Paul
Goble
Staunton, October 30 – In the
century and a half since the first Crimean war, Russia has experienced three
waves of Bolshevism, Vladimir Pastukhov says, the result of the unresolved
clash between the Slavophiles and Westernizers and the special role of the
Russian religious impulse as the bridge between them.
But now the third wave is coming to
an end, the St. Antony’s College historian says, and it can be followed only by
“a completely new force” which will consist either of “genuine liberals or
genuine fascists” and not the simulacrum of each with which Russia has been
living in recent times (szona.org/prishestvie-bolshevizma/).
According to Pastukhov, in recent
months, Russian society and not just the urban intelligentsia has awoken from
its “deep political sleep” and “unexpectedly entered into motion.” What is
striking about this development even to the most superficial of observers is
“the religious nature of this movement.”
“’Crimea is ours’” is “not so much a
political slogan as a symbol of faith,” he continues. Not that of the church or of Christianity, of
course, but rather of the opponents of Christianity Dostoyevsky described in
“the possessed” and that are “genetically connected with Russian bolshevism
which is deeply hostile to Christianity.”
Consequently, the rise of
Eurasianism which is closely tied to this trend virtually to the status of a
state ideology in Putin’s Russia represents, Pastukhov argues, “the third and
last stage of the evolution of Bolshevism” and presages its “complete and final
dissolution.”
“The religious nature of Bolshevism
and its deep connection with Orthodoxy and its rootedness in Russian culture
were no secret already at the beginning of the 20th century,” the
historian notes. “’Vekhi’” was written about it. Indeed, one can speak about
the three component parts of Bolshevism: Westernism, Slavophilism, and the
Orthodox religious tradition which allowed for the combination of the other
two.
In the middle of the 19th
century, Russian culture entered into a state of crisis: Russians were no
longer prepared to be “pupils” of Europe. Instead, they wanted to reaffirm
their own history by “rising from their knees” and acting independently. At the
same time, Russia was falling further behind Europe economically and was aware
of the dangers that entailed.
And that in turn led to a split in
the upper reaches of Russian society between the Westernizers who concluded
that Russia must change itself and become European and the Slavophiles who
argued that Russia must “break with Europe and return to pre-Petrine
values.” (It is important to note, he
says, that such splits are typical of countries trying to catch up.)
This split was exacerbated by
Russia’s challenge to Turkey, “the sick man of Europe,” an action that led to
the first Crimean War and Russia’s defeat in that conflict. But that war also
sparked the rise of Russian populism which swamped the Slavophile-Westernizer
debate and gave rise to Bolshevism, “a sectarian political trend which in a
strange way combined within itself radicalism Westernizing impulses with no
less radical isolationism.”
Bolshevism had “enormous modernizing
potential,” Pastukhov continues, and it is “possible” that “the
‘bolshevization’ of Russia” provides an explanation for why Russia did not have
a reformation: “The Bolshevik was a secular ‘Orthodox reformer’” and thus it
should not have surprised anyone that after 1991 Bolshevism was “converted”
back into Orthodoxy.
However, after fulfilling their
modernization mission, the scholar says, the Bolsheviks degenerated into an
uninspiring ritual system, thus “repeating the fate of Russian Orthodoxy. But
the Bolshevik impulse didn’t disappear; it only went underground. And what
followed was “the second coming of Bolshevism in Russian history.
In the wake of the collapse of the
Soviet Union, “the old discussion between ‘Westernizers’ and ‘Slavophiles’
burst out anew but already as an internal discussion of two ideological
fragments of Bolshevism,” a pattern that was concealed by the focus on
consumerism which meant that “the second Bolshevization of Russia was carried
out under ‘Westernizer’ banners.”
But Bolshevism’s second coming
proved no less destruction than the first, Pastukhov says. “The mechanical and
uncreative borrowing of alien institutions did not have anything in common with
real liberalism. The reformers set up private property and capitalism” in
exactly the same way that their predecessors had “destroyed them.”
As a result, the St. Antony’s
scholar argues, “the economic and political system of Russia did not have
anything in common with real capitalism or real democracy.” But this “coming” of Bolshevism did not last
long: it ended definitively on August 17, 1998, with the default. As a result of
that, “the hopes of the population for a better life ceased to be associated
with market and democratic reforms.”
The Putin regime is “the direct
result of the 1998 crisis,” and it “gave birth to that mass political and
social apathy, at times shifting into depression, without which the
establishment of this regime would have been impossible.” But the 2008 economic
crisis woke up first the urban intelligentsia and then the population, setting
the stage for the third wave of Bolshevism.
The liberal intelligentsia was “able
to rock the boat” but not take control. And then with the seizure of Crimea and
the articulation of Eurasian as the doctrine of the state, the masses were put
in motion and the third wave took off. But it was incomplete because after 20
years of post-Soviet existence, what was left were “two lifeless political
asteroids” – “Russian neo-Westernism and Neo-Slavophilism.”
In each case, there has occurred a kind of “ideological crystallization,
as a result of which the dominant trend in both political sectors became
fundamentalism, that is, the most radical, the least flexible, the least
tolerant and the most dogmatic wings” of both. That in turn meant that these
two antagonists increasingly at least in terms of style resembled one another.
The
occupation of Crimea brought these two together other ways as well, with
members of each supporting the new Eurasianism. Consequently, it is possible to
suggest that “the history of Bolshevism in Russia is coming to an end. Having
been born during the first Crimean war, it most probably will end in the second
Crimean war.”
At
the same time, the Russian “’patriotic’ movement” is nothing more than “an
absolute political and ideological fake,” and Eurasianism as a doctrine lacks
its own creative foundation and “genuine charisma.” Consequently, its ability to hold all this
together is very limited.
According
to Pastukhov, Russia still has not made “its chief historical choice. But this
will not be a choice between Bolshevik Westernizers and Bolshevik patriots.”
Most Russians are now “outside the influence of these two ideologies which have
lived out their time.” Only “a completely new force” will be able to take their
place.
That
force could be “either genuine liberals or genuine fascists,” but one thing is
already clear: “the false ‘Eurasian’ wave” of Bolshevism isn’t going to keep a “volcanic”
explosion from below from overturning much that those at the top of the political
system assume cannot be changed.
