Posted on 06/28/2005 11:42:50 PM PDT by familyop
Russia is gradually sinking into the abyss of facism. Its seeds have been sown by those in power and are now shooting forth in society. The Kremlin, using the patriotic feelings of its own subjects, has created a political force with a name vivid and dear to every Russian's heart - Rodina, or Motherland. This organization, with the support of President Vladimir Putin's administration, has not only gained access to all mass media (television, radio, and newspapers), but surpassed the 5 per cent barrier and made it into the State Duma.
For the purpose of strengthening its own power, today's Kremlin went further than mere exploitation of chauvinist, patriotic, and fascist slogans. It has drawn the Russian extreme right - militant Orthodox fundamentalists, professional xenophobes and home-bred Nazis - to the work and leadership of the Rodina party.
The sleek National Patriot Dmitry Rogozin became the head of the party and of its Duma faction. Despite his views, rather strange and dubious for a contemporary politician, he has worked as assistant to the Putin. This is yet another sign of demand for personalities similar to that of the Rodina leader in Russian politics today.
In the early days of their sharing official power, Russian National Patriots limited themselves to attacking neighboring countries and peoples (mostly the former republics of the Soviet Union). Today, however, the State Duma deputies from the Rodina fraction openly and unceremoniously demand a state ban of all Jewish organizations in Russia. At the same time, Rogozin's party claims to "protect the interests of the Russian ethnic majority living on the territory of Russia." In protecting "Russian" interests, Rogozin's colleagues are guided by a racist ideology.
One of the leaders of the Rodina parliamentary faction, deputy Andrei Savelyev not only edits racists literature (he edited the book Racial Meaning of the Russian Idea, issued by the Moscow publishing house Beliye Alvy), but actually writes racist articles himself, such as his preface to V. B. Avdeyev's Racial Studies (Beliye Alvy, 2005) from the series entitled "Library of Racial Thought." In this opus, Savelyev describes Racial Studies as a "remarkable" and "impressive work on the history of racial studies and racial thought," since "Russians represent a racially pure, homogeneous, primarily Nordic branch of the Europoid race ... And this legacy must be protected from being destroyed by floods of migrants... ."
Could Savelyev and his like from the Rodina party find themselves among Duma deputies by pure chance? In today's Russia this would be utterly impossible. Nowadays, all candidates for the Duma must be approved by the presidential administration. This also explains the uninhibited distribution of xenophobic, nationalist, anti-Semitic, and outrightly racist literature through the country's public bookshops. In today's Germany, one can hardly imagine the publication and open distribution of the writings by Ernst Kriek, creator of the concept of the Third Reich and friend and associate of another Nazi ideologist Alfred Rosenberg.
The preface to the Russian edition of Kriek's Overcoming Idealism: the Basics of Racial Pedagogy (Beliye Alvy, 2004) proclaims that the reading of "this masterpiece of philosophical literature gives one the feeling of a rapturous and heady bewilderment, as does the touch of everything that is new, beautiful, and life-asserting." The colleagues of Rodina members, racists from other countries, admit, that "in comparison with Western Europe, Russia enjoys a greater freedom of speech ... The protectors of the race may write and speak.
This favorable climate is only to be found in Russia, which makes it the avant-garde in the battle for the white race" (from Racial Meaning of the Russian Idea, vol. 2).
It is flattering to see the world admitting that Russia leads the world in something, but in this particular case, it is rather a shame. Indignant with the many cases of kindling interethnic, racial and religious conflicts in Russia, eminent Russian scientists, cultural figures and human rights activists have written to Putin. These include the popular film and theatre actor Oleg Basilashvili, film director Alexei German, writers Boris Strugatsky and Nina Katerli, Dmitry Shagin, artist and leader of the Mitki, artist and human rights activist Yuly Rybakov, Pavel Yegorov, professor at the St. Petersburg Conservatoire and associate member of the Russian Academy of Sciences Pavel Egorov, Rafail Ganelin, professor at the Historical Institute and associate member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, rock musician Svetlana Surganova, and others.
"Mr. President! It is essential that the citizens of Russia should know how the guarantor of the Constitution assesses racist propaganda, which inevitably leads to the kindling of hatred towards 'strangers' and to the murders of people with a different skin colour," the letter says.
It appears, however, that the letter will be answered not by Putin, but by the extremists themselves - those who have raised the banner of xenophobia and racism over the country that vanquished fascism, and the prosecutors and special services that protect them. We have learned from history, that the "corrupt and unprincipled" are replaced by the "ideologically committed" - in this case, neofascists.
The years 1527 - 1528, in the reign of the Moscow Tsar Vasily, the father of Ivan the Terrible, witnessed the final shaping of the ideology that still has an impact on Russian history and contemporary politics.
It is briefly expounded in the third epistle from the elder Filofei of the Yelizarov Monastery near Pskov to Deacon Misyura (Mikhail) Grigorievich Munekhin "Letters on the evil days and hours," where the originally religious meaning of the concept of Moscow as the Third Rome changes and the emphasis is shifted onto the empire and the state.
This remains the guiding ideology for those who still seek the national idea and a third way in the words of a medieval text: " ... all Christian kingdoms came to an end and were brought together in the one kingdom of our Sovereign ... and this is the Russian kingdom: for two Romes fell, and the third endures, and the fourth shall never be."
Perhaps, the Rodina party, based on medieval obscurantism and modernized racism, has only been created to frighten the West with its rhetoric and to proclaim Russia the center of the universe till doomsday.
However, if we were to paraphrase the words of the founder of the Soviet State Vladimir Lenin, the idea, sent down from the Kremlin to the masses in the form of Rodina, has already seized a hold on these masses.
And Moscow's Third Rome is transformed into the Third Reich before our very eyes.
Ruslan Linkov, is a journalist and chairman of the St. Petersburg branch of the nongovernmental organization Democratic Russia.
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There is a deep well of past similar things from which to draw from. Prior to the demise of the monarchy, there was a brief but intense era of pan Slavism which included a strong strain of Russo-centric messianism. The "Third Rome" point of view was rife, in certain quarters. Later, after the dust had settled from the Communist coup, Stalin revived this in a new form, with Soviet characteristics. Yet again, after WW2, Stalin dusted it off. Finally, during the 70s, another instance occurred, this time married by the pagan fad of the time. What will this current instance bring?
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