russian State Duma 1999-2003. They have all entered the 4th Duma on the
Rodina ticket.743
It may have been these quantitative and qualitative leaps that caused alarm among
some Russian human rights activists.744 The Moscow Bureau for Human Rights
counted, in January 2004, 126 members of—what they called—the “faction of na-
tionalists” in the 4th State Duma. The human rights activists included in this count—
paralleling the classification used in this book—all deputies from not only the LDPR
and Rodina, but also from the KPRF faction (and, apparently, also some independent
nationalist deputies). The human rights activists thus concluded, in their report, that
almost 30% of the new State Duma members are “nationalists,” and that these men
and women may “destabilize the socio-political situation” in Russia on the eve of the
2007 parliamentary and 2008 presidential elections.745
This might be a topical warning. However, if seen in the immediate historical context,
the current degree of presence of radically anti-Western forces in the 4th post-Soviet
State Duma is, actually, not alarming. That is because the comparably good results
of Zhirinovskii’s party, and Rogozin’s and Glaz’ev’s alliance in the December 2003
elections have to be weighed against the concurrent, relatively poor performance of
the KPRF and its then allied Agrarian Party, as compared to its successes in the
second half of the 1990s. This concerns especially the previous, December 1999
parliamentary elections in which the KPRF had triumphed within both, the propor-
tional part of the voting in which it had overtaken the pro-Putin Edinstvo [Unity] bloc
slightly (with 24.29%) and in the voting in single-member districts where it had
trounced Edinstvo even more impressively. It is true that, if one compares only the
sums of percentages in the proportional part of the voting for the KPRF and LDPR in
1999 (24.29% + 5.98% = 30.27%), 746 on the one side, and for the KPRF, LDPR and
743
See Andreas Umland, “Der russische Rechtsextremismus nach den Wahlen 2003-2004:
Bestandsaufnahme und Perspektiven,” Russlandanalysen, no. 23 (2004): 2-4, URL (last
accessed October 2006): http://www.russlandanalysen.de/content/media/Russland
analysen23.pdf. Another case would be the infamous Russian antisemite and former
Governor of the Stavropol’skii krai Nikolai Kondratenko who entered the Duma on a
KPRF ticket.
744
As reported in Aleksandr Kolesnichenko, “Skrytaya ugroza,” Novye izvestiya, 27th Janu-
ary 2004, URL (last accessed October 2006): http://www.newizv.ru/news/
?id_news=4163&date=2004-01-27.
745
As quoted in Kolesnichenko, “Skrytaya ugroza.” One might add that the MBHR has a
somewhat tainted reputation among Russia’s anti-racist activists and scholars studying
post-Soviet Russian nationalism. In some way, my following reply to the MBHR’s alarm
can be read in support of such critique of the work of the MBHR.
746
URL (last accessed October 2006): http://www.nupi.no/russland/elections/1999_SD_
ANDREAS UMLAND 192
Rodina in 2003 (12.61% + 11.45% + 9.02% = 33.08%), on the other, there was a
2.21% increase in the vote for those ultra-nationalist parties that managed to pass
the 5%-threshold. Yet, even this circumstance appears as, eventually, not that im-
pressive in as far as an entirely new participant, Rodina, had entered the race for rel-
evant nationalist votes in December 2003.
What is more, while the results of the ultra-nationalist parties passing the 5%-
threshold increased slightly and the LDPR and Rodina performed impressively, the
overall number of deputies belonging to the camp of radically nationalist State Duma
factions, in fact, decreased. That is because the KPRF’s support in the proportional
part of the elections sank dramatically from 24.29% in 1999 to, as mentioned, to
12.61% in 2003, and the KPRF gained also far fewer seats in the voting in single-
member districts. Above all, the overall composition of the Duma changed. Thus a
comparison of the seats won by anti-Western electoral blocs that had passed the
5%-threshold in the proportional part of the elections to the 4th and 3rd post-Soviet
State Dumas (Table 4) reveals a decrease of six from 1999 to 2003. 747
final.html.
747
As far as classifiying the ideologies of individual candidates (such for instance the world
view of the former Vladivostok Mayor Viktor Cherepkov who entered the 4 th State Duma)
is more difficult than typologizing the programs of entire political blocs or parties, I have
refrained here from including in this count putatively ultra-nationalist independent depu-
ties, i.e. those who have entered the parliament via an SMD and without the help of a
party or bloc represented with a faction in the Duma. This is for the sake of the argument
made here not necessary in as far as I am more interested in the organizational capaci-
ties of certain ideological camps. Adding independent anti-Western deputies in the 3rd
and 4th State Duma would, in any way, only little change in the argument I am trying to
make here, i.e. my claim that the overall presence of radically anti-Western political forc-
es in the Duma has not changed dramatically between 1999 and 2003, but rather dimin-
ished somewhat. It should be kept in mind, however, that the number of radical national-
ists in both Duma’s is—as reflected in the count of the Moscow Bureau for Human
Rights—somewhat higher than the one stated in the tables 3 and 4. Kolesnichenko,
“Skrytaya ugroza.”
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 193
Table 4: Seats won by electoral blocs with a manifestly anti-Western outlook in the
State Duma elections of December 2003 and December 1999-2003 (excluding ultra-
nationalists not officially affiliated to an electoral bloc).
4th State Duma: Number 3rd State Duma: Num-
of elected deputies per ber of elected deputies
electoral bloc in De- per electoral bloc in
cember 2003 December 1999
KPRF 51 113
LDPR748 37 17
Rodina 36
Overall 124 130
Sources: http://www.electionguide.org/resultsum/russia_par03.htm;
http://www.elections.ru/; Parlamentskaya gazeta, 18th May 2000;
http://www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/4312.html##9.
If one compares the respective numbers for two other points in time—e.g. April 2005
and May 2000, at moments when most repeat elections had been conducted and the
factions had more or less consolidated (sixteen months, and five months after the
elections, respectively)—the pictures stays basically the same. Once one adds the
whole membership body of the Agro-Industrial Bloc—formed with support from the
KPRF and constituting a part of the nationalist camp in the Duma—to the overall
count for the strength of the anti-Western factions of the 3rd State Duma, these
groupings had assembled altogether 19 deputies more in May 2000 than they com-
prised in April 2005 (Table 5).
748
In 1999, the LDPR took part in the State Duma elections under the label “Zhirionovskii
Bloc.”
ANDREAS UMLAND 194
Table 5: Numerical strength of factions with a manifestly anti-Western outlook in the
4th and 3rd (post-Soviet) State Dumas 2003-2007 and 1999-2003 (i.e. excluding ultra-
nationalists not affiliated to any faction).
4th State Duma: Number 3rd State Duma: Num-
of faction members ac- ber of faction members
cording to the State reported in Parlament-
Duma’s WWW-site in skaya gazeta for May
April 2005 2000
KPRF 47 83
LDPR749 35 16
Rodina 40 --
Agro-Industrial Bloc -- 42
Overall 122 141
Sources; http://www.duma.gov.ru/; http://www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/4312.html##9.
This trend continued a tendency which had already been observable in the change of
numerical faction strength of the radically anti-Western forces from the 2nd to the 3rd
post-Soviet State Dumas in 1995-1999.750
Moreover, the Rodina bloc that in 2003 added 29 deputies elected on its ticket to the
Duma was, as mentioned in the introduction, an organization that had been created
by the Kremlin and thus always an uncertain future. It is unclear whether this new
actor in Russian parliamentary politics would have been ever more than an ephem-
eral phenomenon. While, for instance, in a April 2005 opinion poll by the reputed
Levada Center, the LDPR was, in comparison to the December 2003 election results,
able to approximately hold its support among likely voters (11%) and the KPRF even
increased its support to 16%, Rodina’s popularity among likely voters, on the other
side, fell from 9.02% in the December 2003 elections to 6% in this poll, 751 i.e. below
749
In 1999, the LDPR took part in the State Duma elections under the label “Zhirionovskii
Bloc.”
750
Parlamentskaya gazeta, 18th May 2000; URL (last accessed October 2006):
http://www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/4312.html##9. See also “Main Forces in the State Du-
ma and Dynamics of Change 1993-95,” URL (last accessed October 2006):
http://www.nupi.no/russland/elections/Forces_State_Duma_93_95.html.
751
URL (last accessed October 2006): http://www.levada.ru/press/2005050401.html; also
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 195
the 7%-threshold necessary to pass in order to enter the next State Duma that will be
solely elected through proportional voting. In any way, Rodina’s main successor or-
ganization has now merged with the Pensioners Party and Party of Life in order to
form a new Kremlin-supported electoral bloc under the label Spravedlivaya Rossiya
(Just Russia). This merger as well as the break away of Sergei Baburin’s group of
radically nationalist deputies from the original Rodina faction mean that the major
successor group of the original Rodina alliance cannot be counted any more as an
extremely right-wing force, but will, within the new Kremlin-sponsored alliance, prob-
ably play the role of a moderately nationalist grouping.
As a result, the alarm among Russian human rights activists with regard to the
changes in the composition of the Duma in January 2004 mentioned above seems
only partly justified. What, in December 2003, did happen was an increase in the
presence of especially prominent ultra-nationalist politicians in the State Duma, and a
diversification of the radically anti-Western spectrum represented in the legislature.
Notwithstanding, in purely quantitative terms, the earlier downward trend of ultra-
nationalist party politics since 1995, as expressed in the decreasing overall numerical
strength of radically anti-Western factions in the State Duma, has continued in the
new century. Thus, arguably, extremely right-wing parliamentary party politics re-
mains in relative decline, or is, at least, stagnating.
In connection with these developments, one should also mention that the general rise
of moderate nationalism to the pinnacle of the Russian state through the consolida-
tion of Putin’s and Edinaya Rossiya’s hold on power in 2003/2004 can be seen as
being, especially in the short run, bad news for Russian ultra-nationalist party politics.
That is not only because the “party of power” and, above all, Putin himself have
adopted many of the themes explored by ultra-nationalists under El’tsin, and thus,
partly, “stolen” the extreme right’s agenda—a phenomenon reminding the lean years
of the French extreme right under Charles de Gaulle who “[w]ith his vision of a Great
France […] could not be outflanked from the Right.” 752 The leading Russian political
sociologist Lev Gudkov reported “that in spite of increasing nationalist sentiments,
the electoral support of nationalist organizations has not grown because mitigated
nationalist slogans are ‘tapped’ by respectable politicians.” 753
quoted in Russlandanalysen, no. 65 (2005): 8.
752
Laqueur, Fascism, 106.
753
As quoted in Mitrofanova, The Politicization of Russian Orthodoxy, 200.
ANDREAS UMLAND 196
In another sense, Putin’s re-centralization could also become a serious impediment
to a further rise of ultra-nationalism because the administration’s more or less sophis-
ticated “discouragement” of radical political dissent and protest concerns the opposi-
tion criticizing Putin from an anti-Western point of view as much as dissension based
on pro-Western prerogatives. The eminent student of inter-war fascism Stanley G.
Payne came, in his broad comparison of the conditions that had been suitable for a
grab of power by fascists in the 1920s-1940s, to the conclusion that non-fascist au-
thoritarian regimes had proven to be among the best safeguards against rising fas-
cism in times of crisis.754 Laqueur too has written that
[t]he historical record shows that fascism (like terrorism) could succeed
only in a liberal democratic system. It had a chance only where it could
freely agitate. When competing with a military dictatorship (Romania or
Spain)—let alone a Communist regime—it invariably suffered defeat.755
The curious “anti-fascist” potential of Russia’s new semi-authoritarianism has, in ac-
cordance with Payne’s and Laqueur’s thesis, been indicated in the authorities’ sus-
tained persecution of the two most extreme among the above mentioned groupings,
the RNE and NBP—parties that developed relatively freely under El’tsin’s politically
more liberal regime.756 Recently, Putin said that “[w]e shall do the utmost to make
skinheads and fascist elements to disappear from the country’s political map.”757
On the other hand, it is doubtful that recent developments, such as the decreasing
numerical strength of anti-Westerners in the State Duma or the establishment of a
semi-authoritarian regime by Putin, constitute sufficient evidence for already arguing,
as Likhachev did in 2001, that “the time of the national radicals is over.” 758 Rather, in
Russia today, we could be observing a somewhat similar development as that de-
754
Payne, A History of Fascism.
755
Laqueur, Fascism, 18.
756
On the relationship, actions or non-actions of the Russian government with regard to the
most extreme ultra-nationalist Russian groupings, see, in chronological order, Yu.M.
Shmidt, ed., Problemy otvetstvennosti za razzhiganie mezhnatsional’noi rozni (Moskva:
Memorial, 1993); Doklad “O formakh i metodakh protivodeistviya politicheskomu
ekstremizmu” (Moskva: Fond INDEM, 1998), URL (last accessed October 2006):
http://www.panorama.ru/works/patr/govpol/indem.html; Aleksandr Verkhovskii, Politika
gosudarstva po otnosheniyu k national-radikal’nym ob’’edineniyam, 1991-2001 g. (Mos-
kva: Panorama, 2002) URL (last accessed October 2006):
http://www.panorama.ru/works/patr/govpol/book1.html; idem, Gosudarstvo protiv
radikal’nogo natsionalizma: Chto delat’ i chego ne delat’? (Moskva: Panorama, 2002);
Lokshina, Nationalism, Xenophobia and Intolerance in Contemporary Russia.
757
RTR Russia TV, Moscow, 27th September 2005. See also
www.polit.ru/news/2005/09/27/Skin.html.
758
Likhachev, “My i nash diagnoz.”
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 197
scribed above in late nineteenth and early twentieth century Germany. When Leonid
Luks describes what was happening between 1871 and 1914 in Imperial German
politics and society, one feels reminded of recent developments in Russian liberal-
ism. In Wilhelmine Germany,
[t]hrough their adaptation to the vocabulary of radical nationalism many
liberals accepted, after their political defeat (the conservative turn of Bis-
marck of 1878) also their spiritual defeat. Within the discourse on the
“German Jewish question” the position of [Heinrich von] Treitschke
[whose role and standing in Imperial German society I compared to that
of Panarin’s in post-Soviet Russia—A.U.] became more and more promi-
nent. This happened notwithstanding the fact that the support for the an-
tisemitic parties of the late 19th and early 20th century was, by no means,
impressive; they were only a marginal phenomenon in the Reichstag. In
contrast, anti-Jewishness was becoming ever more influential within
Germany’s political class, and, not the least, in academic circles.759
As mentioned above, this comparison of late Imperial Germany and post-Soviet Rus-
sia and of their nationalist ideologies is only partly justified. Still, the German example
suffices to falsify those interpretations that measure extremely right-wing support only
by assessing the electoral successes of ultra-nationalist parties.
Opinion polls tell us that the Russian population has made a shift from a largely pro-
to a predominantly anti-Western, especially anti-American stance in the course of the
1990s.760 Notably, many of those Russian voters who can be otherwise characterized
as liberals have, in the late 1990s, especially in connection with NATO’s expansion
into Eastern Europe and bombing of Yugoslavia, become critical of the West. In
2005, Mitrofanova argued that the activity of Russian uncivil society (i.e. the largely
non-party organizations she covers with her concept of “political Orthodoxy”) had
made a contribution to the spread of xenophobic views in Russian society,761 namely
to a rise of the number of respondents supporting the slogan “Russia for the Rus-
759
Luks, “Die Sehnsucht nach der ‘organischen nationalen Einheit’,” 172.
760
Interfax, 12 February 2002, and 12 March 2002. Dugin is thus not much off the mark in
arguing that anti-Americanism can provide a “reliable platform for a stable consolidation
of the entire Russian society.” See Dugin, “Byt’ russkim—znachit’ byt’ anti-
amerikanskim,” as quoted in Stefani Hoffman, “No Love from Russia,” 34. Laqueuer
wrote alredy in 1996 that, “[a]fter the initial liberal-democratic upsurge in 1989/1990,
Russian politics [had been] shift[ing] to the right.” Laqueur, Fascism, 183.
761
Mitrofanova, The Politicization of Russian Orthodoxy, 200.
ANDREAS UMLAND 198
sians!” from 35% in 1999 to 55% in 2004. 762 Reputed sociologist Lev Gudkov comes,
on the basis of his sociological surveys, to the conclusion that “the whole political
spectrum gradually drifts towards nationalism […].”763
Moreover, both xenophobia, in general, and anti-Americanism, in particular, are
spread—as one would expect from the above activities of Dugin—not only among the
masses, but also within the elite.764 While, according to an essay by Gudkov in 2002,
for instance, general xenophobia (though not anti-Americanism) in Russian society
experienced, at that point, a small decline, it remained stable among those with high-
er education.765 In spite of these trends, Russian radically anti-Western parties have,
at the same time, lost electoral appeal since their best performances in the State
Duma elections of the 1990s (KPRF, LDPR), or suffered from more or less significant
splits (RNE, NBP).
The above sketch of the rise of Aleksandr Dugin from a lunatic fringe figure to a high-
ly placed political advisor and ideologist as well as some other developments outside
762
Russkii kur’er, 17th December 2004.
763
As quoted in Mitrofanova, The Politicization of Russian Orthodoxy, 200.
764
William Zimmerman, The Russian People and Foreign Policy: Russian Elite and Mass
Perspectives, 1993-2000 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002). On anti-
Americanism, see Vladimir Shlapentokh, “Russian Attitudes toward America: A Split be-
tween the Ruling Class and the Masses,” World Affairs 164, no. 1 (2001): 17-23; Lev
Gudkov, “‘Ich hasse, also bin ich’: Zur Funktion der Amerika-Bilder und des Antiameri-
kanismus in Rußland,” Osteuropa 52, no. 8 (2002): 997-1004; and Hoffman, “No Love
from Russia.” In June-Juli 2005, a non-systematic WWW-poll of the Ekaterinburg Agency
Novyi Region (New Region) found that 58.8% (2481) of the respondents to the question
of Russia’s current adversaries thought of the United States as Russia’s main enemy.
The Muslim countries came second with 13.53% (570). Only 12.12% (514) thought that
Russia has no enemies. See URL (last accessed October 2006):
http://nr2.ru/ekb/32194.html. While this survey has little meaning for an assessment of
anti-American inclinations in Russian society at large, it is noteworthy that the issue of
Russia’s enemies was here presented to people who use the Web as an information
source and who have the time and interest to answer a question about Russia’s external
relations. One suspects that the poll thus partly reflects feelings in the Russian popula-
tion’s most politically sensitive and active sections. In 2002, Likhachev observed that
“[t]he ‘American’ emerging from the [nationalist daily] Sovetskaya Rossiya reminds one
of the image of the German created by Soviet propaganda during the time of the Great
Patriotic [i.e. Second World] War. Moreover, sometimes—especially in caricatures—one
can find a direct allusion ascribing to a caricature ‘American’ traits of a [German] ‘fas-
cist.’” Likhachev, “Yazyk Vrazhdy v oppozitsionnykh politicheskikh izdaniyakh,” 87. On
the historical context, see Eric Shiraev and Vladislav Zubok, Anti-Americanism in Russia:
From Stalin to Putin (New York: Palgrave, 2000).
765
Lev Gudkov, “Russkii neotraditsionalizm i soprotivlenie peremenam,” in: V.S. Malakhov
and V.A. Tishkov, eds., Mul’tikul’turalizm i transformatsiya postsovetskikh obshchestv
(Moskva: IEA RAN, 2002), 124-147. See also Igor J. Polianski, “Der patriotische Kon-
sens gegen ‘Gelb,’ ‘Schwarz’ und ‘Orange’: Impressionen und Hintergründe aktueller na-
tionalistischer Diskurse in Russland,” URL (last accessed October 2006):
http://www.zeitgeschichte-online.de/zol/_rainbow/documents/pdf/zol_int/polianski_natdis
kurse.pdf.
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 199
party politics, such as the rapid growth of the skinhead movement, give reason for
pause. The study has shown that Dugin, while being so far an actor largely operating
outside political society narrowly understood, has made inroads into major political
institutions including the State Duma, Federation Council, Cabinet of Ministers, and
Kremlin—used as a metaphor comprising not only the Presidential Administration,
but the larger entourage of the President of the RF including his political technolo-
gists. Equally significant is that, at the moment of finishing this study, Dugin was on
his way of entering the Ivory Tower of academia and becoming a participant of main-
stream scholarly discourse.
The comprehensiveness of his self-promotion and infrastructure of his foreign and
domestic ties allows one, moreover, to set Dugin apart from many of his competitors
in the field of ultra-nationalist publicism. These rivals’ books might have larger circula-
tion numbers than Dugin’s, but they mostly remain locked in the extra-political realm,
have few links into Russia’s administrative, political and academic elite, and often act
as isolated individuals lacking an institutionalized network to spread and apply their
ideas. Dugin and his movement are, in these regards, ahead and thus qualify as
an—in Eckstein’s sense—“crucial case.” Dugin’s example does not fully explain the
character of the Russian extreme right, but is still sufficient to falsify interpretations
such as the above that assign to the Russian extreme right a degree of social rele-
vance only marginally higher than that of West European ultra-nationalism.766 They
illustrate that organized Russian ultra-nationalism might, after a certain peak in the
mid-1990s, currently experience not its endgame, but an interregnum—a phase of re-
definition and formation of its ideas, position, image, strategy and structure.767 The
surprisingly swift upsurge of the Rodina bloc out of nowhere into a notable force in
the Russian parliament in 2004-2006 and the impressive resurgence of the LDPR-
vote in December 2003 can be seen as indicating the enduring electoral potential of
Russian ultra-nationalism.768
766
Eckstein, “Case Study and Theory in Political Science.”
767
Roger D. Griffin, “Interregnum or Endgame?: Radical Right Thought in the ‘Post-fascist’
Era,” Journal of Political Ideologies 5, no. 2 (July 2000): 163-178.
768
As Markus Kaiser observed in 2003: “The social ‘demand’ for Eurasian ideology and the
growth potential of this demand seem currently much higher than the recognition of the
[miniscule] ‘Eurasian Party’ [led by Abdulvakhed Niyazov] among the electorate.” Kaiser,
“Einführung,” 121. The so-called Eurasian Party—a project started after, and conceived
to be a rival of, Dugin’s movement—is such a marginal phenomenon in Russian politics
that I have ignored it, in this survey, entirely. Its only noteworthy characteristic is the in-
volvement in it of Pavel Borodin, a former Secretary of the Russian-Belarussian Union
project and politician well-known for his corruption.
ANDREAS UMLAND 200
Russian right-wing extremist party politics may, to be sure, remain unable to over-
come the dilemmas listed at the beginning within the near future. It is worth noting,
however, that when, in the past, both pre- and post-war potent ultra-nationalist par-
ties rose, they repeatedly did so suddenly, moving from—sometimes total—obscurity
to considerable popularity within only a few years. When this happened, it was more
often than not the case that a vibrant uncivil society, in general, and anti-democratic
intellectuals, in particular, had done some theoretical, ideological and propagandistic
ground-work before. The German “Konservative Revolution” of the 1920s, 769 and the
French post-1968 “Nouvelle Droite”770 are merely the most prominent examples for
an elaborate intellectual preparation of a subsequently rapid rise of an ultra-
nationalist party, i.e. the NSDAP, in the case of inter-war Germany, and Front nation-
al, in the case of post-war France.771
These observations may be interpreted to have the following implications for future
research into contemporary Russian right-wing extremism: Although ultra-nationalist
party politics is not likely to remain as insignificant as it is today, the currently promi-
nent, above listed parties may not be able to overcome their handicaps soon. It is
thus unclear who could emerge as a possible leader in the future, and which party
might be able to take better advantage of Russia’s already substantial anti-Western
electorate. Under these circumstances, greater attention to Russia’s uncivil society—
ranging from well-institutionalized high-brow think-tanks to fluid gangs of teenage
skinheads—might not only be adequate in terms of the growing relevance of this ob-
ject.772 It might, for the time being, also be a pragmatic approach: As far as we do not
769
Stefan Breuer, Anatomie der Konservativen Revolution (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche
Buchgesellschaft, 1993). In Leonid Luks’ words, the „the Nazis were able to use these al-
lies [the „conservative revolutionaries“] with profit for themselves in as far as they [the
Nazis] gained spiritual support and additional opportunities to infect public opinion with
their ideology.“ Lyuks, “Evrasiistvo i konservativnaya revolyutsiya,” 66.
770
Griffin, “Plus ça change!”
771
“The new generation of FN [France’s Front national] leaders has more or less success-
fully evaded the disgrace and stigma that adhere to the history of the French extreme
right in the popular imagination. The work of a movement that came to be known as
Nouvelle Droite was crucial in allowing young right-leaning intellectuals to gain legitimacy
and to distance themselves from groups with disreputable histories […].” Douglas R.
Holmes, Integral Europe: Fast-Capitalism, Multiculturalism, Neofascism (Princeton:
Princeton University Press 2000), 78.
772
The recently hightening attention to Russia’ growing skinhead-subculture in Russian and
Western journalism and publicism might, under a political point of view, be overdrawn
though. As Walter Laqueur has remarked “[…] the skinheads are unreliable allies and an
undependable source of recruitment [for neofascism]. There is little that unites them, and
they lack identity as much as continuity. There are few skinheads over thirty, with the
new street gangs appearing and disappearing as quickly as fashions in music. […] The
young people attracted by these gangs are not the material likely to be of much use to
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 201
yet know whether, how and when Russian ultra-nationalist political society will over-
come its various impasses, certain findings on Russia’s uncivil society might be of a
more lasting relevance than further research into its volatile party system. From a
2003 broad study of uncivil society in East European countries other than Russia, it
emerged that, in general,
in Eastern Europe, a process of politicization of civil society has taken
place, whereby political parties (attempt to) exercise more and more con-
trol over c[ivil] s[ociety] o[rganization]s, which, in turn, are more and more
apt to forge alliances with certain, usually like-minded, political parties.
The result is not necessarily a complete inclusion of c[ivil] s[ociety]
o[rganization]s in the state, but clearly a significant curbing of their auton-
omy through a process of controlled incorporation into the network orga-
nized by political parties. 773
If anything, this is even truer of recent developments in Putin’s new Russia.
The four right-wing extremist parties introduced here—the LDPR, KPRF, RNE,
NBP—have already been scrutinized to some degree in scholarly studies.774 Some-
times, the particulars of their development have, as in the case of Kitschelt’s focus on
radical right-wing parties in Western Europe,775 been presented as telling us the
whole or, at least, main story of the extreme right in Russia today. 776 This would, in
the neofascists. […] They are, in brief, a problem for the police and the educators, rather
than the politicians. […] Future historians will probably find [the skinheads] a fascinating
footnote in the history of late-twenty-century customs and manners rather than politics.”
Laqueur, Fascism, 130. On the other hand, it should be added that this conclusion was
drawn with regard to developments in the West during the post-war period—and not re-
lated to the somewhat different Russian skinhead-movement of the new century.
773
Mudde, “Civil Society in Post-Communist Europe: Lessons from the ‘Dark Side,’” 160.
774
E.g. Verkhovskii, Papp and Pribylovskii, Politicheskii ekstremizm v Rossii; Ivanov,
Rußland nach Gorbatschow; Vera Tolz, “The Radical Right in Post-Communist Russian
Politics,” in: Peter H. Merkl and Leon Weinberg, ed., The Revival of Right-Wing Extrem-
ism in the Nineties (London: Frank Cass, 1997), 177-202; Allensworth, The Russian
Question; Judith Devlin, Slavophiles and Commissars: Enemies of Democracy in Modern
Russia (Basingstoke, Hampshire: Macmillan, 1999); Shenfield, Russian Fascism.
775
Kitschelt with McGann, The Radical Right in Western Europe.
776
Christopher Williams and Stephen E. Hanson, “National-Socialism, Left Patriotism, or
Superimperialism?: The Radical Right in Russia,” in: Sabrina Ramet, ed., The Radical
Right in Central and Eastern Europe Since 1989. With an afterword by Roger Griffin
(University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999), 257-278; and Vejlko
Vujačić, “Serving Mother Russia: The Communist Left and Nationalist Right in the Strug-
gle for Power, 1991-1998,” in: Victoria E. Bonnell and George W. Breslauer, eds., Russia
in the New Century: Stability and Disorder? (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2001), 290-
325.
ANDREAS UMLAND 202
view of the above contextualization, be insufficient or even misleading.777 As long as
Russia’s public consciousness and elite discourse remain impregnated with anti-
Western stereotypes, and penetrated by cryptic and sometimes not so cryptic inte-
grally nationalist ideas, it is to be expected that these attitudes will find organizational
expression. At least, in the near future, we should expect to find such institutional
manifestations, however, not only, and, perhaps, not so much in the realm of political
society as in the voluntary sector. Therefore, Russia’s growing uncivil society current-
ly constitutes a promising research topic for students of Russian ultra-nationalism
and associationism alike.778
777
Mitrofanova’s following statement in her related book is similar to the above argument:
“The impact of Orthodox political movements on Russian society may insignificant if
judged by their electoral success (considering that many of them never participated in
elections). Most […] Orthodox political organizations have ‘activists’ but have no ‘sympa-
thizers’ who would, for example, vote for them. For this reason, Orthodox political organi-
zations prefer to pursue strategies other than traditional party politics.” Mitrofanova, The
Politicization of Russian Orthodoxy, 187.
778
Mitrofanova predicted in spring 2005 that “[n]ationalist and fundamentalist ideas […] will
most likely transcend the limits of a ‘subculture within subculture’ and penetrate [the] na-
tional political agenda. This will happen due to the fact that […] fundamentalists and na-
tionalists […] have been able to build up networks of alternative social institutions (hospi-
tals, schools, summer camps, etc.). Such institutions have been of extreme importance
for all political religions [i.e. most of the Russian nationalist spectrum—A.U.] because
they permit them to win mass support at the micropolitical level. Success at the macropo-
litical level seems to be the next hurdle for these organizations.” Mitrofanova, The Politi-
cization of Russian Orthodoxy, 199.
Appendix: Some of Dugins Sources and Allies
Note: An inclusion of a person into this list does not necessarily imply that Dugin’s
ideology is, in every respect, a legitimate elaboration of the ideas, or represents a
closely related expression of the views of the respective person. It merely indicates
that Dugin himself has, with more or less justification, claimed an association be-
tween his ideas and those of the respective person. By no means, all relevant
sources and allies of Dugin are mentioned, but only those that I thought to be the
consequential ones. The lesser known Russian figures are more extensively intro-
duced than the various Western theoreticians and publicists who usually have been
objects of in-depth research.
Robert Brasillach (1909-1945), a notorious French fascist novelist and literary critic
who, for his pro-Nazi behaviour in 1940-1945, was put on trial and executed by the
French post-liberation authorities. Dugin refers affirmatively to Brasillach in his article
“Fascism—Borderless and Red.” See,
http://www.my.arcto.ru/public/templars/arbeiter.htm#fash.
Aleister Crowley (alias Edward Alexander Crowley, 1875-1974), a British mysticist,
magician, writer, and Satanist (calling himself “The Beast”). Head of an occultist
group called Order Templi Orientis, creator of a tradition called Thelema (Greek for
“will”), and author of Magick [sic] in Theory and Practice, a popular occultist book.
See http://www.arctogaia.com/public/crowley/.
Gyu Debord (1931-1994), French avant-garde artist, left-wing critic of the consumer
society and co-founder the Situationism, an intellectual movement influenced by Da-
daism and Surrealism, which sought to overcome capitalist alienation by disrupting
social norms. See http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/6824/debord.htm,
http://www.arctogaia.com/public/fm/finis13.htm and
http://arctogaia.com/public/rv/31.shtml.
204 ANDREAS UMLAND
Geidar Dzhemal (b. 1947), an Azeri born in Moscow, and early associate of Dugin.
Dzhemal, in 1967, became a member of the circle of Yurii Mamleyev and Eduard
Golovin, and, in 1980, joined the Naqshbandiyya Sufi Muslim order in Tajikistan. In
the late 1980s, Dzhemal and Dugin entered and left together the antisemitic, ultrana-
tionalist Pamyat’ group, and became subsequently the founders of “neo-
Eurasianism,” with Dzhemal developing, in particular, its pro-Muslim branch. During
the 1990s, Dzhemal became a prominent Islamist publicist in Russia, and co-leader
of the microscopic Party of Islamic Rebirth. At one point, he was allied to Aleksandr
Lebed and the Movement in the Support of the Army. In 1995, Dzhemal tried, unsuc-
cessfully to enter the State Duma.779 Though the relationship between Dzhemal and
Dugin was, at times, strained—for instance, when Dzhemal was affiliated for some
time to the rival, microscopic Eurasian Party of Russia of Abdul-Vakhed Niyazov—
they have recently renewed their cooperation. See http://www.kontrudar.ru/.
Julius Evola (1896/1898-1974), an Italian artillery officer, painter, publicist, Dadaist,
magician and creator of a politicized version of Guenonian Traditionalism that trans-
muted into a peculiar brand of proto-fascism. Evola’s open criticism of Mussolini’s
Fascism as too tame brought him into conflict with the Italian authorities, a circum-
stance that contributed to the preservation of his reputation after World War II. Evola
has exercised influence on a wide variety of European anti-democratic movements
ranging from neo-Fascist Italian terrorism to the French Nouvelle Droite. While Dugin
has, in public, been more deferential to Evola’s teacher Guénon, Evola’s writings
may have had an even deeper impact on the intellectual development of young
Dugin who translated some of Evola’s text into Russian and published them in Mos-
cow.780 See http://arctogaia.com/public/evola/, http://www.arctogaia.com/public/fm/
finis2.htm.
René Guénon (1886-1951), the French founder of Traditionalism, a world view that
claims that there was once a primordial universal religion (“Tradition”) which has
been lost through degradation, but the traits of which can be found in various con-
temporary religions such as Sufi Islam, Buddhism, or Catholicism. Though the works
and concepts of Guénon are major reference points in Dugin’s theoretical writings, it
779
Kaledin, “Terapiya okazalas’ bessil’noi pered maniei Dugina-mladshego pereustroit’ mir.”
780
Gregor, “Andreas Umland and the ‘Fascism’ of Aleksandr Dugin.”
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 205
is debatable whether “neo-Eurasianism” should be classified as a Russian variety of
Traditionalism.781 See http://arctogaia.com/public/guenon/,
http://www.arctogaia.com/public/fm/finis1.htm.
Evgenii Golovin (b. 1936), poet, philosopher, translator, literary critic, mystic, and
prominent member of Mamleev’s Yuzhinskii circle which, in the early 1980s, started
calling itself Chernyi orden SS (Black Order of the SS) and Golovin Reichsführer
SS.782 Golovin studied philology at Moscow State University, and gained, as a stu-
dent, access to the closed section of the USSR’s largest, Lenin Library. 783 He dis-
covered Traditionalism in the early 1960s, and was one of the earliest and, perhaps,
most important mentors of young Dugin. He has continued to cooperate closely with
Dugin after the break-up of the Soviet Union within, for instance, Dugin’s so-called
New University.784 Otherwise, Golovin is said to live the live of an eremite in a small
flat in Gorki-10, close to Moscow. 785 See http://golovin.evrazia.org/,
http://www.arctogaia.com/public/golovin/.
Lev Gumilëv (1912-1992), son of the famous Russian poets Nikolai Gumilëv (1886-
1921) and Anna Akhmatova (1889-1966), prisoner of the GULag, and disputed Rus-
sian ethnologist and historian. On his theory, see the excursus on Gumilëv above. In
1996, the University of Akmola in—what is today—Astana, the new capital of Ka-
zakhstan, was renamed into Eurasian Lev Gumilëv University (http://www.emu.kz)
which has since become an elite college of Kazakhstan. See
http://www.arcto.ru/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1269;
http://www.arcto.ru/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=817
781
The principal study on Guénon and the history of “Traditionalism” is Sedgwick, Against
the Modern World, an outstanding work that also includes some analysis of Dugin.
782
Timur Polyannikov, „Po tropam Khimery, ili razmyshlenniya o evraziistve i ‘novom miro-
vom poriadke.’”
783
Kaledin, “Terapiya okazalas’ bessil’noi pered maniei Dugina-mladshego pereustroit’ mir.”
784
Many of Golovin’s publications may be found at URL (last accessed October 2006):
http://egolovin.narod.ru/index2.html. For further information, see URL (last accessed Oc-
tober 2006): http://www.geocities.com/mo_uru/s-s/s-s.htm, URL (last accessed October
2006): http://www.phg.ru/issue21/fg-10.html.
785
Kaledin, “Terapiya okazalas’ bessil’noi pered maniei Dugina-mladshego pereustroit’ mir.”
206 ANDREAS UMLAND
Karl Haushofer (1869-1946), a military scientist, founder of the German school of
geopolitics, and co-author of the original Lebensraum (living space) theory. Having
become a professor of geography at the University of Munich, Haushofer, in the
1920s, founded the Institute of Geopolitics and Zeitschrift für Geopolitik (Journal of
Geopolitics). A teacher and friend of Nazi leader Rudolf Heß (1894-1987), Haushofer
has been accused of providing principal building blocks for the foreign policy and mili-
tary doctrines of the Third Reich. However, while being supportive of an expansion
towards the East, Haushofer was not a representative of Nazism proper. A year after
his son Albrecht (1903-1945) had been executed by the Nazis because of participa-
tion in the July 1944 assassination attempt on Hitler, Haushofer committed suicide.
Haushofer is a major reference in Dugin’s magnum opus Osnovy geopolitiki. See
http://arctogaia.com/public/osnovygeo/geopol1.htm#7%22,
http://www.arctogaia.com/public/fm/finis16.htm.
Ernst Jünger (1895-1998), one of Germany’s most important writers of the 20th
century and a leading representative of the inter-war intellectual movement that be-
came known as the „Conservative Revolution.“ Having received high decorations for
his military service during World War I, Jünger became quickly a noted novelist and
prolific right-wing publicist of the 1920s. While Jünger declined several attempts by
the Nazis to incorporate him into their movement, his many radically anti-liberal artis-
tic and journalistic writings contributed to the delegitimization of the Weimar Republic
and were widely read among German right-wingers. In spite of his dubious activities
in the 1920s, Jünger became, after World War II, a well-respected figure in German
intellectual life. For Dugin, Jünger has been one of several Western role models. See
http://arctogaia.com/public/juenger/.
Eduard Limonov (b. 1943), a Soviet avant-garde poet and prose writer from Khar-
kov who emigrated in 1974 to the US and later to France where he received French
citizenship. In 1976, he wrote the novel Eto ya—Edichka (Its me, Eddie) with which
he became known in both, Russia and the West. In 1989, Limonov’s novels started to
appear in the USSR, and, in 1991, he received back his Soviet citizenship. Since
then, Limonov has become a frequent contributor to various ultra-nationalist periodi-
cals. In 1992, Limonov became a member of Zhirinovskii’s “shadow cabinet,” and co-
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 207
founder of the National-Radical Party, a splitt-off of the LDPR. In 1993, Limonov
founded, together with Dugin, the National-Bolshevik Front that was later renamed
into National-Bolshevik Party which Limonov leads until today. 786 On the relationship
between Dugin and Limonov, see http://imperium.lenin.ru/~verbit/Limonov/kommu-
limonov.html, http://www.arctogaia.com/public/engl-thesis.htm,
http://arctogaia.org.ru/FORUMS/messages/1108/1305.html?1019206862, http://NBP-
info.ru/new/lib/lim_biography/bio6.htm,
http://www.zavtra.ru/cgi/veil/data/zavtra/02/444/41.html.
Sir Halford Mackinder (1861-1947), pioneering British geographer, Unionist (i.e.
conservative) Member of Parliament, founder of modern geopolitics, and first director
of the London School of Economics and Political Science. Mackinder developed, in
his book Democratic Ideals and Reality (1919), the idea of a fundamental division
between the “Eurasian heartland” and Atlantic world. 787 See
http://www.arctogaia.com/public/osnovygeo/geopol1.htm#3.
Yurii Mamleev (b. 1931), a well-known Russian mysticist, novelist and metaphysic
who, in the 1960s, co-founded the occultist Yuzhinskii circle which Dugin entered in
1980,788 and which had a formative influence on young Dugin. Having been forced to
emigrate in 1975, Mamleyev went first to the United States where he taught at Cor-
nell University and, in 1983, to France where he taught at the Sorbonne. 789 In 1991,
he returned to Moscow where he became a prominent collaborator of Arktogeya and
taught at Dugin’s New University. He is also an adjunct professor at Moscow State
University where he teaches Indian philosophy.790 Mamleev has been called “a rep-
resentative of the aesthetics of evil,” 791 and describes in his cryptic novels scenes of
human perversion and degradation. See http://www.rvb.ru/Mamleyev/index.htm,
http://arctogaia.com/Mamleyev/, and http://arctogaia.com/public/Mamleyev/.
786
Pribylovskii, Vozhdi, 66-67; Rogachevskii, Biographical and Critical Study of Russian
Writer Eduard Limonov.
787
Sedgwick, Against the Modern World, 226, 330.
788
Likhachev, Natsizm v Rossii, 101.
789
Kaledin, “Terapiya okazalas’ bessil’noi pered maniei Dugina-mladshego pereustroit’ mir.”
790
Polyannikov, „Po tropam Khimery, ili razmyshlenniya o evraziistve i ‘novom mirovom
poriadke.’”
791
Die Zeit 58, no. 40 (2002), Sonderbeilage “Zeitliteratur,” 19
208 ANDREAS UMLAND
Arthur Moeller van den Bruck (1876-1925), German art historian, political theorist
and right-wing publicist. Moeller was one of the leading representatives of the Wei-
mar Republic’s major fascist, yet non-Nazi intellectual movement which would later
be called the “Conservative Revolution.” His ultra-nationalism was peculiar for its rab-
idly anti-Western bent and heavy pro-Russian bias. Apart from being author of pam-
phlets with titles like Das Recht der jungen Völker (The Rights of the Young Nations)
and Das Dritte Reich (The Third Reich), Moeller became known in Germany as the
editor of the first full (“red”) collection of Fedor Dostoevskii’s writings. See
http://www.arcto.ru/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=427.
Gustav Meyrink (pseudonym of Gustav Meyer; 1868-1932), occultist Austrian novel-
ist, translator and playwright. Meyrink combined in his fantasy novels mystical, Kab-
balistic and Indian elements and converted to Buddhism. See
http://arctogaia.com/public/meyrink/, http://www.arctogaia.com/public/fm/finis3.htm
Yukio Mishima (pseudonym of Kimitake Hiraoka; 1925-1970), Japanese novelist
and playwright. Mishima defended Japan’s traditional values, fought against deca-
dence, and sought to revive the Samurai tradition through his Tatenokai (Shield So-
ciety), a paramilitary brotherhood stressing physical fitness and the martial arts. He
ended his life through sepukku (ritual suicide). See
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/6824/misima.htm.
Claudio Mutti a militant Italian Muslim and follower of Guénon, Evola and, at one
point, Franco Freda. A teacher of Hungarian and Romanian, Mutti lost his job at the
University of Bologna and served a prison term for terrorist activities. Mutti has pub-
lished Italian translations of texts by Dugin, Dzhemal and Ayatollah Khomeini, and is
“important […] as one of the focal points in the late twentieth-century international
network of Traditionalists, linking smaller Traditionalist groups in Romania, Hungary,
Italy, France, and Russia.”792 See
http://arctogaia.org.ru/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=481.
792
Sedgwick, Against the Modern World, 260.
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 209
Ernst Niekisch (1889-1967), major representative of inter-war German “National
Bolshevism,” a left-wing sub-section of the Weimar Republic’s major fascist intellec-
tual movement known as the “Conservative Revolution.” A member of several Ger-
man socialist and communist parties, Niekisch was rabidly anti-Western and pro-
Soviet, yet also antisemitic, antifeminist, imperialist, and ultra-nationalist. He openly
criticized Hitler for being insufficiently anti-Western and revolutionary, and was thus
imprisoned in 1937-1945. After World War II, he made a surprising academic and
political career in the East German Soviet satellite state before breaking with the
GDR’s regime in 1953 and settling in West Berlin. See
http://www.arcto.ru/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=518;
http://www.arcto.ru/modules.php?name=News&file=print&sid=987;
Carl Schmitt (1888-1985), major German political theorist and internationally re-
nowned legal scholar who was a member of the NSDAP from 1933-1945 as well as
an active apologist of the Nazi regime as president, in 1933-1936, of the Vereinigung
nationalsozialistischer Juristen (Association of National Socialist Jurists). Schmitt’s
writings and various legal and political concepts continue to exert influence on inter-
national extremely right-wing thought until today.
http://www.arcto.ru/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2.
Vladimir Stepanov, a graduate of the Moscow Institute of Philosophy who belonged
to Golovin’s circle and managed to get, during Soviet times, in contact with the “(non-
Traditionalist) British neo-Suf [Muslim], the prominent novelist and poet Robert
Graves.”793
Talgat Tadzhuddin (b. 1948), studied Islamic theology in Bukhara and Cairo in the
1970s. In 1980, he was elected Mufti of the Spiritual Directorate of the Muslims of the
European Part of the USSR and Siberia, and has been heading the successor organ-
ization of this organ, the Central Spiritual Directorate of the Muslims of Russia and
the European Countries of the CIS, since 1990. In 2001, he became one of the co-
founders of Dugin’s Eurasia Movement, and prominent propagator of a Russian-
Muslim anti-American alliance. See http://eurasia.com.ru/leaders/tadjuddin.html.
793
Sedgwick, Against the Modern World, 223.
210 ANDREAS UMLAND
Jean-François Thiriart (1922-1992), Belgian national socialist, optometrist and con-
victed collaborator with the Nazi German occupation forces in France. In the 1960s,
Thiriart developed a form of pan-European revolutionary ultra-nationalism, and
founded the neo-fascist groupuscule Jeune Europe which was both anti-Soviet and
anti-American. Thiriart was also a co-founder of the abortive National Party of Eu-
rope, an attempt to create a pro-European coalition of right-wing extremist parties
from Germany, Italy, Great Britain and other countries. Later, Thiriart changed his
anti-Soviet views, spoke in favour of National Bolshevism, and came to see the
communist regimes of Russia, China, and Romania with sympathy. Shortly before his
death in 1992, he met in Moscow the former second secretary of the Central Commit-
tee of the CPSU Egor Ligachev (as well as Prokhanov and Dugin). See
http://arctogaia.com/public/thiriart/.
Nikolai Ustryalov (1890-probably, 1938), a functionary of the late Tsarist Constitu-
tional-Democratic Party and, after emigrating from Soviet Russia, a leader of the in-
tellectual Smena vekh (Changing Signposts) movement. Ustryalov’s positive as-
sessment of the role of the Soviet regime in restoring the Russian empire was called
“National Bolshevism.” See http://www.arctogaia.com/public/v5/v5-1.shtml.
Herman Wirth (1885-1981), a Friesian philologist, historian and musicologist who
searched for an Ancient history of the “Aryan-Nordic race,” sympathized with certain
brands of Nazism, and became, in the mid-1930s, together with Heinrich Himmler
and Richard Walther Darré, a co-founder of the SS research institute Ahnenerbe
(Heritage of the Ancient Predecessors) which he, however, left shortly afterwards
because his research did not gain the esteem he expected. Dugin devoted a special
section of his Finis Mundi radio program and some of his writings to Wirth. See
http://arctogaia.com/public/wirth/,
http://www.arcto.ru/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=63,
http://www.arctogaia.com/public/fm/finis7.htm
POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 211
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