The Dictatorship

Yuri Felshtinsky, in a recent article discussing what he sees as Russia's current gradual preparation for a major war:

Сейчас уже понятно, что никакой элиты нет. Есть довольно жестко отстроенная вертикаль власти. В конце 15-летнего пути все, что мы имеем в России, – это диктатура. Это диктатура не сталинского типа, а скорее мягкая диктатура фашистского типа, как при Муссолини или раннем Гитлере. Диктатура при открытости границы – а при Сталине границы были закрыты, при рыночной экономике – а при Сталине никакой рыночной экономики не было, без концентрационных лагерей, без массовых политических репрессий. Но эта мягкая диктатура в любой момент может превратиться и в более жесткую диктатуру – просто по законам жанра.

It is now clear that there is no elite. There is a rather rigidly constructed power vertical. At the end of a 15-year-old path, all that we have in Russia is a dictatorship. It is not a Stalinist dictatorship, but rather a soft dictatorship of the fascist type, like that of Mussolini or early Hitler. A dictatorship with open borders - under Stalin the borders were closed. One with a market economy - under Stalin, there was no market economy. One without concentration camps, without mass political repressions. But this soft dictatorship can at any moment turn into a more hardline dictatorship - simply by the laws of the genre.

The rise of antisemitism in Russia and the crisis in Ukraine

The Winnipeg Media Centre has published an analysis of the Putin regime's campaign of disinformation and defamation against Ukraine, the basis of which is an attempt to incriminate the Ukrainian government and people with the charge of organized antisemitism. In fact, as the analysis shows, the rise of antisemitism is taking place not in Ukraine but in neighboring Russia, where officially sponsored fascist and neo-Nazi ideology is creating a situation not unlike the one that existed in Germany during the 1930s. 

The analysis is divided into three sections:

The first section gives the view of the Ukrainian Jewish community and of organizations that monitor human rights. It is clear from these articles that Jews in Ukraine see neither the current Ukrainian government nor the groups that brought about the change of government as a danger.  On the contrary, they are unanimous in the view that the biggest threat to the safety and security of Jewish people in Ukraine comes from the militant separatists backed by the Russian state.

The second section presents articles by scholars who are following events in the Donbas area and in Russia. These researchers are among many who warn of an alarming rise in chauvinistic and xenophobic attitudes in Russia. They are particularly worried by the rise of fascist groups supported by the government, and by the development of a fascist ideology in circles close to Putin.

The third section presents articles that indicate what we can expect from governing circles in Moscow, and raises broader issues in connection with Putin’s propaganda campaign.

Ukraine as Antidote

In the wake of the large gains by ultra-right wing parties in the recent European elections, Timothy Snyder suggests in the New York Review of Books that Ukraine could provide an antidote to the problem. A country that actively wants to join the European Union and is willing to work for it could help the body to rediscover its purpose:

In the Ukrainian revolution, people fought carrying the EU flag; in the Ukrainian elections, people stood in line for hours wearing EU symbols. The European Union has been enlarging since its establishment as the European Communities, and it will and should continue to do so. A promise of further enlargement would not be expensive: on the contrary, the incentives for reform and for investment would reduce the need for future aid.

By contrast, Snyder says, the voters who in Scotland, France, England, Greece, Austria, Bulgaria and elsewhere in Europe voted for a return to the nation state are living in a parallel universe, and really voted for a "separation from the world". Their detachment from reality is merely enabling Putin's scheme for the Russian domination of Europe - the Russkiy Mir - for these nationalists and advocates of "independence" also support Putin's aims and policies. However, "if Europeans voted the way Ukrainians did, Europe could count on a far more secure and prosperous future."

Russian right-wing mercenaries in Ukraine

The Winnipeg Media Centre has published a detailed survey of the leaders of Russian neo-Nazi and other extreme right wing groups currently operating in eastern Ukraine. These include the high-profile Strelkov-Girkin 'Donbass self-defence' group, but also many others that are less well known but are also trained in Russia and have a fascistic, anti-Semitic and militaristic orientation.

Russia Today and Britain's Far Right

In Searchlight on April 16, Gerry Gable noted that

A film crew from Russia’s RT Documentaries TV channel is coming to London on 19 April. Headed by producer Eldar Kazakov, they plan to interview representatives of as many far-right groups as possible for a long programme.

They approached Searchlight as they hoped we could give them contact details for some of these groups.

The article also mentions groups that RT don't want to take part in the programme - these include the Traditional Britain Group and the Iona London Forum, which apparently have links with Vladimir Putin's propagandist Alexander Dugin. As Gable observed:

Dugin is a close friend of Putin. I suggested Kazakov investigate Iona’s links not only with Dugin but with extreme right groups in Russia, Syria and Ukraine. Such a programme would be far more relevant than the one he was planning.

Putin has cultivated European extreme-right organisations and even invited their representatives to observe last month’s illegal referendum in Crimea.

Who is Fascist?

In this Al Jazeera article, Halya Coynash discusses the irony in the fact that accusations of "fascism" are being made against Ukraine by a Russian government that's increasingly establishing close links with the parties of the European far right. In addition,

A number of the main actors in the pro-Russian protests in the Donetsk region have strong links with far-right parties. Pavel Gubarev, for example, is a Donetsk business owner and the head of the "People's Militia". On March 1, he was supposedly elected "people's governor" and led a crowd in storming the Donetsk regional administration building, demanding that a referendum be held on the oblast's secession and calling for Russian military intervention. His detention was presented by Russian TV channels as politically motivated persecution. They preferred not to delve into Gubarev's ideological roots as a member of the neo-Nazi Russian National Unity Party.

Misunderstanding Maidan

This post by Brian Whitmore on Radio Liberty's The Power Vertical blog appears to be based on a misunderstanding of what the Maidan protests in Ukraine are all about. Noting the rise of right-wing nationalism among younger Russians, Whitmore draws a parallel between this phenomenon and the presence of nationalist groups among the Ukrainian protesters:

This politically active youth has no memories of -- and certainly no nostalgia for -- the multiethnic Soviet Union. In Russia, this manifests itself in the antimigrant slogan "Russia for Russians" as well as in opposition to what nationalists call Vladimir Putin's "Chekist regime." In Ukraine, it manifests itself in a yearning to be free of Moscow's influence and meddling -- which all too often veers into overt Russophobia.

Perhaps the "overt Russophobia" should rather be seen as an expression of Ukrainian lack of "nostalgia" for the Soviet Union. As Andreas Umland is quoted as pointing out in an article recently published in the Financial Times, the nationalist groups in Ukraine represent only a small minority of the protesters

and have no chance of “becoming parliamentary or taking over”, even if the protests succeed in toppling Mr Yanukovich.

By all the evidence, the Ukraine opposition is largely democratic and anti-fascist. In Russia the situation is different: there the Bolotnaya protesters are a dwindling minority, while a Putin-enabled takeover by fascist or nationalist forces remains a real possibility. The "Rusomaidan" envisaged in the Power Vertical post looks unlikely to materialize.

Why Putin Is Still In Power

In late 2011 the Russian scientist, writer and political analyst Andrei Piontkovsky gave an interview to the Institute of Modern Russia that was headed: Which Will Fall First – the Regime or Russia as a State? In the interview, Piontkovsky predicted the collapse of Vladimir Putin's government, though refused to speculate on how long it would take - it might be a process lasting only a couple of weeks, or it might be a long-drawn-out decline spanning several years. Piontkovsky looked to the spread of people power - the kind of power that was then making itself felt throughout the Middle East in the shape of the Arab Spring. This power had the ability to overcome the rigid structures of the state:

How did it all start in North Africa? In Tunisia, a relatively prosperous country by African standards, a young man set himself on fire because he couldn’t find a job. Putin’s regime has ripened to its end. But the end will come later rather than sooner, because of the already mentioned satiated, lazy, and cowardly elite. Still, today’s macroeconomic indicators place serious time limitations. And with serious budget deficits, ruble devaluation, and double-digit inflation, social outbursts will spontaneously form in various regions. All this will push the elite to a greater sense of courage. Which will fall first – the regime or Russia as a state – will become crystal clear to everyone in about three or four years from now. 

In late 2012, Piontkovsky published an article called Why Putin Will Be Gone in 2013,  in which he predicted that Putinism would fall for the same reason that the Soviet Union fell in 1991. The USSR, he wrote, collapsed "not because of falling oil prices, not because of Gorbachev's 'betrayal', and not because of Reagan's SDI bluff which so terrified the old men in the Kremlin. When in the mid-1980s the communist myth that had created the system finally died in the hearts and minds of ordinary people as well as those of the Soviet nomenklatura, Soviet communism was strategically and psychologically doomed. As Andrei Amalrik had predicted with such genius a quarter of a century earlier." [my tr.]

Likewise, the Putin Myth of the strong man, the "father of the nation", protecting it from the Chechen terrorists who were supposedly blowing up peaceful citizens in their apartment blocks, had run out of steam - Russia's techno-financial elite, Piontkovsky argued, had lost faith in this myth, and without the elite's support the Putin system could not survive.

Of course, Putin is still there, so Piontkovsky's prediction was incorrect - as numerous columnists and observers have not been slow to point out. In an article titled Putin or Russia, published at the very end of 2013, Piontkovsky conceded the point, but insisted that the article's "conceptual carcass" - an outline for a theory of the death of authoritarian regimes and its practical application to contemporary Russia - was still fully backed up by the events that had taken place in Russia during the past year. As a retarding factor, he pointed to the attitude of intellectuals like Leonid Radzihovsky, who for years declared that "Putinism is shit - but it protects us from fascism". This, Piontkovsky argues, is no different from the statement by the Silver Age Russian essayist and philosopher Mikhail Gerzhenzon, who in the aftermath of the 1905 revolution declared in the essay anthology Vekhi that  "so far from dreaming of union with the people we ought to fear the people and bless this government which, with its prisons and bayonets, still protects us from the people's fury."

Now Piontkovsky no longer sees hope that Russia might witness the rise of a popular democratic movement like Ukraine's Euromaidan. Apathy reigns - and, if not yet formally in power, the fascists are very nearly there:

It was not the masses that brought Hitler to power in January 1933, but a deal he made with the elites. And now ask yourself: what do the fascists in Russia need to do in order to take power without winning free elections, but as a result of the internal  evolution of the Putin regime, of a deal made with it by - may one say it - the "elites"? Is their task easier or harder? In my opinion, much easier. In their case they don't have to convince 50 million voters. It will be enough to convince three or four villains of the national leader's inner circle. And they need no convincing.  [my tr.]

LGF on Wilders

At LGF, Charles Johnson writes that

it’s “inconsistent” for Wilders to claim to be standing up for freedom of expression at the same time as he calls for banning books and taking away basic rights from people; but I’ll go further. It’s deeply hypocritical, and deeply un-American to call for these things. These are fascist opinions. And American citizens who applaud this kind of rabble-rousing populist garbage should be ashamed of themselves.

The indiscreet charm of totalitarianism

At Fifi, Veli Itäläinen raises some questions about Russia's National Bolshevik Party, a motley assemblage of artists, poets and hangers-on which is sometimes seen as having a role to play in the defence of human rights:

It's generally assumed that artists are a little extravagant. They are forgiven more. But is a fascist always completely harmless, if he happens to be an artist?

Hat tip: FinRosForum

Scottish Nashizm

Scotland's opportunistic nationalist party leader Alex Salmond is currently pitching for the support of young, disaffected Scots whose anger is diffused between issues like the banking crisis and the Middle East, and is trying to steal some of George Galloway's thunder. The results are worth pondering. In an extraordinary analysis published at Harry's Place, Tom Gallagher dissects the wide-ranging peculiarities of Salmond's new attempt to dismember the United Kingdom by means of an all-out assault essentially based in nihilism. Excerpt :

Salmond hopes to acquire leverage on Capitol Hill that will prove useful in any power-struggle with London over the terms of independence if the SNP’s vision blossoms despite the current polar economic climate. At the same time, he is reaching out to regimes in the Muslim world and looking for an injection of cash for infrastructure projects that will enable him to bypass Whitehall. First Qatar was approached in the hope that an investment fund controlled by its rulers could be persuaded to build bridges and schools in Scotland on a supposedly not-for-profit basis. In the last year, visits by Salmond to Qatar have been described as imminent but they have fallen through perhaps owing to the economic problems now faced by the United Arab emirates. Malaysia is now in the Nationalists’ sights. The Scotsman newspaper on 16 March reported that Osama Saeed, the First Minister’s chief adviser on Islamic issues had made contacts with sovereign wealth funds in Malaysia in the hope that they could be lured to Scotland. He is only recently back from the World Economic Islamic Forum in Jakarta which he attended with other luminaries of his pressure group, the Scottish Islamic Foundation. Osama Saeed does not bother to hide his contacts with Muslim Brotherhood organizations and personalities based in Britain. He has convinced not a few movers and shakers in the tight Scottish political establishment that as someone who disavows violence, he is the acceptable face of radical Islam.

Update: the results of all this are beginning to make the headlines.

Neither calm nor peaceful

In a debate on the spread of anti-Semitism among the political left in Sweden, Svenska Dagbladet's Per Gudmundson has responded to Left Party leaders who marched under Hamas flags in Malmö last Saturday as they took part in an anti-Israel demonstration outside the closed Davis Cup tennis tournament, and defended their actions afterwards (my translation):

It is being said that the “Stop the Match” demonstration in Malmö was sabotaged by a few troublemakers, and that the protest was really an expression of peaceful criticism of Israel. "Other participants behaved in an exemplary manner," wrote Dagens Nyheter. There is reason to doubt it. Open anti-Semitism was visible In “Stop the match” – and the video recordings show it.

In the part of the demonstration that marched under the green flag of Hamas a well-known anti-Semitic chant was repeatedly heard:

'Khaybar, Khaybar, ya yahoud, jaish Muhammad saufa ya’ud " translates as "Khaybar, Khaybar, O Jews, Muhammad's army will return ". The verse alludes to a battle in 629 AD, when a Muslim army under Muhammad's command captured the mainly Jewish oasis of Khaybar. With insignificant losses the prophet crushed the numerically superior Khaybar army and forced the inhabitants into submission. A few years later the surviving Jews were driven out completely.

The chant, which is aimed specifically against Jews and not against the State of Israel, is common in the Middle East. The fact of its being shouted under the flags of Hamas is to be expected. Hamas is an anti-Semitic movement that refers to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion in its charter. This is well known even to people who don’t know Arabic.

In his speech to the demonstrators on Saturday, Lars Ohly deplored the criticism of “Stop the match” as an attempt to “associate the strong, grass-roots protest with extreme acts of violence and anti-Semitism.” In the aftermath, the Left Party has found itself in the wrong where the riots are concerned. A blind eye is turned to anti-Semitism. In the party’s statement it says that the “riots ruined a completely calm and peaceful demonstration.”

Ohly ought to explain why he thinks that slogans which explicitly threaten ethnic cleansing and the slaughter of Jews are “calm and peaceful” criticism of Israel.

See also: Anti-Israel rally in Sweden turns violent

The faces of British Fascism

At Harry's Place, Edmund Standing examines the continuity of the British Fascist movement from the 1930s to the present day.

Definition

LGF has a discussion of the question: What Is Fascism?

Moscow's Ideologist-in-Chief

Andreas Umland, on the rise and rise of Ivan Demidov, the Kremlin's new ideologist:

Demidov has professed to be under the influence of a particularly extreme brand of Russian imperialism known under the label of “neo-Eurasianism.” This ideology has been principally developed, in hundreds of articles and books, by the neo-fascist Russian theoretician Alexander Dugin (b. 1962), and constitutes perhaps the most radical anti-democratic ideology that has gained acceptance within Russia’s political establishment today. In a November 2007 interview for Dugin’s website Evrazia.org, Demidov stated that “doubtlessly, a crucial factor, a certain breaking point, in my life, was the appearance of Alexander Dugin.” The two men have been cooperating for a while now within Demidov’s “Spas” TV channel where Dugin has his own show called “Vekhi” (signposts). To be sure, Demidov has repeatedly stated that his various patriotic propaganda projects are designed to deprive russophile ultra-nationalists of their control of the nationalist agenda and thus aim to fight the increase of xenophobia and hate crimes, in Russia. He announced that “the words ‘Russian’ and ‘fascism’ are antonyms,” and that he and his associates will “fight against the infusion of the term ‘Russian fascism’ into mass consciousness.”

However, in 2007, Demidov, with explicit reference to Dugin, also acknowledged to be a “convinced Eurasian.” This is oddly the same phrase that Dugin had used 15 years earlier to describe the political beliefs of Reinhard Heydrich (1904-1942), the infamous chief of the SS Security Service and one of the planners of the Holocaust. Dugin sees his Eurasian movement as the follower of a secret “Eurasian Order” that existed for centuries, and included, among others, various German ultra-nationalists. While, at times, strongly distancing himself from Hitler’s crimes, Dugin has, throughout the 1990s, repeatedly expressed his admiration for certain aspects of the Nazi movement. For instance, he called the theory sector of the Waffen-SS an “intellectual oasis” within the Third Reich, and admitted that National Socialism was “the fullest and most total realization” of the Third Way that Dugin advocates until today. In one of his numerous pro-fascist articles of the 1990s, Dugin gets excited about the prospect that, after the failures of Germany and Italy, there will, in Russia today, finally emerge a truly “fascist fascism.” In the new century, to be sure, Dugin’s rhetoric has become more cautious. Now a frequent political commentator on various TV shows, he often poses as an “anti-fascist” and describes himself as a “radical centrist.” Dugin tries to draw a line between the inter-war right-wing intellectuals whom he admires and those who supported Hitler. Yet, as late as 2006, Dugin admitted that among his models are the ultra-nationalist German brothers Otto and Gregor Strasser who got into personal conflicts with Hitler in the early 1930s, yet had also played a crucial role in making the NSDAP a mass party in the 1920s. In March 2008, his WWW site Evrazia.org confirmed that Dugin has still sympathies for the Strasser brothers.

The death of international law

In the continuing Prague Watchdog debate between Sergei Markedonov and his critics, the latest contribution to the discussion examines the problem of Realpolitik as the matrix of contemporary fascism.

Saint Stalin

Via the Telegraph:

The Communist party in St Petersburg has petitioned the Orthodox Church to canonise Josef Stalin if he wins a television poll to nominate the greatest Russian in history.

Stalin last week surrendered a narrow lead to Nicholas II in the contest, which is based on the BBC's Great Britons series.

But with a result not expected until the end of the year, the country's Communists are convinced that Stalin will still emerge the victor.

While the poll, conducted by the state run Rossiya channel, has been criticised for allowing multiple voting, there is little doubt that Stalin has undergone a remarkable renaissance in recent years.

Opinion polls regularly name him Russia's greatest post-revolution leader after Vladimir Putin, the prime minister.