Muscovite Winds of Change

TL;DR: I was right (probably)

Earlier, I had articulated my case that modern Russia is not the same as the Russia of pre-2014, that it is no longer driven by neo-Soviet aspirations of establishing a great Eurasian state, but that it has turned more towards its explicitly Slavic history, aiming to make all the world see that it well and truly is the final successor to the Kievan Rus, with the ideological backing not of Stalinists and “Fourth Theorists,” but of nationalists, Tsarists, and Orthodox reactionaries, denouncing the Bolshevik legacy as a foreign occupation and picking up the mantle of the Empire once more. Today, I spotted an op-ed by Ivan Timofeev from RT News, a publication often labeled as Russian state media.

The language of the piece is interesting. I suspect that it is not a translation, but that it was composed in English (or the translator was incredibly good at making any grammatical adjustments completely seamless). I don’t have much of an overarching thesis here other than that I think I was right in my earlier assertion.

First, the article enumerates and then embraces the notion that Russia’s war against the Kiev government is a rebellion against the world order. It subtly denounces what it calls the “liberal world order” and its ideological components, namely “the market economy; the globalization of standards, trade and technologies; liberal democracy as the only acceptable political form for the organization of states; an open society and a diversity of cultures and ways of life; and its interpretation of human rights.” The direct calling out of liberal democracy is an interesting step, as previously Russia tried to promote itself as democratic, but here, it is saying that it is not a democracy, and it is proud of that fact.

Next, the author touches upon the Soviet Union, comparing the USSR’s doctrine to pseudo-liberal globalism, and in doing so, further reinforces the jettison of the Bolshevik legacy as a foreign intrusion: “Both liberalism and socialism are Western doctrines. The pair are based on the ideas of progress, rationality and emancipation. There are more similarities between them than you might think.” This sounds an awful lot like ideas articulated by traditionalists and classical reactionaries like myself, that international communism and global hypercapitalism are both based on Enlightenment ideas of egalitarianism and materialism, and thus are two sides of the same coin, and both converge onto a world-wide technocracy, an idea that the op-ed seemingly echoes with “there was a convergence of liberal and socialist ideas in the form of a combination of state regulation and the market.” Timofeev doesn’t stop there with the comparisons, and brings up the parallels of globalization between communism’s “international worker solidarity” and liberalism.

In something reminiscent of Thuletide’s work on the Soviet Union and it being simply the eastern half of the world governing structure (see this and also this), the article decries that the USSR “could hardly be called a rebellion” from the liberal status quo of the Western Allies/Entente in the aftermath of the Great War. It stipulates that instead, the Soviet Union represented an alternative to the liberalism, but one which was still very much so part of the global order, whereas the current Russian rebellion does not care about staying part of that order and seeks only to place Russia itself in a better position geopolitically.

Disillusion with democracy is cited, and the author remarks that democracy provides an easy way for a nation’s sovereignty to be undermined from the outside, again reminding me of Thuletide’s description of democracy as a country wearing a giant “Subvert Me” sign on its back. Specifically, the post-Soviet color revolutions are mentioned, a rather direct reference to the 2014 CIA-orchestrated Euromaidan Revolution in the Ukraine. The U.S. government is namedropped as the largest abuser of democracy “hacking,” as the author calls it.

Moving futher down the column, Timofeev says that “the Russian narrative has distanced itself from the Western mainstream” in areas such as multiculturalism and “sexual minorities” (which is honestly a more palpable term than the Western Marxist alphabet soup used in the West). The denotion of multiculturalism is particularly interesting, as it breaks from the post-Soviet idea of Russia as a multiethnic and multinational country, an identity that was underpinned specifically by acceptance of multiculturalism. The next sentence includes the clause “Russia is a European and Western country.” That admission is huge, and most people may have missed it. Russia has not called itself European since the Bolsheviks took control. Even after the dissolution of the USSR, Russia tried to prop itself up as a “third civilization” that was neither European nor Oriental, straddling Europe and Asia while really being part of none. It is from this conception of Russia that things like Aleksandr Dugin’s Eurasianist “Fourth Political Theory” springs from, an ideology that for a time had a chokehold on the Russian military and intelligence leadership. That one assertion that Russia is, in fact, explicitly European is not only another throwback to the days of the Tsardom, but a complete throwing away of the last remnants of the Soviet legacy, with its Russian SFSR and its numerous ethnic autonomies retained by the post-Soviet Russian Federation, as well as a final blow to Dugin’s ideology.

Overall, the piece reads with the undertone that Russia is tired of trying to play (or pretend to play) by the rules of international order. It signals a complete and total rejection of the post-war global organization, the organization which the Soviets helped to craft as part of the United Nations alongside their supposed enemies in the West.

Realising that the game was being played according to fundamentally unfavourable and discriminatory rules from the Russian point of view, Moscow not only slammed the table with its fist and brushed the pieces off the board, it also decided, figuratively speaking, to hit its opponents hard on the head with this board.

In what I think is a slight vindication of my theory that the Russian oligarchs have mostly been purged, exiled, or rendered powerless in the wake of the war kicking off, Timofeev, while mocking the Western governments’ ham-handed approach to sanctioning Russians, directly calls the oligarchs “the most pro-Western wing of Russian high society,” this coming after Vladimir Putin called them Westerners pretending to be Russian on live national television.

Finally, the op-ed addresses the elephant in the room that is the Russian invasion of the EU/NATO’s joint puppet state in the Ukraine. There is no attempt whatsoever to downplay the effect of sanctions and the strain put on the economy by sustaining a medium-scale war effort. But that’s not the point here. The point being made is that Russia is aware of the costs, but those costs are not enough to stop Russia, and that Russia will fight to victory regardless.

Meanwhile, in the actions of Moscow, there have been signs of progress that are unpleasant for the West. Yes, the Western blockade will increase the lag and backwardness of the economy. Yes, military operations are costly. Yes, they can cause unpredictable social reactions and even present a challenge to political stability. None of these challenges, however, are capable of knocking Russia off its political course from now on. Moscow is slowly developing an offensive and seems to be determined to integrate the occupied Ukrainian territories into its political, informational and economic space.

In other words, “We know the consequences, as we don’t care. We are beyond being stopped.” The author bluntly states that Ukraine is losing, and that its occupied territory will be incorporated into Russia in some form, even going as far as threatening that if the West doesn’t come to strike an agreement with Russia, Ukraine may be entirely dismantled and absorbed.

My associate Jeff, often known by his pseudonym “Jeff McNukes,” known for the “Dormant Dynasty” channel (formerly called “the Asian Capitalists”) and the Iron Age Archive, commented that Russia is suffering from an identity crisis. I agree. And I believe this a good thing. It indicates that the older post-Soviet, remnant neo-Bolshevik, and Eurasianist elements in Russia are finally coming to a head with the more overtly reactionary and traditionalist currents that are becoming stronger by the day. The contradictions are finally being brought to light, which will end with one winning out. And by the looks of things, I firmly believe that the emerging (or re-emerging) Rightists will come to dominate as the previous narratives continue to whither in the face of resurging Tsarism, Orthodox reaction, and genuine nationalism.