www.ssoar.info Post-Soviet 'Uncivil Society' and the Rise of Aleksandr Dugin: A Case Study of the Extraparliamentary Radical Right in Contemporary Russia Umland, Andreas Veröffentlichungsversion / Published Version Dissertation / phd thesis Empfohlene Zitierung / Suggested Citation: Umland, A. (2007). Post-Soviet 'Uncivil Society' and the Rise of Aleksandr Dugin: A Case Study of the Extraparliamentary Radical Right in Contemporary Russia.. Cambridge. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2892325 Nutzungsbedingungen: Terms of use: Dieser Text wird unter der CC0 1.0 Universell Lizenz (Public This document is made available under the CC0 1.0 Universal Domain Dedication) zur Verfügung gestellt. Nähere Auskunft zu Licence (Public Domain Dedication). For more Information see: dieser CC-Lizenz finden Sie hier: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/deed.en https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/deed.de Diese Version ist zitierbar unter / This version is citable under: https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:0168-ssoar-65140-3 Andreas Umland Trinity College Cambridge Post-Soviet “Uncivil Society” and the Rise of Aleksandr Dugin A Case Study of the Extraparliamentary Radical Right in Contemporary Russia Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences of the University of Cambridge for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. This dissertation is the result of my own work and includes nothing which is the outcome of work done in collaboration except where specifically indicated in the text. No parts of the text have been submitted for another qualification. Word number: 79,605 (including footnotes and the Appendix, but excluding the Bibliography) Kyiv, 23 January 2007 Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2892325 Summary This dissertation argues that, in Russia, the extreme right, in spite of its relative fail- ure to become a notable force in parliament throughout the 1990s, remains a signifi- cant social and political factor in the new century. The thesis uses the generic concepts of uncivil society, groupuscule, and right-wing Gramscianism developed in comparative fascist studies to substantiate the claim that the political potential of ultra-nationalism in a given country might be assessed in- completely by sole measurement of the electoral performance of right-radical parties. It refers to the transformation of anti-Semitism in late Imperial Germany from a party ideology into a component of national political culture as an example illustrating that stagnating or downfalling ultra-nationalist parties, sometimes, indicate not a decline of the popularity of their aims, but an infiltration of their ideas into society. The thesis reviews recent comparative research on the role of third sector actors in regime change and post-War politics in Western Europe to illustrate that a consideration of the organizational capacities, ties with the elite, and social rootedness of extremely right-wing extraparliamentary groupings might constitute an important addition for an adequate assessment of the prospects of the ultra-nationalist movement of a given country. In its second, empirical part (Chapter III), the study develops a case study in the emergence of post-Soviet uncivil society detailing the context and course of the rise, in 1988-2006, of Aleksandr Dugin’s circle of “neo-Eurasianists” from a lunatic fringe group into an influential think-tank with a notable presence in the Russian book mar- ket, intellectual discourse and mass media. Apart from showing Dugin’s increasing reach into Moscow high politics, the study, in particular, focuses on his purposeful attempts to enter Russia’s academic life and mainstream political publicism, and some successes he had in doing so. The conclusions relate the findings from the case study to recent trends within Rus- sian extremely right-wing party politics, and make some tentative suggestions on how the Russian extreme right, as a whole, as well as its scholarly study, as a collective enterprise, might develop in the future. Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2892325 POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 3 “One of the most important and dangerous spiritual events of the post-communist period is the ‘sudden’ resurgence of conservative-nationalistic fundamentalism and its messianic pretensions.” Assen Ignatow, “Das postkommunistische Vakuum und die neuen Ideologien: Zur gegenwärtigen geistigen Situation in Rußland,” Osteuropa 43, no. 4 (1993): 311-327, here 313. “The prospects of the extreme Right in the former Soviet Union and Soviet bloc seem better than in most other parts of the world.” Walter Laqueur, Fascism: Past, Present, Future (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 178. “In post-totalitarian Russia, the ideological climate has been gravitating more and more towards right-wing conservative values colored by Russian nationalism.” Thomas Parland, The Extreme Nationalist Threat in Russia: The Growing Influence of Western Rightist Ideas (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2005), 1. “I would like to stress again that the widespread rise in xenophobia is most alarming. Excessive nationalism and the ideologies transmitted by parties and organizations attached to the extreme right are the main causes of this state of affairs.” Report by Mr Alvaro Gil-Robles, Commissioner for Human Rights, on his Visit to the Russian Federation 15 to 30 July 2004, 19 to 29 September 2004 (Strasbourg: Council of Europe, 2005), 67. “Xenophobia exists in many countries, but in Russia it has become a norm, a com- monplace for the majority of the country.” Aleksandra Radkovskaya, a psychologist at Moscow State University, quoted in Financial Times, 30th December 2005. Contents List of Tables 7 List of Abbreviations 8 Acknowledgements 10 Preface 12 I Introduction 22 I.1 The Purpose and Structure of this Study 22 I.2 The Arguments, Foci and Limits of this Study 28 A Note on the State of Russian Right-Wing Extremism Studies 29 Dugin’s Competitors 30 The Major Concepts of this Study 34 Conceptual Borders of Generic Civil Society and Nationalism 37 A Methodological Rationale of this Investigation’s Approach 39 A Final Introductory Note 40 II Civil Society’s Relevance for Right-Wing Extremism Studies 42 II.1 Some Peculiar Dilemmas of Russian Ultra-Nationalist Politics in the 1990s 42 II.2 Some Recent Developments in Russian Ultra- Nationalist Party Politics 53 POST-SOVIET “UNCIVIL SOCIETY” 5 II.3 Evaluating Declining Ultra-Nationalist Parties: Some Lessons from German History 57 II.4 Civil Society’s Role in Democratic Transition, Consolidation, and Breakdown 60 II.4.1 German Vereinswesen in the Weimar Republic 60 II.4.2 Antiliberal Associationism 62 II.5 Electoral vs. Non-Electoral Activities of the Western Extreme Right Today 66 II.5.1 The Relevance of Post-War Extraparliamentary Ultra-Nationalism 66 II.5.2 The Groupuscule 68 II.5.3 The European “New Right” 72 III Ultra-Nationalist Intellectual Centres in Contemporary Russia 76 III.1 Other Manifestations of Uncivil Society in Contemporary Russia 76 III.2 Post-Soviet Right-Wing Think Tanks 81 III.3 Sergey Kurginyan’s ETTs 84 III.4 The Role of Aleksandr Prokhanov 88 III.5 The Dugin Phenomenon 92 III.5.1 Dugin’s World View 93 III.5.2 The Rise of Dugin 97 Dugin’s Origins 97 Dugin’s Emergence as a Publicist 101 In the Wilderness 107 Theoretician of the Post-Soviet Russian Right 111 From the Margins to the Mainstream 118 Dugin in Moscow High Politics 127 Dugin’s “Academic Career” 133 III.5.3 The Role of “Neo-Eurasianism” in Dugin’s Political Mimicry 141 Dugin’s Intellectual Biography 146 ANDREAS UMLAND 6 Similarities between Classical Eurasianism and “Neo-Eurasianism” 152 Discrepancies between Classical Eurasianism and “Neo-Eurasianism” 154 Dugin’s Late Embrace of Russian Eurasianism 156 III.5.4 Excursus I: Gumilëv’s “Eurasianism” 159 The Gumilëvian World View 159 Gumilëv and Classical Eurasianism 162 III.5.5 Dugin’s Re-Interpretation of “Eurasia” 163 Eurasia and Europe 163 Eurasia and the US 166 Geopolitics, Conservative Revolution, and Obfuscation 167 The Eurasianist Label and Interpretation of Dugin 169 III.5.6 Excursus II: Conceptualizing “Duginism” 172 “Revolutionary Expansionism,” “Geopolitical Anti-Semitism” “National Bolshevism,” “Geopolitics,” “Traditionalism” 173 The Connection to the European “New Right” 178 III.5.7 Dugin’s Relevance in Context 182 IV Conclusions: Anti-Democratic Politics and Uncivil Society in Post-Soviet Russia 189 Appendix: Some of Dugin’s Sources and Allies 203 Bibliography 211 Primary Sources 211 Secondary Sources 216 List of Tables 1 The major extremely right-wing parties in the RF in the 1990s 25 2 The major books authored, and journals edited by Dugin, if not otherwise indicated, under the imprint of Arktogeya 103 3 Some WWW-sites within Dugin’s webring 116 4 Seats won by electoral blocs with a manifestly anti-Western outlook in the State Duma elections of December 2003 and December 1999 193 5 Numerical strength of factions with a manifestly anti-Western outlook in the 4th and 3rd (post-Soviet) State Dumas of 2003-2007 and 1999-2003 194 List of Abbreviations APO Ausserparlamentarische Opposition (extra-parliamentary opposition) CDI Center for Défense Information CPSU Communist Party of the Soviet Union ENR European New Right ETTs Eksperimental'nyi tvorcheskii tsentr (Experimental Creative Center) EWE Erwägen Wissen Ethik (Deliberation Knowledge Ethics) GDR German Democratic Republic GOP Grand Old Party (the US Republican party) GRU Glavnoe razvedovatel’noe upravlenie (Main Intelligence Directorate,