Paul
Goble
Staunton, June 18 – Responding to
suggestions that the possibilities for the promotion of an “enlightened”
Russian nationalism” have been undermined by Vladimir Putin’s policies in
Ukraine, Aleksandr Khramov says that the real problems lie with Russian
liberals who behave in ways that alienate the population and make cooperation
with nationalists almost impossible.
Last week, Fedor Krasheninnikov
wrote an open letter to his fellow Russian nationalists arguing that the
liberal, western-oriented Russian nationalism he and his colleagues had hoped
for has been rendered almost impossible, blaming both Putin’s hijacking of
nationalist issues and the actions of the nationalists themselves. (For a
discussion of Krasheninnikov’s letter, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2014/06/window-on-eurasia-putin-remains-enemy.html.)
Now,
Aleksandr Khramov, a leader of the National Democratic Party, has
responded and suggested that Krasheninnikov is mistaken about the possibilities
for cooperation between liberals and nationalists not because of Putin and not
because of shortcomings among the nationalists but because of problems with
Russian liberals (kashin.guru/2014/06/16/khramov/).
Khramov says
that Krasheninnikov’s “nostalgia” for what he portrayed as “the former cooperation
of liberals and nationalists” two to
three years ago was misplaced not because Russian nationalists were not
interested in such cooperation but because Russian liberals were not prepared
to reciprocate, a situation that he says remains unchanged.
At that time, Khramov says Krasheninnikov
has forgotten, the liberals refused to allow Russian nationalists to speak and
even cooperated with the authorities in isolating and turning them in. Worse,
the Russian liberals did not do anything to celebrate Russia or show their
support for the Russian people besides attacking the regime.
The error of his ideological
opponent and the problems of the Russian opposition are thrown into high relief
by what has taken place in Ukraine, Khramov says. “With regard to patriotism, nationalism, and
hatred to the enemy, everything is in order in Ukrainian civil society.”
But in Russia, that is not the case. The Russian nationalist project has indeed
suffered a defeat, but “the liberal project [there] has suffered a no less
crushing one. More than it, [in the case of the latter] it is not simply a
defeat but a fatal trauma.”
In Ukraine, liberals support their
nation and collect money for Ukrainian soldiers who have been injured or killed
around Slavyansk. But Russian liberals condemn
Russian soldiers now in Ukraine as they did when the latter fought in
Chechnya. To say this is not to justify
Moscow’s actions in Chechnya or Ukraine, but rather to point to a “psychological”
problem.
The Ukrainian liberals are on the
side of the people; Russian liberals are not, Khramov says. Worse, unlike their
Ukrainian counterparts, Russian liberals routinely position themselves as
supporters of those fighting Russia, now backing the Chechens and now the
Ukrainians, defending both against Russia.
The reason “progressive Russian
nationalists” cannot support the “pro-Ukrainian position” of Russian liberals
is because they do not want to be politically irrelevant for the next 50 years.
“Calls to return Crimea to Ukraine are logical when we hear them from Ukrainian
nationalists. But repeating them in Russia is not going to speed up the demise
of the Putin regime.”
Instead, such
calls may have exactly the opposite effect.
When a Russian voter hears Russian opposition figures call for the
return of Crimea to it “’lawful owner,’” he is inclined to conclude that
whatever he thinks of Putin, at least the Kremlin leader is closer to his views
than are those people.
That may not be obvious in the hothouse
climate of Moscow, but “if you go 100 kilometers or so outside the Russian
capital,” Khramov says, “you will find in the heads of local residents exactly
that view.” That should surprise no one:
the Donbas worker is not so different from much of the Russian population.
For Russian nationalists to be
successful, they must reflect that. Doing otherwise condemns them to the
political wilderness.
“Ukrainian opposition figures overthrew
Yanukovich precisely because they were Ukrainian patriots. Not Russian ones and
not American ones,” Khramov says. But when they did so, Russian nationalists
like Krasheninnikov rushed to support them “in order to overthrow Putin.”
And today, such Russian nationalists like to
consider that they have become “very much like the Ukrainian opposition.” But they are wrong. They are not like the
Ukrainian opposition because they are not concerned so much with making needed
changes in their own country as staking out positions that may make them feel
good but that alienate their potential supporters.
Russian democratic nationalists who
have broken with Russian liberals on Ukraine are the ones who resemble the
Ukrainian opposition. “We are for democracy and against a corrupt authoritarian
regime. We want that Russian sounds in the Donbas just as Ukrainian
nationalists want [their language] to sound in Crimea.”
Consequently, Khramov adds, those
who take his position represent the first flower of “a future Russian Maidan”
while those like Krasheninnikov who support Ukrainians but not Russians are
only “a caricature of that.” “We are
ready to stand with you on the same side of the barricades, but you are doing
everything so that these barricades will never go up.”
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