SLAVOPHILES AND COMMISSARS Also by Judith Devlin

RELIGION AND REBELLION (editor with Ronan Fanning)

THE RISE OF THE RUSSIAN DEMOCRATS: the Causes and Consequences of the Elite Revolution

THE SUPERSTITIOUS MIND: French Peasants and the Supernatural in Nineteenth-Century France Slavophiles and Commissars

Enemies of Democracy in Modern Russia

Judith Devlin Lecturer in Modern History University College, Dublin First published in Great Britain 1999 by MACMILLAN PRESS LTD Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and London Companies and representatives throughout the world A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN 978-1-349-40232-8 ISBN 978-0-333-98320-1 (eBook)

DOI 10.1057/9780333983201

First published in the United States of America 1999 by ST. MARTIN’S PRESS, INC., Scholarly and Reference Division, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Devlin, Judith, 1952– Slavophiles and commissars : enemies of democracy in modern Russia / Judith Devlin. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Russia (Federation)—Politics and government—1991– 2. Nationalism—Russia (Federation) 3. Authoritarianism—Russia (Federation) 4. Russia (Federation)—Intellectual life—1991– I. Title. DK510.763.D486 1999 320.947'09'049—dc21 98–50836 CIP © Judith Devlin 1999 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1999 978-0-333-69933-1 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission.

No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1P 9HE.

Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

The author has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. 10987654321 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 00 99 To my mother This page intentionally left blank Contents

Acknowledgements viii List of Abbreviations and Conventions ix Glossary of Parties and Groups x Introduction xvii

Part I: Ideas 1 The Intelligentsia and the Nationalist Revival 3 2 Neo-Fascism 34 3 Russian Orthodoxy and Nationalism 61

Part II: Politics 4 The Genesis of the August Coup, 1989–91 93 5 The National Salvation Front, 1991–92 118 6 The Advent of Vladimir Zhirinovsky 138 7 Zyuganov’s Communists and Nationalism, 1993–95 157 8 The Quest for Power: the 1995–96 Elections 181 Conclusion 196 Notes 206 References 273 Index 311

vii Acknowledgements

This work owes much to the assistance received from many quarters. My colleagues in University College Dublin, especially Tadhg O hAnnracháin, Eamon O’Flaherty, Hugh Gough and Peter Butterfield, enabled me to observe the Presidential elections in Irkutsk at first hand, for which heartfelt thanks. I am grateful also to the University for helping to fund my research. The staff of several libraries in Moscow, London and Dublin gave me much invaluable assistance. In particular, I would like to thank Ms Mairin Cassidy and her colleagues in the library of University College Dublin; the librarians of the State Public Historical Library in Moscow, the Russian State Library and the INION Library; the staff of the library of the School of Slavonic Studies in London; the lib- rarian and staff of Trinity College Dublin. I am grateful to many Russian friends and experts who kindly and generously gave their time to discussing Russian politics with me and offering advice and guidance. I would particularly like to thank Andrei Mironov and Tanya Vargashkina in Moscow. Successive members of the Irish Embassy in Moscow have given me invaluable practical aid and generous hospitality: my thanks are particularly due to Brian Earls, Tom and Kiki Russell. Many friends in Dublin also assisted my researches, especially Deirdre MacMahon, Michael Sanfey, Anna Murphy, Carla King, John Murray, Aidan Kirwan and Valeria Heuberger in Vienna. Thanks are also due to those who read earlier drafts of this book, especially Professor Stephen White. I am grateful also to Professor R.J. Hill for encouragement and assistance. Finally, the work would not have been written without the assistance of my mother, who dealt with all practical matters while it was on the go.

viii List of Abbreviations and Conventions

Publications AiF Argumenty i fakty IHT International Herald Tribune Lit. Gaz. Literaturnaya gazeta MN Moscow News NG Nezavisimaya gazeta NYRB New York Review of Books RG Rossiiskaya gazeta RM Russkaya mysl’ SK Sovetskaya kul’tura SR Sovetskaya Rossiya

Conventions ” = hard sign ’ = soft sign, except where followed by e, where it is rendered by ie ky = style adopted to transliterate surnames such as Pribylovsky Soft Russian i is rendered only after ki as in sovetskii ks = x

ix Glossary of Parties and Groups

Agrarian Party: Party of former CPSU members and kolkhoz direct- ors founded in February 1993 to protect the interests of the agro- industry nomenklatura. Usually aligned with the KPRF but on occasion ready to collaborate with Yeltsin (to whose camp several of its leaders defected).

All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks: Party of unrepentant neo- Stalinists founded in November 1991 and led by Nina Andreeva. Its opposition to the new regime was so extreme as to render it politically irrelevant.

All-World Russian Assembly: Congress of nationalist and Orthodox forces organised by General Alexander Sterligov in May 1993.

Black Hundreds: officially encouraged, pre-revolutionary popular bands of violent, anti-revolutionary, ultra-nationalist anti-Semites.

Brotherhood of St Sergius of Radonezh: A vocal caucus, of extreme nationalist and conservative orientation, within the Orthodox Church. Member of the similarly inspired Union of Orthodox Brotherhoods, founded in 1990.

Christian Democratic Movement of Russia (RKhDD): Founded in April 1990, the political wing of this religiously inspired, fractious organisation moved, under the leadership of Viktor Aksyuchits, to more extreme nationalist positions after 1991, ultimately embracing monarchism. Disappeared from view after 1993.

Christian Democratic Union of Russia (CDU): Liberal Christian group founded in August 1989 by former dissident, Alexander Ogorodnikov.

Civic Union: Caucus, founded in 1993, uniting parties of the centre right and providing a platform for figures like Alexander Rutskoi and Alexander Volsky. x Glossary of Parties and Groups xi Committee for the Restoration of Christ the Saviour: Nationalist, reli- gious conservation group, broadly opposed to Gorbachev’s reforms. Their cause was ultimately adopted by Yuri Luzhkov, mayor of Moscow, who was largely responsible for the rebuilding of the cathedral in the mid-1990s.

Committee for the Saving of the Neva–Ladoga–Onega: Nationalist, anti-reform conservation group, founded in April 1989.

Communist Party of the Russian Federation: Founded in June 1990, as the KP RSFSR, in an attempt by conservatives to prise control of the Communist Party away from Gorbachev, was banned by Yeltsin after the August 1991 coup. Reformed as the KPRF in February 1993 under the leadership of Gennady Zyuganov, following a judgement largely in its favour by the Constitutional Court. A coalition of nation- alists, neo-Stalinists and conservatives, the party jettisoned its Marxist heritage in favour of a nationalist socialist programme and winning power at the polls.

Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU): The ruling party between 1917 and 1991. Led by Gorbachev between 1985 and 1991, when it was dissolved by Boris Yeltsin.

Communists for the USSR: Viktor Anpilov’s neo-Stalinist election bloc in 1995.

Congress of Civic and Patriotic Forces: Nationalist meeting organised in February 1992 by V. Aksyuchits and others in the hope of founding a nationalist opposition caucus to Yeltsin.

Congress of Russian Communities (KRO): Nationalist organisation, courting the Russian diaspora, founded in 1993–94. Briefly attracted attention in 1995, when it provided a political base for the conserva- tive apparatchiks Yuri Skokov and Alexander Lebed.

Constitutional Democratic Party of Popular Freedom Democratic Russia (Kadets): A party in name only, synonymous with its leader, Mikhail Astafiev. It was initially a liberal democratic group when founded in May 1990, then joined the opposition to Yeltsin in 1992 and associated with conservative nationalist positions.

Democratic Russia: Umbrella organisation for democratic groups and proto-parties founded in October 1990. xii Glossary of Parties and Groups Derzhava: Short-lived movement founded to provide a political base for Alexander Rutskoi on his release from prison in February 1994. Proclaimed religious, authoritarian nationalism.

Experimental Creative Centre: Officially funded group of self-styled thinkers and researchers which, in 1990 and 1991 under the leadership of Sergei Kurginyan, attempted to provide ideological underpinning for the restoration of an authoritarian collectivist regime, under osten- sibly nationalist credentials.

Fellowship of Russian Artists: Group of nationalist writers and intel- lectuals, founded in 1988, committed to the conservation of the Soviet system.

Interfronts: Officially encouraged organisations uniting Russians in the Union republics at the end of the 1980s and early 1990s, opposed to republican nationalism and supporting the maintenance of the Soviet Union.

Kadets – see Constitutional Democratic Party of Popular Freedom.

KPRF – see Communist Party.

Labouring Moscow: A neo-Stalinist caucus, founded in November 1991 by Viktor Anpilov and others to oppose every aspect of the reform. Its mainly elderly supporters were active in demonstrations throughout 1992 and 1993, after which it was banned.

Labouring Russia: An attempt to replicate Labouring Moscow at national level. Founded in October 1992.

Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR): Shadowy party led by Vladimir Zhirinovsky since 1990 and committed by him to ultra- nationalist, imperialist positions. A leading party in the fifth and sixth Dumas.

Memorial: Anti-Stalinist, democratic forum founded in 1988. Initially substantial popular interest declined after 1991. Continues to function as human rights organisation.

Moscow Tribune: Forum for leading Moscow academics and cultural figures in favour of democracy, founded in 1989. Glossary of Parties and Groups xiii Nashi: Paper organisation invented in November 1991 by neo-fascist journalist Alexander Nevzorov and pro-Soviet Viktor Alksnis, intended as a semi-military arm of authoritarian imperialists.

National Bolshevik Party: Founded in 1993 and led by the neo-fascist writer Eduard Limonov and largely the product of his imagination.

National Republican Party of Russia: Racist, authoritarian nationalist party led by neo-fascist Nikolai Lysenko and founded in 1990.

National Salvation Front: Founded in October 1992 as major opposi- tion forum to Yeltsin and his reforms. Embraced most nationalist leaders and groups. Banned in October 1993.

OFT – see United Workers’ Front.

Officers’ Union: Nationalist, anti-reform group in the army, founded by Stanislav Terekhov in 1991.

Officers for the Revival of the Fatherland: Nationalist, anti-reform caucus in the army, founded by General Alexander Sterligov in December 1991.

Orthodox All-Russian Monarchical Order-Union (PRAMOS): Miniscule monarchist party founded in 1990. Slightly less extreme than its rivals.

Otechestvo: Nationalist socialist cultural lobby founded in 1989, favour- ing retention of the Soviet system.

Our Home is Russia (NDR): Official election machine (rather than popular party) of Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin in 1995.

Pamyat’: Neo-fascist, anti-Semitic group led by Dmitri Vasiliev from 1985, which spawned many similarly named and inspired, extreme nationalist groups. Active in the late 1980s, it was succeeded by neo-fascist parties, such as Barkashov’s Russian National Unity and Vasiliev’s less visible Russian Party of National Unity.

Patriotic Bloc: Coalition of communist and nationalist candidates in the 1990 elections. xiv Glossary of Parties and Groups Popular Patriotic Bloc: Coalition of communists and nationalists in whose name Gennady Zyuganov ran as a candidate for the Russian Presidency in 1996.

Power to the People: Coalition of communists, under former Prime Minister Nikolai Ryzhkov, and nationalists, under Sergei Baburin, in the 1995 elections.

PRES (Party of Russian Unity and Agreement): Moderate, pro- reform election machine and proto-party of Sergei Shakhrai and other former Yeltsin collaborators, founded in October 1993.

Public Committee for Saving the Volga: Nationalist conservation group founded in January 1989, committed against its will by its leader, the writer Vassily Belov, to anti-reform positions in 1990.

RKhDD – see Christian Democratic Movement of Russia.

ROS – see Russian All-People’s Union.

Rossiya: Nationalist-Communist deputies’ election club and faction in Russian parliament, founded in 1990.

Russia’s Choice (then, Russia’s Democratic Choice): 1993 election bloc and then pro-reform party of Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar, founded in Autumn 1993 and June 1994.

Russian All-Peoples’ Movement: Cossack, Greater Russian election bloc in 1995 elections.

Russian All-Peoples’ Union (ROS): Pro-Soviet, later Greater Russian nationalist caucus founded in late 1991 and led by Sergei Baburin. Most supporters were former communists, including many Russian parliamentary deputies.

Russian Communist Workers’ Party: Viktor Anpilov’s ultra-Stalinist party, founded in November 1991.

Russian Cultural Centre: Cultural caucus founded in 1988 by those apparently intended to present the acceptable face of Pamyat’ and who hoped to undercut Vasiliev.

Russian National Assembly: Still-born nationalist grouping founded by Aksyuchits and Astafiev in February 1992 to oppose Yeltsin. Glossary of Parties and Groups xv Russian National Council (RNS): Ultra-nationalist, racist caucus founded by General Alexander Sterligov in February 1992 to oppose the reforms. Much in view in 1992 and 1993, thanks to the prominence of its leader (although probably enjoying insignificant membership), it was banned after October 1993.

Russian National Unity (Yedinstvo): Neo-fascist party led by Alexander Barkashov and founded in 1990. Prominent in the distur- bances in October 1993 and banned thereafter (although in practice it continued to exist).

Russian Party: Racist, ultra-nationalist proto-party, founded in 1990 and led initially by Viktor Korchagin and after March 1993 by Viktor Miloserdov. Collective member of Sterligov’s Russian National Council.

Russian Party of Communists: A successor to the CPSU founded in December 1991 by Anatoly Kryuchkov.

Russian Unity: Anti-Yeltsin grouping of communist and nationalist deputies in the Russian parliament in 1992–93, formally aligned with the National Salvation Front.

Slavic Assembly: Umbrella group of miniscule, ultra-nationalist, racist parties, active in the early 1990s.

Sobriety (Union for the Struggle for Popular Sobriety): Extreme nationalist offshoot of officious anti-alcoholism organisation, founded in December 1988.

Socialist Workers’ Party: A successor party to the CPSU founded in October 1991. Led by, inter alia, Roy Medvedev, it envisaged a ‘return to Leninist norms’. Overtaken by KPRF.

Society for the Preservation of Historical Monuments: Founded in 1965, largely officious and ineffectual all-Union organisation.

Soyuz: Pro-Soviet lobby founded in February 1990 and led by Colonel Viktor Alksnis.

Union for the Spiritual Renewal of the Fatherland: Cultural political organisation, supporting a revamped Soviet System infused by Orthodoxy and founded in March 1989. xvi Glossary of Parties and Groups Union of Artists: Official, Party-controlled body, offering emoluments and privileges to conformists and obstructing the work of non- conformists.

Union of Christian Regeneration: Authoritarian nationalist and monarchist proto-party founded by Viktor Osipov in 1988.

Union of Communists: Moderately conservative successor party to the CPSU founded by A. Prigarin in 1991. Briefly active before the revival of the KPRF. Soon overshadowed by larger communist parties.

Union of Cossack Forces of Russia: Monarchist Cossack organisation, enjoying considerable support, founded in July 1991.

Union of Orthodox Brotherhoods: Founded in 1990, it rapidly adopted ultra-nationalist, fundamentalist positions, militating against reform in the Church.

Union of Patriots: General Alexander Sterligov’s ultra-nationalist election bloc in 1995. Not a popular organisation.

Union of the Russian People: Pre-revolutionary, authoritarian national- ist and racist party. An attempt was made to revive it in August 1991.

Union of Writers: Founded by Stalin in 1932 to control Soviet writers.

United Council of Russia: Founded in September 1989 by the OFT, Otechestvo, the Fellowship of Russian Artists and similar groups to unite the nationalist and communist opposition to reform. Led by Eduard Volodin, it was one of several such, largely unsuccessful fora.

United Opposition: Nationalist and communist lobby founded in 1992 to oppose Yeltsin. The forerunner of the National Salvation Front.

United Workers’ Front (OFT): Populist, neo-Stalinist caucus founded by Party conservatives in 1989 to mobilise the anti-reform vote among the workers. Failure to achieve this led to its evaporation in 1990.

Yabloko: moderate, liberal, democratic 1993 election bloc and then party, led by Grigory Yavlinsky.

Yedinenie (Unity): Largely moribund caucus of conservative nationalist cultural figures founded in 1989. Introduction

One of the most striking features of modern Russian political life is the spread of nationalist ideology. Supposedly eradicated in the Soviet Union by Marxism, it re-emerged with virulent force under Gorbachev, in reaction to his liberal policies. Most dramatically, it took the form of the xenophobic, if marginal, street politics embodied by Dmitri Vasiliev’s Pamyat’ but, in what Julien Benda famously called, in 1927, la trahison des clercs, it was also expressed by well- known intellectuals opposed to liberalisation, which they saw as the latest betrayal of national tradition.1 Many leading writers and intel- lectuals, such as Valentin Rasputin and Igor Shafarevich, lent their moral authority to criticisms of the reforms, questioning the value of such civic rights as freedom of speech and representative goverment, while apparently endorsing anti-Semitism and theocratic authoritar- ianism. The dissemination of nationalist, collectivist and authoritarian ideas, and the weight which attaches to them by virtue of their spokes- men’s status, seem to compromise Russia’s future as a peaceful and stable society, in which the individual’s freedoms and rights are assured. This threat is magnified by the context – of growing crime, wide- spread corruption and poverty, economic dislocation, imperial withdrawal and state paralysis – in which these ideas have been elaborated. The growth of nationalism in Russia coincided with a pro- found social, political and economic crisis. The power of the State and its capacity to protect its citizens’ well-being disintegrated between 1986 and 1996. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, 25 million Russians found themselves stranded abroad, in new states where their well-being and security were frequently threatened. Within Russia, industrial production collapsed, living standards fell, with rising crime, declining birth-rates and life-expectancy all pointing to an acute social crisis. By the end of 1993, 35 per cent of the population was estimated to be living below the poverty line. The mortality rate rose: the average life expectancy of Soviet men fell from 65 in 1986 to 57.3 in 1994; in 1992, for the first time since the Second World War, the death-rate was higher than the birth-rate. An inadequately funded health service was unable to prevent epidemics of the diseases of

xvii xviii Introduction poverty, tuberculosis, typhoid and diphtheria.2 This inevitably generated disaffection with government policy and provided the oppo- sition with a potentially receptive constituency. Indeed, analysis of successive election results indicated that nationalists and nationalist socialists attracted most of their support from those on whom the reforms inflicted most suffering – the old, the poorly educated, unskilled workers in the provinces and countryside and employees in vulnerable sectors of industry. It was not a propitious environment for the development of a vigorous democracy. But the economic and social crisis does not account for the often authoritarian, collectivist and xenophobic orientation of Russian nationalism. While liberal nationalism had its exponents, they were neither numerous nor influential. Most nationalists were conservative or radical opponents of reform and liberalisation. The political com- plexion of modern Russian nationalism was determined not only by the contemporary context but also by its historical legacy, which furnished anti-reform politicians with an alternative ideology to replace Soviet socialism and, they hoped, win public support for their positions. Far from representing an original attempt to respond to Russia’s contemporary crisis, modern Russian nationalism often involved little more than the resurrection of ideas first enunciated a century and a half ago. Its vision was backward- rather than forward- looking, a form of nostalgia and fantasy rather than a realistic political programme. Historically, Russian nationalism has its roots in Romantic political and social theory and in the mid-nineteenth century debate about reform and modernisation, known as the Slavophile controversy. The Slavophile controversy divided the intelligentsia into two camps: those who believed the answer to the problem of reform and modernisation to lie in emulation of the West and the adoption of its legal, political and economic norms, and the nationalists, who rejected the West in favour of autocratic, collectivist tradition.3 This division of opinion among the intelligentsia and the political class has remained a con- stant in Russian history ever since and has re-emerged whenever the question of modernisation has been on the agenda.4 With the Pan- Slav thinkers of the mid-nineteenth century, Russian nationalism came to be associated with authoritarianism and expansionism and its anti-Western bias was accentuated – especially after the 1905 revolu- tion, when court circles saw Great Russian (or expansionist, State- centred) nationalism as a bulwark against democracy, reform and Introduction xix foreign influence.5 The fundamental lineaments of Russian national- ism (its authoritarianism, imperial pretensions, anti-Western bias and anti-Semitism) were thus drawn in the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Russian nationalism was subsequently incorporated, with appro- priate adaptations, into the ideology of high Stalinism6 and re- emerged, transformed, at the end of the 1960s both in the establishment and among the intelligentsia.7 One school of thought saw Soviet socialism as distilling the collectivist, patriotic, authoritar- ian traditions of the Russian state and nation.8 Another form of Russian nationalism emerged during the Thaw: associated with the so- called village writers, this tendency implicitly criticised Soviet com- munism’s social engineering and its disastrous effects on Russia’s farmers, countryside and environment, on traditional morality and culture. These writers argued, by implication, for the need for national and moral renewal – looking, in some cases, to Orthodoxy for inspira- tion. Solzhenitsyn had a close affinity with these writers, some of whom fell foul of the authorities, although many more retained their positions and privileges in the establishment. Nationalism, in the last years of the Soviet regime, was thus a hybrid, embracing both communists and their critics, who, whatever their differences in relation to the Soviet system, were broadly at one in their preference for collectivism and in the importance they attached to a strong Russian state, capable of holding the empire together and playing a major role in international affairs. Russian nationalism’s re-emergence, during glasnost’, was thus not fortuitous, but its subsequent resilience and the strength of its challenge to democracy were far from inevitable. The first part of this book charts the intellectuals’ contribution to the development of authoritarian nationalism and examines the main trends of nationalist thought, on which politicians of the ‘irre- concilable opposition’ were able to draw in the post-Soviet period. Authoritarian nationalism was exhumed by writers and intellectuals, who attempted to popularise their ideas and clothe them with an aura of intellectual respectability and relevance. The intellectuals thus played an important role in forging a new, or apparently new, political rhetoric, whose interest lay, initially, not in the support it garnered (for this was as yet minimal) but in its character and the fact that it was developed not by marginal groups but by well-educated and well-connected members of the cultural elite. Many essentially xx Introduction disreputable ideas – including apologia for anti-Semitism and author- itarianism – were popularised and found an echo in the street politics of neo-fascist groups. With the eclipse of communism and the Soviet system and the rehabilitation of the Orthodox church, religiously inspired nationalism, sometimes embracing xenophobia and author- itarianism, began to be articulated, although it stimulated little public interest. The ‘Greater Russian Idea’ (which suggested that the Russians’ historical mission necessitated their absorption of smaller neighbouring peoples and their organisation in a powerful, autocratic State) while initially eschewed by most Russians, if enthusiastically propounded by a minority of intellectuals, became one of the leitmotivs of post-Soviet politics. If intellectuals played a key role in elaborating these ideas, their public significance owed more to the interest they elicited among the new generation of politicians in the post-Soviet period. The second part of the book examines the political impact of authoritarian nationalism, from early futile attempts to organise a mass movement inspired by it, to the August 1991 coup, the development of the oppo- sition to Yeltsin and the rise, after 1993, of Vladimir Zhirinovsky and of Gennady Zyuganov’s communists. It ends with the failure of the opposition to capture the Presidency in 1996. This study attempts to elucidate why nationalism, contrary to the expectations of some ana- lysts, assumed an authoritarian rather than liberal reformist charac- ter.9 It examines whether nationalism is central to an understanding of the public mood and the interplay of contemporary Russian politics or whether it is a temporary and marginal phenomenon, owing more to circumstance and the cynicism of its exponents than to genuine popular enthusiasm.