Despite Xenophobia, Russian Right Deeply Split and No Longer Much in Demand, Makarkin Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, November 7 – Polls show that Russians are increasingly xenophobic, but the fact that there were two Russian nationalist demonstrations on November 4, that neither attracted many people, and that there is little evidence that is about to change suggest that “Russian nationalists are becoming unnecessary” in Russia today, Aleksey Makarkin says.

            Recent polls show that xenophobia is rising, the Moscow political analyst says, and therefore there should be a demand for nationalist parties; but on National Unity Day, the two Russian nationalist demonstrations attracted only 1000 people despite being officially permitted and thus of little risk to those who might want to attend (mk.ru/politics/2019/11/07/russkie-nacionalisty-stanovyatsya-nenuzhnymi-kto-ikh-podderzhit.html).

            The two demonstrations, one that might be called imperialist and favors expanding Russian control over Ukraine and other former Soviet republics, and a second that opposes such a policy and wants to focus on Russia for the Russians, were openly hostile to one another, with speakers in each attacking those in the other.

            That may have put some people off, Makarkin says; but there are other explanations for the fading of Russian nationalist politics at the moment.  The nationalists themselves blame the regime for their current state given that the Kremlin has arrested many of their leaders and there is no one to replace them. But that is only part of the story.

            A much bigger part of the explanation lies in the regime’s cooptation of nationalist themes and in the fact that Russians “interested in politics and loving to criticize ‘outsiders’ as a rule are not too radical. They are afraid of times of troubles and chaos no less than their more tolerant fellow Russian who ahs nothing against Caucasians, Asians and Jews.”

            For such people, Makarkin says, “a nationalist is not a defender but a source of risk which one would like to avoid.”  Of course, “there is a nationalist subculture for the representatives of which radicalism is a plus;’ and there was a time in the 1990s when that subculture included much of the youth.

            But they have grown up, gotten married, had children and become just as intolerant of mass meetings as anyone else.  Young people today are simply less interested in nationalist slogans: they have other concerns; and any nationalism they need is supplied by the regime, not its opponents

            Unless there is some cataclysm or unless a new charismatic nationalist leader emerges, this situation is unlikely to change; and the Russian nationalists who thought they could grow out of the xenophobic milieu of Russia today are going to be disappointed: Russians may hate outsiders but that doesn’t mean they love one another.