First, a majority of the new members was less driven by ideological considerations than by career prospects.
Second, the new mass basis made the party ideologically still more nebulous and colorless than it already was.[36]
Third, the influx of new members brought into the party people with different ideas and ideological backgrounds, which soon led to a pressure for the formation of “party wings.” These problems became more acute in 2008, when Medvedev succeeded Putin as president and Putin became prime minister. From that moment it was in Putin’s interest to change the “President’s Party” into “the Prime Minister’s Party” or better, into “Putin’s Party” tout court.
In November 2007, some months before the presidential elections of 2008, Putin began to criticize the party. He said: “Does it [United Russia] look like the ideal political structure? Of course not. There is still no established ideology, principles for which the overwhelming majority of the members of this party would be prepared to fight and to accept its authority.”[37] He added that “it is close to the state. And, as a rule, all kinds of criminals try to infiltrate into such structures . . . . The goal of these people is not the welfare of the people, but their personal enrichment. And, of course, by such actions, they compromise the state and the party.”[38] Putin formulated here two new objectives: first, the need for United Russia to develop its own ideology, and, second, the need to purge the party of unwanted, “criminal” elements. Shortly thereafter, on April 15, 2008, Putin accepted the position of chairman of United Russia. In 2010, however, the announced purge was still waiting to be implemented. The party membership had not diminished, but had grown from 1,980 million in April 2008 to 2,026 million in May 2010. United Russia had become a huge bureaucratic organization with 2,598 local divisions, employing 40,000 employees.[39] It was clearly on the way to becoming a clone of the Soviet-era CPSU. However, the other goal formulated by Putin in 2007: giving United Russia an ideology, was in full implementation. Marlène Laruelle wrote that
a new wave of Russian nationalism has been emerging that broadly exceeds the influence of older strains of nationalism, whether founded on Slavophilism, Soviet nostalgia, or Eurasianist theories . . . .[40] Western observers and political scientists have a tendency to reserve the label “nationalist” only for small extremist groups or political parties, such as Gennady Ziuganov’s Communist Party and Vladimir Zhirinovski’s LDPR. It prevents them from taking stock of the existence of an ideological continuum that encompasses the entire Russian political spectrum. Indeed . . . the presidential party United Russia is itself thoroughly permeated with ideological debates about the nature of the country’s national identity. Owing to its ability to co-opt doctrinaires, to finance them, and to broadcast their messages to media and public opinion, it has even become one of the major actors of the nationalist narrative.[41]
United Russia, far from distancing itself from the ultranationalist discourses of Zhirinovsky’s LDPR and Zyuganov’s Communist Party, had begun to develop its own version of a “patriotic” ideology. This “ideologization process” had three characteristics:
It was related to the formation of “wings” in the party.
It was led by the Kremlin.
It was not restricted to pure party politics, but embedded in a broader “Gramscian” strategy of securing an overall ideological “hegemony” in Russia.
The Bear Wants to Fly: How United Russia Got Different Party Wings
In 2005 a debate had already started inside United Russia over the possibility of organizing different ideological currents inside the party. The initiative for this was taken by Vladimir Pligin, president of the Constitutional Legislation Committee of the Duma. Pligin published a text, cosigned by some thirty colleagues, in which they asked for ideological platforms in the party. The party leadership, however, was not in favor of this initiative. Boris Gryzlov, speaker of the Duma and party leader, was categorically against. He declared “that there will be no organizationally formalized platforms or wings in United Russia. Discussion is not only natural and necessary . . . but discussion must not be to the detriment of party discipline.”[42] And he added: “We cannot and have not the right to divide ourselves into right and left.”[43] Gryzlov was acting in line with an established Soviet tradition of “democratic centralism.” He reminded his audience that already “Lenin sternly warned about the adverse effects of factionalism.”[44] Gryzlov went on to repeat the official party ideology, which was, according to him, located in the center. It was “social conservatism,” which intended “to maintain order, social stability, [and] unconditional defense by the government of legally acquired property.” This “social conservatism,” he went on, “was broader than any political current, because one can find elements of it in the traditional left and right.”[45] An ideology that finds its elements “in the traditional left and right” is necessarily centrist. In 2005, when Gryzlov wrote these lines, order and status quo were, indeed, still the most important objectives of the regime. This conservatism was logical for a party in power. Would it be enough, however, to stay ahead when competing against the parties and movements that were propagating a passionate brand of patriotism and were animated by great-Russian chauvinism and ultranationalist fervor? Konstantin Kosachev, a Duma member of United Russia, dared to challenge Gryzlov in an article titled “Why Would a Bear Need Wings?” Kosachev wrote: “What some hastened to call ‘wings’—something that, as party leader Boris Gryzlov said, a bear, which is the party’s symbol, hardly needs—should be more aptly seen as working groups . . . and not something generating internal conflict within the party.”[46] Kosachev won, because Gryzlov’s initial negative response could not prevent discussion groups being set up before long within United Russia.
One of these was the Center for Social and Conservative Policy. In 2007 this faction started the Russian Project, led by the popular TV presenter Ivan Demidov and Andrey Isaev, a Duma deputy. The project initiated a discussion on the Russian nation, national identity, and “Russianness” (Russkost). Thereupon the Kremlin decided that the time was ripe for ideological discussions in the party and in April 2008 United Russia formalized the authorization for clubs to be created, on the condition that they did not develop into factions. A Political Clubs Charter was signed by three clubs: the Center for Social and Conservative Policy, the Club of 4 November, and the State Patriotic Club. These three clubs were seen as expressing the new pluriformity in the party. The Club of 4 November—connected with (nonstate) business circles—was considered to represent the “liberal” wing, whereas the State Patriotic Club was more right-wing. The Center for Social Conservative Policy, supported by Gryzlov, took a middle position. But it soon became clear that despite these different labels the differences between the party clubs were only marginal and they all shared the party’s new ideology: ultranationalism (called patriotism). This did not mean that the old ideology centered on the keywords of “status quo” and “order” had been abandoned. These objectives were still present, but they were repackaged and recycled into a more marketable product of national grandeur, great power status, historical pride, and imperial ambition.
United Russia’s New Ultranationalist Course
This new ultranationalist course adopted by the leading political party was a consequence of the generalized spread of chauvinist ideas in Russian society that had been prepared by the activities of a multitude of extreme right organizations. The political elite’s pursuit of electoral success led to their embracing the prevailing mood of society. The political scientist Vladimir Pribylovsky, director of the critical Moscow-based center for social research Panorama, interpreted the metamorphosis of United Russia as follows:
A segment of the voters in Russia will turn or may turn to parties that do not support the president and the present policy. They are talking particularly about the nationalists. The proportion of the electorate who are receptive to nationalist ideas is, according to some estimates, some 30–40%. That is a si
gnificant part of the electorate, and a section of these people votes for the pro-presidential parties, but a section does not vote or votes for the opposition. In the following six months we will see attempts by the party in power to flirt with nationalist and even xenophobic tendencies in society.[47]
According to another source the stakes could be even higher. Leonty Vyzov, director of the state sponsored social-political research center VTsIOM, said: “Sociologists divide the nationalists into ‘soft’ ones, who limit their existing hatred to migrants, and ‘hard’ ones, worshippers of the slogan ‘Russia for the Russians,’ who are ready to express their views in public.” “The first . . . makes up 40–45 % of the total number of citizens, the second about 10%.”[48] This meant that, according to these estimates, in early 2007 ultranationalist feelings were prevalent in a majority of the Russian population.
But this adaptation of United Russia to the prevalent ultranationalist mood was not the result only of (electoral) pressure from below. We have seen that as early as 1999 Putin himself was a convinced protagonist of giving patriotism a central place in the new Russian ideology. The decision, taken on electoral grounds, to choose a more nationalistic course coincided with a strategy on the part of the presidential administration to ideologize United Russia. The Kremlin was the cockpit of this change: the captain on board was Vladimir Putin, and his copilots were Vladislav Surkov, the deputy director of the presidential administration, and Aleksey Chesnakov, the deputy director of the Department of Domestic Policy of the presidential administration. Another factor implicating the Kremlin’s central role was the fact that Ivan Demidov, who introduced the new nationalism in United Russia through his Russian Project and who was called by the Nezavisimaya Gazeta, “the incubator of patriotism,”[49] was in 2009 appointed director of the Department of Human Policy and Social Relations of the presidential administration.
This Kremlin-led policy to make United Russia into the nationalist party of Russia—leaving the other nationalist parties far behind—was a great success. With hindsight this transformation from a conservative law-and-order party into a nationalist party did not even need to be imposed from the top, because all the new clubs within the party, irrespective of whether they labeled themselves left, right, or center, indulged in the newly embraced patriotism. The so called liberal-conservatives, for instance, were organized within the Club of 4 November (Klub 4 Noyabrya). The name of this club was in itself revealing: it referred to November 4, a date that (in 2004) was made by decree into People’s Unity Day, a new national holiday on which Russia’s victory in 1612 over the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was celebrated (the choice of this day was not really appreciated by the Poles). The club’s manifesto included the statement that “the real sovereignty of Russia is today, by far, the most important problem”[50] and that “patriotism is one of the most important values of Russian society.”[51]
Russia’s Frontiers “Are Not Eternal”
The second club, the social-conservatives, openly expressed the nostalgia of its members for the former Soviet Union. In their manifesto they wrote: “We all grew up in the USSR and consider the dissolution of that government a tragedy for all its peoples. We should not consider the current frontiers of our state to be eternal. We are ready to pursue any unification of states on the former territory of the Union, and even beyond its frontiers. However, from this it follows that our readiness to reach out to peoples who want to unite with Russia, is matched by a readiness to risk a relatively peaceful life or the present level of wealth. Of course, the more prosperous Russia becomes, the sooner neighbors will reach out to her.”[52] The fact that in the manifesto the present frontiers between Russia and her neighbors are not considered to be eternal, written in a program of the dominant group within Russia’s governing party, is in itself a cause for concern. Even more so, when it goes on to propose that a (re-)unification with the neighboring peoples on the former territory of the Soviet Union and “even beyond its frontiers” would require of the Russian citizens “the readiness to risk a relatively peaceful life.” It echoed openly the dangerous revisionism of the Liberal-Democratic Party and the Communist Party.
Russia’s Rebirth
Imperial ambition and ultranationalist fervor were even more prominent in the third club, the State Patriotic Club (Gosudarstvenno-patrioticheskiy Klub), which began its political declaration with the quote: “The state is not located ‘out there,’ outside of us, it lives in us, in the form of ourselves.”[53] Having thus defined the state as a quasi-biological ingredient of every single Russian citizen, as essential for the individual’s survival as his liver, stomach, and lungs, it might appear impossible to construct any opposition of interests between the state and the individual, as is the case in Western liberal political philosophies. This is also considered unnecessary, because patriotism is the glue that binds the citizen and the government together. “One of the most important tasks of the politics of the majority party,” one could read, “must be the permanent strengthening of the mutual link between the state patriotism (gosudarstvennicheskiy patriotizm) of our people and the government’s policy for the people, for its interests and national dignity.”[54] The club declared itself in favor of a “military-patriotic education” and wanted to promote “the propaganda of historical examples of military courage and heroism by the people in defense of the Fatherland.” It equally wanted “to strengthen the prestige of the military service” and was in favor of the adaptation of history books in schools, “with the purpose of providing a fuller and more precise account of events in the history of the Fatherland,” adding that “one of the most important objectives is to work with the young generation.”
The promotion of martial virtues and patriotism, it continued, should lead to a “rebirth of Russian state power” (vozrozhdenie rossiyskoy derzhavy). The members of the State Patriotic Club, like the social conservatives, do not hide their neoimperialist ambitions. The declaration spoke about “the historical unity of the peoples of Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and other brother republics” and stressed the fact that “our peoples are bound by many millions of ties: family and kinship ties, friendship bonds, business contacts, creative relationships. Not to mention a shared language, culture, shared holidays and symbols. For precisely these reasons any attempts to draw frontiers not only on the map, but also in society, to split not just property, but a historical heritage, is considered by all of us a tragedy and a great injustice.” The declaration continued: “Today it is Russia in particular that is the most committed guarantor of real sovereignty and democracy for the countries of the CIS, the real defender against external interference and economic crises.”[55] It remains to be seen, however, if all CIS members would agree with the statement that Russia is the guarantor of their “real sovereignty” and “democracy.”
This ultranationalist chauvinism of the party in power, however, does not appear in the official discourse of the Kremlin and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. As Laruelle remarked: “So, notably, even the institutions most attached to the state apparatus can propound discourses that are regarded as relatively radical in their conceptions of national identity, and that do not correspond to the official state narrative.”[56] This discrepancy, far from being a reassurance, is rather a reason for concern. Aleksandr Dugin, the founder of Russia’s Eurasian Movement, had already advised the Russian leaders to play a double game: “The authorities will actively and on a large scale play a double game, outwardly continuing the declaration of adherence to ‘democratic values,’ but inwardly restoring little by little the base for the global autarchy.”[57] We may conclude that the “dynamic of change” that has taken place in United Russia during the first twelve years of Putin’s reign has moved the party farther away from its supposed center position in the direction of chauvinist ultranationalism and revisionism.
Notes
1. Almost until the demise of the Soviet Union, Russia (then called RSFSR), unlike the other fourteen Soviet republics, di
d not have its own Communist Party, but fell directly under the CPSU. It was only in June 1990 that on the initiative of conservative circles inside the CPSU, a Communist Party of Russia was constituted. After the 1991 August putsch this party was banned, together with the CPSU and the local parties in the other republics. The party was refounded in February 1993 under the name Communist Party of the Russian Federation. (Cf. A. Shlyapuzhnikov and A. Yolkin, Est takie partii: putevoditel izbiratelya (Moscow: Panorama, 2008), 67–68.)
2. Stephen D. Shenfield, Russian Fascism: Tradition, Tendencies, Movements (New York: M.E. Sharpe, Inc., 2001), 51.
3. Quoted in Shenfield, Russian Fascism, 51.
4. Cf. Aleksandr Verkhovsky and Galina Kozhevnikova, Radikalnyy russkiy natsionalizm: struktury, idei, litsa (Moscow: SOVA, 2009), 25.
5. Cf. “Ksenofobnye kandidaty KPRF na Moskovskikh munitsipalnykh vyborakh,” SOVA (February 22, 2008). http://xeno.sova-center.ru/29481C8/AA109CD.
6. Gennady Zyuganov, My Russia: The Political Autobiography of Gennady Zyuganov (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1997), 3.
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