Today’s Anti-Semitic Russian Nationalism Rooted Less in Tsarist Times than in Soviet Ones, Neman Says

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Nov. 4 – Most discussions of extreme right anti-Semitic Russian nationalism point to its origin in the final decades of the tsarist empire, an origin many of today’s Russian nationalists emphasize. But in fact, Veronika Neman says, many of their views come directly from the Soviet period rather than the more distant tsarist past.
    The Russian commentator says that “many of the mythological positions of present-day nationalists were laid down already in Soviet times” and that these rather than the Black Hundreds ideology of the end of the imperial period are the ones that define current thinking on the Russian right (novayagazeta.eu/articles/2024/11/04/sovetskie-antisemity).
    After tracing the way in which Russian nationalist views rose under Stalin and survived after his death, Neman points out that when the USSR disintegrated, “Soviet party functionaries, including representatives of the Russian Party did not exit the political arena.” Instead, they continued to occupy key positions.
    And “already in the 1990s,” Neman continues, “a new union of ‘anti-Westerners,’ supporters of ‘traditional values,’ and ‘a special path’ for Russia took shape. In the 2000s, with the Chechen wars in the background, xenophobia toward Caucasians grew as did the popularity of Russian nationalism … Today [this] has become the official policy of the country.”
    Many view this as a return to the ideas of the last years of the Russian Empire, but in fact, she writes, the views of Russian nationalists now have far more in common with the Soviet Russianists than with the Black Hundreds. Now as in Soviet times, Jews are viewed as a racial category whereas in the years before 1917, they were looked at as a religion.
    Before the revolution, Russian nationalists had a positive attitude toward Orthodox in other nations and toward Caucasians; but now as during the post-Stalin period in Soviet times, today’s Russian nationalists are hostile to both and support only Russians rather than a larger community.
    A central “myth” of Russian nationalists now is that “the USSR was the lawful successor of the Russian Empire, a state created by and for ethnic Russians. Only ethnic Russians have the right to rule this stae and they must form at a minimum ‘a qualified majority’ in all prestigious spheres.”
    Those views, Neman concludes, resemble far more closely those of the Russian Party in Soviet times than the attitudes of the Black Hundreds of the end of tsardom.