Tyler Tyburski is a Senior studying International Relations and Political Science. His focus is in Security Studies, and his academic interests include Democratic Studies, Western and Middle East Regional Studies, and Political Philosophy. Tyler is the top-ranked Cadet in the USC Army ROTC Program and is also the founder of the Political Science Undergraduate Association. He is proud to serve as a Research Assistant on Dr. Patrick James' "Near Crisis Project" and is also member of the Polymathic Academy. A Brother in Sigma Phi Epsilon, he also pitches for the USC Club Baseball Team. He has served with both The Joint Education Project and the Teaching International Relations Program and is currently abroad in Athens, Greece. Tyler's favorite ice cream flavor is coffee.
Expressions of Nationalism: Exploring Russian Gemeinschaft
by Tyler Tyburski
I. Abstract.
Nations, nationalism and national identity are
complex forces in the contemporary international system. This study seeks to
explore the nationalist phenomenon as it has occurred within one of the most
notoriously nationalist states of modernity: Russia. Toward this end, the first
order of business will be to construct the conceptual edifice of nationalism
that is necessary for pursing such process tracing. Following this introductory
section, the paper will sketch the history of Russia’s primordial nationalism.
This image will be cast over the broad sweep of time extending from the
pre-communist period up to the yet unraveling years of the Putin era. However,
the discussion will highlight what it will term the ‘critical periods’ of
Russian nationalism. Interlocking these elements will bind tightly the
theoretical principles of nationalism and their real-world implications for
Russia. This will provide a conceptually durable basis for preliminary
conclusions and future research. Ultimately, it will be contended that
outbreaks of Russian nationalist fervor occur at times when the rule of strong,
autocratic leaders intersect with a weak
economy; and further, that in almost every such instance, the an outside
‘other’ is scapegoated to absorb populist backlash that would otherwise thrash
the Russian state itself. The paper closes with a brief reflection on
contemporary Russian nationalism, the significance of this study and what is at
stake for those pursuing continued research.
II. Conceptualizing the
Notion of Nationalism: An Introduction.
The discourse of nations and nationalism is necessarily
rooted in the modern state. In the flow of history following from the 1648
Peace of Westphalia, the state has come to assert itself as the most efficient
organizer of power in the international system. Today, almost every inhabited area
on earth is assigned to a state. But what, exactly, is the state? Max Weber, in
his 1919 Politics as a Vocation, dubbed the state, in its most
minimalist sense, “the monopoly of legitimate physical violence within a
particular territory” (Weber 33). This, definition—which has garnered great
consensus across academia since its conception—will be employed hereafter.
Especially after accepting Weber’s conclusion, one comes to view nationalism as
neither natural nor essential, but as a product manufactured by state authority.
Often times, it is so skillfully produced that it ensures its continued reproduction
by taking emotional possession of the populace to which it is peddled. As argued
by an esteemed pioneer of nationalist thought, E.J. Hobsbawm, it is almost
always the case that a state will forge its nation (Hobsbawm 44).
A state’s ability to do so, however,
is bound by its authoritative capacity. States that only achieve Weber’s
definitional threshold might be thought of as ‘weak states,’ whereas those well
surpassing it can be called ‘strong states.’ Some characteristics of state
weakness include “low tax revenues, [flagrant] corruption, and a lack of law
and order” (Engelhart 163). Others include a weak military, a low gross
domestic product, and high debt. The opposite qualities, of course, are
indicators of state strength. This is not to say, however, that ‘strong states’
are entirely without any of the characteristics of weak ones; they simply
counterbalance their weaknesses with other points of exceptional strength. Especially
in strong states, the notion of the nation is a concept with which all
peoples—thinkers and tinkerers alike—find themselves intimately familiar. This
speaks to the underlying desire of state-based power structures to expand and
deepen their influence. Indeed, leaders in weak states share this same goal,
but are without comparable resources and influence. It could, therefore, be
suggested that an engrained sense of national identity ought to be counted
among the qualities of a strong state, and vice
versa for weak states.
The concept of nationalism, however, remains in its relative infancy.
In fact, Hobsbawm indicates that, the gobierno was not specifically
united with the concept of the naciòn until 1884, more than two
centuries after the forging of the Westphalian Peace (Hobsbawm 15). Moreover,
this association did not develop similarly or simultaneously all throughout the
international system, nor has it since developed regularly even within the
borders of particular states. To be sure, there is little consensus among
Americans about what it means ‘to be American.’ Nationalism, therefore, can not
be envisaged as a homogenous construct. Rather, it must be considered a
multifaceted abstraction. Indeed, it emerges differently in different places,
and it has the ability to express itself in a variety of unique ways.
Primarily, nationalism presents itself in two forms, both of which were
first explored and explained in 1887 by the German sociologist Ferdinand Tönnies.
Gemeinschaft, the more base and primordial face of nationalism, stems
from the notion that every person within a nation carries with them attachments
that are both tangible and real. Blood bonds, shared linguistic roots,
adherence to common cultural customs, hereditary territorialism and the defense
of an essential community are the essence of this primal theory of nationalism.
Contrarily, gesellschaft offers a more civic design of nationalism—one
that is constructed though common education and is constituted by both legality
and shared virtues (Tismaneau 118). Although united by common objectives, these
two theories of nationalism are deeply divergent in the means that they suggest
to best achieve them. This is to say that, while gemeinschaft and gesellschaft
are similarly employed toward the authorship of a grand myth, intended to unite
disparate peoples into ‘a people,’ or ‘the people,’ they approach this task
with fundamentally different tactics. In his 1992 inquiry into French and
German citizenship, Rogers Brubaker, a Professor of Sociology at the University
of California, Los Angeles, characterized those of the former as strong-armed
government policies and the implementation of programs for divisive ethno-national
citizenship. Those of the latter, he said, are tied to state-based assimilation
into in a philosophically-rooted political community (Brubacker 35).
Provided these understandings, one
might come to better grasp the canonized definition of nationalism that was
first proposed by the late French philosopher, Ernst Gellner. In his Nations
and Nationalism, a work that inspired the subsequent writings of Hobsbawm,
it was offered that nationalism is “primarily a principle which holds that the
political and national units should be congruent” (Gellner 1). This definition
which, to be sure, is first and foremost a political definition, carries with
it truly great implications. It insinuates that the political duty of a given
people is, first and foremost, to its polity, and that this duty to the polity
necessarily supersedes all other national obligations (Hobsbawm 9). Indeed, it
is this degree of intensity that distinguishes nationalism as an extreme form
of group identity which is capable of commanding the radical power of mass
mobilization towards state-centric endgames.
In harnessing the forces of
social construction, strong states masterfully produce and manipulate the raw
power of nationalism vis-à-vis goals relating to self-preservation,
security, economy and international prowess. In so doing, they most usually come
to rely on the existence of—or the invention of—a distinctive ‘other.’ The
sociological principle underlying this trend is the essential relativity
inherent within every notion of the self. Indeed, as was famously noted by
Benedict Anderson, Professor Emeritus of International Studies at Cornell
University, the existence of an ‘us’ is essentially contingent upon the notion
of a ‘them’ (Anderson 25). When conceptualizing this abstract notion, it can be
useful to think of how people often define their associations to sports teams.
In many cases, one will define their athletic allegiances by making reference
to the teams they denounce rather than those that they support. Love of the
‘us’ thereby becomes conflated with hatred of the ‘them.’
Some theorists, such as Henk
Dekker, Darina Malová, and Sander Hoogendoorn, believe that there exists “a
particular set of variables” that can be examined to explain broader trends of
nationalism within particular states and individuals (Dekker 349). This claim
is contentious because it attempts to model a complex relationship by applying
a single, simple formula. Such a broad attempt to understand nationalism makes
use of too wide a scope. As Brubaker suggests, nationalism in France is not at
all analogous to nationalism in Germany. Nor is nationalism in the United
States an analog for nationalism in Iraq. Therefore, it is sensible to a refine
this broad-based approach by tracing the historical development of nationalism within
the context of only a single state. Cross examination between such case studies
could then provide a truly durable basis for comparative analysis. Abiding by this logic, hereafter, Russia[1] will become this paper’s
sole frame of study.
Russia is a state that has fluctuated in its authoritative capacity
over time, reaching its height as a ‘Great Power’ during the Cold War years
(roughly 1947-1991). Having since experienced a decrescendo, there exists today
a debate about Russia’s status as either a strong or weak state. However, there
is no debate regarding its ambitions of self-strengthening. Nor has there been
this debate since it preempted the Russo-Turkish War (1787-1792) to win control
over Ottoman-controlled, warm-water ports in the Black Sea. Indeed, Russia has
developed into one of history’s most uniquely nationalist states, and, as such,
has long been subjected to a great degree of truly transformative political
processes. Nevertheless, Russian nationalism has not been painted in even
coats; rather, layers of varying thicknesses and composition have colored the
national identity differently over time. Certain ‘critical periods’, however,
do seem to stand out as clear checkpoints in the development of Russian nationalism.
The following will examine the forces at play during three such time periods:
(1) the ‘Tsarist Era’ (1721-1917), (2) the ‘Stalinist Era’ (1924-1953) and (3)
the ‘Putinist Era’ (2000-present). Such a study might well highlight certain causal
factors underlying these periods of nationalist fervor, provide important
insights into the mechanisms of modern Russia, and perhaps even hint at the
emergence of future periods of nationalist fervor.
III. Considering the
Russian Context.
Despite its fractures, however,
in many ways, the development of Russian nationalism can be viewed as a single,
coherent phenomenon. Trends
from the distant-past seem to be echoed in both the near-past as well as the
present. Therefore, to understand the contemporary dynamics of Russia’s
identity-driven politics, one must first indulge in an examination of the
historical development of Russian nationalism. In so doing, special attention
will need to be paid to the role of ideology. Often conceived of as ‘secular
religion,’ and famously referred to by Karl Marx as “false consciousness,”
ideology has always been a central tool of the state in manufacturing the
formal constructs implemented towards the mass production of Russian identity (Tucker
111). To be sure, historically, it has always been a well-bred faith in, and of,
the state—even more so than the doctrines of Orthodox Christianity—that controls
Russian culture. It is no coincidence, therefore, that Russia has branded its
own denomination of orthodoxy that is headed by the Church in Moscow: Russian
Orthodoxy.
Channeling Hobsbawm, one is compelled to conceive of Russians as true
inventions of the Russian state. Historically, there was never a definite and
recognized Russian homeland, culture, or essence. Russia, in fact, began as
collection of cities, belonging to various kingdoms, which gradually coalesced
into something like a state around the time of Ivan the Terrible (Thomsen 12).
Russian history was imbued with an abbreviated and fractured nature due to its turbulent
experiences with regime changes, revolutions and invasions. This unstable
political environment only exacerbated preexisting societal splintering which
had already spelled difficulty for the cohesion of a unified people.
Being that such intense forces of discontinuity had been so long at
work, standing governments were led to pursue more overt and deliberate methods
of social unification to overcome them. Especially in the early phases of Russification—the process by which
Russian identity was (and is) created—the tactics of gesellschaft were
simply not viable. Given the lack of a binding social contract, a strong civil
society and stable borders, these more civic approaches would have been
difficult to implement and unlikely to succeed. The realities of Russian political
history, combined with the centralizing tendencies of fluctuating governments,
prompted the adoption of the more primordial methods of gemeinschaft-based
nationalism. Once steadily in place, and proven to be effective (at some point roughly
between 1868-1873), these programs began to propagate themselves, even across
shifting regimes (Pipes 4). In fact, although these rotating governments were
different structurally as well as ideologically, the precedent of gemeinschaft-based nationalism received
their universal adherence.
IV. Gemeinshaft Begins: The Tsarist Era.
The two centuries preceding the Bolshevik Revolution of
1917 were dominated by the rule of the Russian Tsars. These autocrats, seeking
to expand their influence and unify their peoples, began the tradition of
Russian gemeinschaft. In so doing, their primary goal was to
differentiate between those groups which they thought could and could not be
easily Russified. Thus, they set
themselves to the task of forming a certain pan-Russian identity that these
groups would then be given the opportunity to either accept or reject. It could
thereby be determined who was to belong as a member of the Russian ‘us’ and who
would be relegated to association with the contemptible ‘them.’ The rationale
behind creating this stark divide was twofold: (1) it provided a baseline population
for the Russian nation and (2) it satisfied the ‘us’-‘them’ that dynamic that
is critical to identity formation. Indeed, had the Tsars simply pursued a totalistic
policy of forced Russification, the
resulting national identity—devoid of a clear ‘other’ with which to contrast
itself—would have likely collapsed under the weight of its own ambiguity.
The identity that the Tsars chose to create
was designed to unite the Russian people (the ‘us’) under two overarching criteria:
(1) an “unqualified submission to the [Orthodox] Church” and (2) “the same
devotion and obedience to the ruler [(the Tsar)]” (Riasanovsky 39). By anchoring Russian identity to an already formalized
and well respected institution—the Church—the Tsars endowed it with a certain
degree of intrinsic legitimacy. Moreover, this divine connection provided a
sort of moral imperative for individuals to associate themselves with the
Russian identity. This group-based system of identification established the
process of Russification and a means for induction into an imagined community
that has been emulated—in Russia and elsewhere—across the generations.
Interestingly, this
system of social sorting seemed to accelerate itself as Russia progressed into
the later phases of Tsarist rule (Sinyavsky 477). In fact, at the time that
Russia transitioned from Tsarist domination to Bolshevik domination, the
mechanisms of ‘us’-‘them’ production had reached a crescendo. This is almost
certainly linked to the fact that, at that very time, the country found itself
plunging into relative chaos. In fact, in 1917, Russia was in the throws of not
only World War I, but also a violent economic downturn as well as a bloody
revolution. These troubles were, of course, all interconnected, and, when
mixed, spelled out the perfect recipe for intensified Russification. The Tsar spun the situation as a national hardship
that required a national solution.
In so doing, Nicholas
II (1868-1918)—the last Tsar of the Russian Empire—kept with the imperial
traditions of his 18th Century predecessors by labeling his great
war, World War I, “an expansionist conflict” (Gatrell 2). In so doing, he
expressed his unyielding determination to fight on, at all costs, toward the
goal of expanding Russian territory, population and regional influence. Stalwart
commitment to the same quickly became the hallmark of a ‘good’ Russian. Thus,
the nation was mobilized by a state-based directive—which, to be sure, carried
with it certain religious undertones—that was dictated directly by the ruler. This
theme was to be echoed in generations to come. Indeed, the very forces that came
to replace the Russian Tsars later employed similar directives to produce still
greater centripetal forces of nationalism. Moreover, their wars of conquest
would continue to organize themselves around the notion of the nation combating
‘others’ under the banners of state leaders and the Russian Orthodox Church. In
fact, these patterns would only come to strengthen themselves as the state’s powers
and capabilities evolved. The Tsars, although they were the founders of Russian
gemeinschaft, never experienced the power of
their invention to the same extent that later generations of Russian leaders
would. Indeed, the Tsars were, in a sense, bound by an inability to reject
their own traditions. The Soviets, having had ousted the Tsars, were not.
V.
Gemeinschaft in Action: An Examination of Stalinist Era Russian Nationalism.
Joseph Stalin replaced Vladimir Lenin
(1870-1924)—the famed leader of the Bolshevik Revolution—in 1924. A native
Georgian, he ruled the Russia-based Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
(U.S.S.R.) between 1924 and his death in 1953. His tenure was one marked by
bitter brutality. To mask and soften the violence, Stalin relied on the forces
of primordial nationalism, Soviet Great Power status and the popular effects of
substantial economic advancements. Assuming power in the wake of Bolshevik
rule, Stalin sought to re-brand Russians in his own image. To do so, he made
use of a variety of classic tools and tactics. For instance, as noted in David
Rowley’s Russian Nationalism and the Cold War, Stalin masterfully
leveraged the idea of the ‘other’ by repeatedly touting the West,[2] specifically the United
States, as an enemy to be feared and hated (Rowley 156). Undeniably, his
onslaughts of rhetoric and paraphernalia were effective hypnotizers for a
society already inundated by fear flowing from the Kremlin’s oppressive and
sadistic policies. However, beyond simply drawing on the politics of fear, he
relied heavily upon bold ideological claims and promises of economic growth to
further his nationalist program. Thus, the Soviet people were met with an
impossible choice: work toward Soviet success, either out of love or fear.
Death was the only alternative. Moreover, if opting to work, their personal motive
had always to appear genuine and trustworthy.
Indeed, these tactics—although
reprehensible and corrupt—were well tailored to the contexts in which Stalin
was operating. For instance, the interbellum period—which spanned the World
Wars (1918-1939)—was ripe for the extreme exploitation of emotion and the
practice of intense ‘othering’ (the process by which one group identifies
itself as an ‘us’ against another group which is designated as a ‘them’). Just
as Hitler in Germany was condemning the Jews, Stalin in Russia cursed the capitalists
of the West. Moreover, being that the Soviet economy had significantly
retracted in the post-World War I years, Stalin’s radical collectivization
plans came across not as frightening, but as hopeful. Indeed, at least
immediately, his infamous five-year plans were gazed upon with great appeal as
“retail prices in Moscow [had] doubled in the first two years of the war and
then accelerated dramatically in 1916 and early 1917” (Gatrell 25). Indeed,
Stalin’s scare tactics seized upon the melancholy zeitgeist of interwar Russia. Later, he adapted them to inspire
mobilization during the Second World War.
In the throws of World War II, Joseph Stalin, a godless man,
invigorated a campaign of anti-German gemeinschaft by allowing a
resurgence of the Russian Orthodox Church. This maneuver, however, was not a move
towards liberalism. Rather, it was a coy political ploy aimed at exploiting the
nationalist feelings of the religious Russian peasantry—and it worked (Walters
135). What one sees here is an impressive display of state power. Indeed, the
Kremlin, a body that had ruthlessly pushed a program of non-religion, was able
to forcibly shape Orthodoxy, a holy faith, into a facet of the secular ideology
of nationalism. Ultimately, this resulted not in a Russian religious revival,
but in a spike of nationalist sentiments, rooted in a shared religious
affiliation, and a dramatic increase in the enlistment rate of the Russian Red
Army. A testament to the power of the state’s gemeinschaft, in Russia,
World War II came to be known as ‘The Great Patriotic War.’ In fact, Daniel
Chirot, an esteemed sociologist and Professor of International Studies at the
University of Washington, has suggested that, even until 1975, “the only
remaining old-fashioned European empire…was the Russian one” (Chirot 44). The
term ‘old-fashioned,’ it seems, is quite apt when describing the character of
Russian nationalism. Indeed, the complexities of gesellschaft, which
were not viable at the outset of the Russian experiment with statehood, never
developed parallel to the Russian state—gemeinschaft
was always reinforced.
Stalin’s tactics of gemeinschaft were exceptionally base. They might well be conceived of more
simply as the ruthless promotion of a particularly volatile cult of
personality. Stalin was far more than merely a powerful autocrat; he was, in
fact, what Dr. Richard Hrair Dekmejian, of the University of Southern
California’s Political Science Department, calls a “malignant narcissist.” This
form of narcissism, Dekmejian says, is an extreme pathology by which one is
convinced that they had been specially selected, by some providence, to impose
their rightly-guided will upon those less perfect than themselves (Dekmejian
161). True to form, Stalin—the self titled “Man of Steel”—conceived of himself
as more than the just the Soviet General Secretary, but as the very embodiment
of the Russian nation. Rather skillfully, he combined conflicting messages of
fear and hope to bind tightly the idea of collective progress with that of
individual punishment. The ultimate result was the formation of a society
shocked into productivity, toward a single end, and against a common ‘other’,
not out of true devotion to the Soviet interest, but out of the human interest
of self-preservation. To a large extent, it is this same instinct toward
self-preservation—the struggle to remain relevant—that has guided the politics
of the post-Soviet Russian state.
VI. Gemeinschaft in Action: An Examination of Putinist Era Russian Nationalism.
Most of the history of post-Soviet Russia has been a
continued narrative of the late-Soviet decline. Its gross domestic product
“contracted steadily up to the late 1990s” and the state itself splintered as
its various “republics and regions took as much sovereignty as they could
swallow” (White & McAllister 383). These deteriorated conditions, analogous
to those that were present at the outset of Stalin’s reign, seemed to have
induced conditions that were favorable to the rise of Vladimir Putin, an ex-Komitet
Gosudarstvennoi Bezopasnosti (KGB) nationalist. This is no insignificance
coincidence. To be sure, Putin’s current power play is colored Red with shades
of Stalinism. Appealing to the yearning of the Russian people to restore lost
Soviet prowess, Putin has subsumed factional identities under that of an overarching
nationalist vision. The people have responded favorably. Indeed, despite
whatever election frauds might be contended, Putin has certainly proven himself
to be “‘the people’s choice’ with a support base that [is] remarkably close to
a cross-section of the entire society” (White and McAllister 384). Spurred by
his reinsertion of Russian national interests into its dealings with the
international community, talk of unilateral action and a reinvigorated
military, the Russian people have clung to the hope he has provided for an
upswing in national esteem.
The face of contemporary Russian nationalism bears striking
resemblance to that of yesteryear. Undoubtedly, the tactics employed under
Putin have been much the same as those put forth under Stalin. Guiding the
national dialogue away from that of the early 1990s, a time when “the discourse
of Russia ‘rejoining Western civilization’ was paramount,” Putin has adopted a
traditional style of gemeinschaft-based
nationalism to reign in the disparate elements of the Russian geopolitical
spectrum (O’Loughlin 322). This task, although weighty, has been made more
manageable through Putin’s skillful application of the ‘other’ as a fulcrum in
gaining leverage over the opinions of the Russian masses. Not surprisingly,
Putin has targeted the United States—the already unpopular former dyad of the
once bipolar international system—as the object of contempt in popular Russian
culture.
Indeed
it is true—and it is especially the case in Russia—that there is a definite
difference between ‘history’ and the ‘past.’ History, in fact, is often no more
than warped version of the past that is offered, through education, as truth.
The lies of history, which are intended to be taken as facts about the pat, are
integral in supporting the myth of the state: nationalism. Putin, to be sure,
has construed significant events of the recent past through a fundamentally
anti-American lens. Thereby, he has masterfully transferred blame for the
failures of post-Soviet Russia away from the Russian state and has placed it
squarely on the shoulders of the United States. This strong-armed tactic of
power politics offers a clear demonstration the totality of forces encapsulated
within the political capabilities of modern states.
To Russians, this message is, of course, rather self-reassuring.
Indeed, it is this aspect of Putin’s program that allows the Russian people to
experience it not as the raw power of the state being exercised on or through
them, but as a collective buildup of hope within society writ large. Thus, one finds truth in Chirot’s 1995 contention that “Nationalism,
which has been a force of liberalization in the west will not necessarily be
such a force in the east” (Chirot 43). Putin’s program has made it its central
mission to reinforce traditional cycles of nation-building toward the ends of
furthering his own cult of personality and restoring Russia to its past place
of prominence as a leading actor on the global stage. The envisioned end state
driving these objectives is hardly the quality of life of the Russian people,
but simply the pure material benefit of an ever-centralizing, and perhaps
re-Sovietizing Russia.
The
end of the Cold War was truly the end of an era. The early 1990s brought with
them great uncertainty about what was to become of the faded Soviet state in
the new, unipolar world. Nevertheless, there were grand expectations—in both
the West and the East—for the reincarnation of the Soviet command economy in
the form of a Westernized, privatized market economy. Great uncertainty remains
as to why the West held such great hopes for the prospects of economic
restructuring and growth in post-Soviet Russia.
Indeed, this discrepancy has become a weapon against the West in Putin’s
arsenal of nationalistic rhetoric. Where there is no consensus, Putin has
claimed clarity in his knowledge of the truth. In Russia, Putin says,
expectations for Post-Soviet growth had been fueled by a sense of rejuvenation
associated with the emergence from the political brutality of communism and the
economic instability of socialism. More substantially, though, he claims that they
were furthered by optimistic estimates for potential growth that had been
confidently floated by Western organizations like the World Bank and the
International Monetary Fund (IMF) (Wedle 45). Indeed, these organizations had
proposed ambitious plans designed to bring about mass liberalization virtually
overnight. Putin says that these numbers, which had emerged from the West, had
been deviously fabricated to induce Russian participation in plans that had
been engineered to crush its economy.
Many
in the field, including the famed American economist and Professor of economics
at Columbia University, Joseph Stiglitz, have also come to portray such
predictions as impossible pipe dreams. To be sure, Stiglitz contends that these
‘shock-therapy’ approaches, which were fundamentally weak to begin with, were
also predisposed to failure on the basis that they simply did not allow for any
sot of transitional period to occur. This is to say that they demanded too
great of a rollover in too brief of a time period (Stiglitz 181). The World
Bank and the IMF, however, never reported these concerns in their pitches to
the Russian government. Not recognizing the hazards themselves, the Russians
bought in. When implemented, however, the stresses of the World Bank and IMF programs
overwhelmed the system they were acting on and plunged the state into dire
economic straights. Perhaps this failure resulted as an unintended consequence
of a well-meaning plan, but perhaps it came about because it was engineered to
do so. Nevertheless, as Stiglitz says, the “ultimate
irony” lies in the fact that many of the states who opted for gradual
approaches to economic restructuring (i.e. Poland and China) ended up reforming
more rapidly than those that followed the prescribed program of shock-therapy (Stiglitz
185). Indeed, the mere presence of this unexplained fact has created the
political space necessary for Putin to spin a convincing tale of American
betrayal.
In
this instance—as in all involving the creation of national myths—it is not the
truth (the past) that is of paramount significance, only what is perceive to be
the truth (history). Whether the yet unresolved source of enthusiasm in the
West was the result of sheer benevolence or of veiled deviance, it does not
matter. All that is of importance is the manner in which Putin has painted history.
His colorful commentary on the matter has rendered Russians more likely to
become believers in this well-crafted myth of the state. Believing that the
United States, which Putin has claimed to be masterminds behind the World Bank
and IMF plots, had willfully destroyed the Russian economy through the advice
that it administered, many Russians have absolved the state of any blame for
the creation of the problems they now face. They have instead been trained to loathe,
and to mobilize against, the contemptible ‘other.’ As part of Putin’s plans for
Russian reemergence, this energy is now being channeled not only into the
economy, but also—in sizeable amounts—into the Russian military.
VII. Substantiating Claims & Expanding Frames: A Conclusion.
Historically,
up-ticks in Russian nationalism seem to be positively correlated with the
presence of three key variables: (1) the presence of an easily identifiable
‘other,’ (2) a commanding political cadre and (3) a destabilized economy. These
conditions existed during all three critical periods, and they are readily
apparent in Russia today. Perhaps then, these factors could be used as central
variables in some sort of predictive model for forecasting upswings in this abstract
phenomenon that has been tied to so much conflict and loss of life. Before
discussing prospects such as this, however, it is appropriate to more directly
reflect upon each of these variables.
Without
a true national history, or historically sense of self, Russia seems to have
always needed a strong ‘other,’ usually in the form of an enemy, to sustain its
artificial identity. Taken from this perspective, Russia’s wars of conquest and
Cold War enlargements seem natural. By constantly pitting herself against
clearly defined ‘others,’ especially in the context of pitched battle or stark
ideological struggle, she greatly reinforced her own self-image. Indeed, Russia
has always sought ‘others,’ and, in their absence, she has tried to create
them. This is because they complete her. Like a helpless romantic, Russia requires
the presence of an ‘other’ to sustain herself. Her relationships, though, have
always been bitter. In the distant past, the Russians flirted with the Ottomans.
Today, they dance with the West.
Yet, the mere presence of an ‘other’—even a
hated other—is not enough to forge a unified self-identity out of such an
incoherent mosaic. Strong, often ruthless, leaders often had to apply the full
force of the Russian state to make this fusion possible. Brutal campaigns of
terror, rigid cults of personality and omnipresent propaganda campaigns have
been staples in the regimes of such rulers. Furthermore, it seems as if there
may be a certain regenerative cycle at play, whereby the reign of one dictator
legitimizes the rise of another. So goes the creation of tradition in a state
so ardently adherent to the principles of gemeinschaft-based nationalism. However, not all of Russia’s rulers have fit this autocratic mold.
Therefore, while it is arguable that, to some extent, Russian leaders have always
tried to expand and project Russia’s regional and global influence, it is only
extreme leaders—those whom might be considered malignant narcissists—that seem
to indulge in the truly gross campaigns of nationalism that characterize the
three critical periods. Indeed, one will surely recall, that amidst all of the
economic troubles plaguing Mikhail Gorbachev’s 1989 Soviet Union, he refrained
from such a brutal program of gemeinschaft.
This
phenomenon, however, speaks to more than just the importance of strong,
autocratic leaders in spurring Russian nationalism. It also suggests something
about the relative value of the third variable, a destabilized economy. Specifically,
it unequivocally strips it of its potentiality of causality. Nevertheless, one
is still compelled to include it as a primary factor contributing to spikes in
Russian nationalism because of the clear correlation that can be found in each
of the three critical periods. Although not a necessary condition, a
down-turned economic climate has proven conducive to brutal campaigns of
Russian gemeinschaft. To be sure, a
poor economy is a path of low resistance to implementing an effective program
of nationalism. By exploiting the fact that the economy impacts the entire
nation, leaders bolster nationalism by rhetorically linking national solidarity
to universal economic gain. Therefore, while this might be the least
significant of the three aforementioned variables, it ought not to be
disregarded. Indeed, in Russia, no such variable deserves to be completely
abandoned. Toward the end of continually reinforcing and reasserting the myth
of the nation, one should assume that the state will exploit any means
available.
With
an eye toward the future, the true value of this study lies in what new
information might be mined from continued research. To be sure, the above
conclusions are strictly preliminary. They are the products of a relatively limited
investigation and would certainly benefit from deeper academic inquiry. The
stakes, however, seem to be quite high for those willing to take on this task
of continued research. Indeed, to trace nationalism is, in some ways at least,
to trace the likelihood of conflict. Especially in the context of Putin’s
exceptionally military-minded programs of gemeinschaft,
the correlation between nationalism and the potentiality for international
conflict seems uncomfortably high. Thus, those progressing with this study
should be warned that nations and nationalism are not static concepts—diligent
researchers must be ready to take aim at moving targets. The necessity of
hitting these targets, however, is absolutely paramount.
Understanding
the extent to which nationalism permeates all levels of the modern state—not
just in Russia, but in all states—it becomes important to truly understand
nationalism itself. The great hope would be that improved knowledge of this
obscure abstraction could help states create an international climate of
mutually respect and political benefit. Such an environment might foster
peaceful increases in every nation’s sense of self-esteem. In the event of a
less-than-ideal future, this knowledge could be repurposed and used to aid in
developing tactical and strategic countermeasures to be taken against states moving
towards more violent expressions of nationalism. Regardless of what may come,
however, one thing seems clear: it will come of nations, and through
nationalism.
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