The world order is changing so rapidly today that institutions related to international politics do not have time to adequately respond and fully comprehend it. In Russia, there is a tenuous theory that international law is something solid and stable, taking into account the interests of all parties, while the theory of “rules” and the rules-based order promoted by the collective West and North American elites is some kind of trickery to consolidate hegemony. This is worth exploring in more detail.
Premodern World Order
Let us summarize the fundamental mutations of the world order in the last 500 years—that is, since the beginning of the New Age (the Modern era).
Before the beginning of the era of Great Geographical Discoveries (coinciding with the transition from Premodern to Modern, from traditional society to modern society), the world was divided into zones of several autonomous civilizations. They exchanged with each other on different levels, sometimes conflicted, but none of them questioned the very fact of each other’s existence, accepting everything as it was.
These civilizations were:
Western Christian (Catholic) ecumene;
Eastern Christian (Orthodox) ecumene;
Chinese Empire (including cultural satellites—Korea, Vietnam, partly Japan and some states of Indochina);
Indosphere (including partly Indochina and the Indonesian Islands);
Iranian Empire (including areas of Central Asia under strong Iranian influence);
The Ottoman Empire (inheriting in outline much of the Abbasid dominions—including the Maghreb and the Arabian Peninsula);
A number of independent and developed African kingdoms;
Two American empires (Inca and Aztec).
Each civilization included several powers and often many very different ethnic groups. Each civilization had a distinct religious identity that was embodied in politics, culture, ethics, art, lifestyle, technology, and philosophy.
In essence, this was the zoning of mankind in the epoch when all societies, states and peoples lived in the conditions of traditional society and built their existence on the basis of traditional values. All these values were divine, sacred. At the same time, they were different for each civilization. Sometimes more, sometimes less, depending on the specific case, but in general all civilizations accepted the existence of others as a given (if, of course, they encountered them).
It is worth paying attention to the fact that both the Christian West and the Christian East thought of themselves as separate ecumenes, as two Empires—with the predominance of the Papal beginning in the West and the imperial beginning in the East (from Byzantium this was passed on to Moscow—the Third Rome).
This order Buzan and Little call “antique or classical international systems.” Carl Schmitt refers to them as the first nomos of the earth.
This was the first model of international relations. No general international law existed in this period, because each civilization represented a complete and completely autonomous world—not only a sovereign culture, but also a perfectly original understanding of the surrounding existence and nature. Each Empire lived in its own imperial cosmos, the parameters and structures of which were determined on the basis of the dominant religion and its tenets.
Modern Times: The Invention of Progress
This is where the most interesting part begins. The Western European New Age (Modernity) brought with it an idea completely alien to all these civilizations, including the Catholic-Christian one—the idea of linear time and the progressive development of mankind (later this was formalized into the idea of progress). Those who adopted this attitude began to operate with the fundamental ideas that the “old,” “ancient,” and “traditional” are obviously worse, more primitive, and coarser than the “new,” “progressive,” and “modern.” Moreover, linear progress dogmatically asserted that the new removes the old, overcomes and surpasses it in all parameters. In other words, the new replaces the old, abolishes it, takes its place. This negates the dimension of eternity, which is at the heart of all religions and all traditional civilizations and constitutes their sacred core.
The idea of linear progress simultaneously redefined all forms of traditional society (including the traditional society of Western Europe). Thus, the “ancient international system,” or the “first nomos of the Earth,” came to be regarded collectively as the past, which should be replaced by the present on the road to the future. At the same time, the model of post-traditional, post-Catholic (partly Protestant, partly materialistic—atheistic in accordance with the paradigm of the natural-scientific worldview) European society was taken as the present (contemporary, Modern). In Western Europe of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the idea of a unified civilization (civilization in the singular), which would embody in itself the destiny of all mankind, was first conceived. This destiny consisted in the overcoming of tradition and traditional values; and thus, it swept away the very foundation of the sacred civilizations that existed in that period. They meant nothing more than backwardness (from the modern West), a set of prejudices and false idols.
The Second Nomos of the Earth
Thus began the construction of the “global international system” (according to Barry Buzan) or the “second nomos of the Earth” (according to Carl Schmitt).
Now the West began to transform itself and, in parallel, to influence the zones of other civilizations more and more actively. In Western Europe itself there was a rapid process of destruction of sacral foundations of its own culture, dismantling of Papal influence (especially through the Reformation), formation of European nations on the basis of sovereignty (previously only the Papal See and partly the Western European Emperor were considered sovereign), breaking and moving to the periphery of theological dogmatics and transitioning to natural sciences on the basis of materialism and atheism. European culture was demi-devived, de-Christianized and universalized.
In parallel, the colonization of other civilizations—the American continent, Africa, Asia—was in full swing. And even those empires that resisted direct occupation—Chinese, Russian, Iranian and Ottoman—and maintained their independence, were subjected to cultural colonization, gradually absorbing the attitudes of Western European Modernity to the detriment of their own sacred traditional values.
Modernity, progress and scientific atheism colonized Western Europe, and Western Europe in turn colonized the rest of civilization, either directly or indirectly. At all levels it was a struggle with Tradition, sacredness and traditional values. The struggle of time against eternity. The struggle of civilization in the singular with civilizations in the plural.
Peace of Westphalia
This process of building the second “international system” (the second nomos of the Earth) culminated in the Peace of Westphalia, which ended a 30-year war, the main parties to which were Protestants and Catholics (with the exception of Catholic France, which took the opposite side because of its hatred of the Habsburgs). The Peace of Westphalia approved the first explicit model of international law, the Jus Publicum Europaeum, completely discarding the principles of the medieval order. Henceforth, only nation-states were recognized as bearers of sovereignty, without regard to their religion and political system (however, all states of that time were monarchies). Thus, the supreme authority of foreign policy was recognized as the nation-state (État-Nation), the model of which was not traditional empires or civilizations, but modern European powers, entering the era of rapid capitalist development, sharing in general the principles of the New Age, natural sciences and progress.
Western Europe of the New Age became synonymous with civilization as such, while other non-European political entities were considered “barbaric” (if culture and politics were sufficiently developed in them) and “savage” (if peoples lived in archaic societies without strict vertical political organization and stratification). “Wild societies” were subject to direct colonization and their “hopelessly backward” populations to slavery. Slavery is a modern concept. It came to Europe after the end of the Middle Ages and with the New Age, with progress and the Enlightenment.
“Barbarian powers” (to which Russia belonged) posed a certain threat, which could be dealt with both by direct military confrontation and by introducing into the elite elements that shared the Western European worldview. Sometimes, however, “barbarian powers” used partial modernization and Europeanization in their own interests to oppose the West itself. A striking example is the reforms of Peter the Great in Russia. But in any case, Westernization corroded the traditional values and political institutions of the era of “antique international systems.”
That is why Barry Buzan calls this second model of the world order a “global international system.” Here only one civilization was recognized, built on the idea of progress, technological development, materialistic science, capitalist economy and national egoism. It was to become global.
Sovereignty: Evolution of the Concept
Although this system nominally recognized the sovereignty of each nation-state, this applied only to European powers. The rest were offered the status of colonies. And “barbarian states” were subjected to derogatory ridicule and arrogant contempt. The past—including the Western European past—was vilified in every possible way (hence the myth of the “Dark Middle Ages”), while progress—humanism, materialism, secularism—was glorified.
Gradually, however, the status of sovereignty began to extend to some colonies, if they managed to get out from under the authority of the metropolis. This happened during the War of Independence of the United States. Later, this path was followed by other colonial entities, which were gradually accepted into the European club. Henceforth, the Westphalian principles applied to them as well. This is called the Westphalian system of international relations.
By the end of the 19th century, it had spread to some of the liberated colonies and a number of “barbarian powers” (Russia, the Ottoman Empire, Iran, China), which retained their traditional ways of life inside, but were increasingly drawn into the “global international system” established by the West.
World War I was the peak of the Westphalian order, as it was the major national powers—the Entente, Tsarist Russia, Germany and Austria-Hungary—that clashed with each other. In this conflict, coalitions were created arbitrarily, as the participants were independent and quite sovereign units. They could conclude an alliance with some and start a war with others, relying only on the decision of the supreme power.
Ideologization of the International System
By the 1930s, the Westphalian system began to transform. The Bolshevik victory in Russia and the creation of the USSR led to a dramatic intrusion of the ideological dimension into the system of international relations. The USSR fell out of the dualism of “modern societies” and “barbaric states,” as it challenged the entire capitalist world, but was not an inertial continuation of traditional society (rather the opposite—modernization in the USSR was extremely radical, and sacred values were destroyed to an even greater extent than in the West).
The emergence of the phenomenon of European fascism and especially German National Socialism further aggravated ideological contradictions—now horrible in Western Europe itself. After Hitler came to power, Germany began to rapidly build a new European order, based not on classical nationalism, but on the racial theory, glorifying the Aryan race and humiliating all other peoples (partly Aryan—Celts, Slavs, etc.).
Thus, by the end of the 1930s, the world was divided along ideological lines. In fact, the Westphalian system, still recognized in words, was a thing of the past. Sovereignty was now possessed not so much by individual states as by ideological blocs. The world became a tripolar one, where only the USSR, the Axis countries and the liberal Anglo-Saxon Western powers really meant anything. All other countries were offered to join one or another camp, or…. to fend for themselves. Sometimes the issue was settled by force.
The Second World War was a clash of these three ideological poles. In fact, we dealt with a short-term sketch of a three-polar international model with a pronounced conflict and antagonistic ideological dominance on the system of international relations. Each of the poles for ideological reasons actually denied all the others, which naturally led to the collapse of the League of Nations and the Second World War.
Here again, different combinations could theoretically be formed—the Munich Pact suggested the possibility of an alliance between liberals and fascists. The Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact—fascists and communists. As we know, the alliance of liberals and communists against fascists was realized. Fascists lost, liberals and communists divided the world between them.
Bi-polar System
At the end of World War II, a bi-polar system emerged. Now not all nominally recognized “sovereign” countries had sovereignty, and only two of the three ideological camps remained. The Yalta Peace consolidated the division of the world between the capitalist and socialist camps, and the UN became the expression of this new model of world order. International law was henceforth based on parity (primarily nuclear) between the capitalist West and the socialist East. The countries of the Non-Aligned Movement were given a certain freedom to balance between the poles.
Carl Schmitt calls bipolarity and the balance of power in the conditions of the Cold War “the third nomos of the Earth,” while Barry Buzan does not single out a special model of the world order, considering it a continuation of the “global international system” (which somewhat weakens the relevance of his general theory).
The Unipolar Moment
The collapse of the socialist camp, the Warsaw Pact and the end of the USSR led to the end of the bipolar world order, based on the ideological principle of capitalism versus socialism. Socialism lost, the USSR capitulated and collapsed—and moreover, recognized and accepted the ideology of the enemy. Hence the Russian Federation, built on the basis of liberal-capitalist norms. Together with socialism and the USSR, Russia lost its sovereignty.
This is how the “fourth nomos of the Earth” began to take shape, which Carl Schmitt himself did not live to see, but whose probability he foresaw. Barry Buzan defined it as a “postmodern international system.” By all accounts, this new model of international relations and the emerging system of international law should have consolidated the established unipolarity. Of the two poles, only one—the liberal one—remained. Henceforth, all states, peoples and societies were obliged to accept the only ideological model—the liberal one.
At this time, theories that consolidated unipolarity emerged. An example of this is Robert Gilpin’s “stable hegemony theory.” Charles Krauthammer cautiously called it a “unipolar moment,” i.e., a temporary situational state of world politics, and Francis Fukuyama confidently proclaimed the “end of history,” i.e., the irreversible and final triumph of liberal democracy; that is, the modern West, on a global scale.
At the political level, this was reflected in Senator John McCain’s call for the creation of a new international organization—the League of Democracies—to replace the irrelevant UN, which would explicitly recognize the complete and total hegemony of the liberal West and the supremacy of the United States on a global scale.
Objections to this mood of radical transition to a unipolar-globalist-postmodern international system were raised by Samuel Huntington, who rather unexpectedly for a culture based on Modernity and linear progress, on the acceptance of the universalism of Western civilization, and at its apogee, suddenly suggested that after the end of the bi-polar world there will be not the end of history (i.e., the complete triumph of liberal capitalism on a planetary scale), but the resurfacing of ancient civilizations. Huntington decoded postmodernity as the end of the Modern as a return to the Premodern, i.e., to the international system that existed before the age of the Great Discoveries (i.e., before the planetary colonization of the world and the beginning of the New Age). Thus, he proclaimed the “return of civilizations;” that is, the new emergence of those forces that dominated the “first nomos of the Earth”—the “antique-classical international system.”
In other words, Huntington predicted multipolarity and a completely new interpretation of postmodernism in International Relations—not total liberalism, but on the contrary, a return to the sovereignty of civilizational “large spaces” on the basis of a special culture and religion. As will become clear in the future, Huntington was absolutely right, while Fukuyama and the proponents of unipolarity were somewhat hasty.
Synchronism of Different Types of World Order
Here we should again pay attention to the concept of “rules-based world order.” In the 2000s there was a peculiar situation where all systems of international relations and, accordingly, all types of international law operated simultaneously. Long-forgotten and expunged civilizations reasserted themselves in a renewed form and began to move towards institutionalization—this is what we see in BRICS, SCO, Eurasian Economic Union, etc. The premodern has intertwined with the postmodern.
At the same time, many provisions of the Westphalian system have been preserved in international law by inertia. The sovereignty of nation-states is still recognized as the main norm of international relations, even if only on paper. Such realists as Stephen Krasner frankly recognized that the thesis of sovereignty applied to all but the truly great powers in the modern world order is pure hypocrisy and does not correspond to anything in reality. But world diplomacy continues to play the game of the Westphalian world, of which the smoking ruins remain.
Peace of Rules-Based Order
At the same time, the Yalta peace system retains its influence and normativity. The UN is still built on the presumption of bipolarity, where a kind of parity of two nuclear blocs—capitalist (USA, England, France) and former socialist (Russia, China)—is preserved in the Security Council. In general, the UN maintains the appearance of a balanced bi-polarity and insists that this is the system of international law (although this is more of a “phantom pain” after the collapse of the socialist camp and the collapse of the USSR). This is what the leaders of modern Russia like to appeal to in their opposition to the West.
The West seeks to consolidate the unipolar system—the League of Democracies, the Forum of Democracies, recognizing those who do not agree with this hegemony as “rogue states.” So far, this cannot be done at the level of international law, which remains nominally Westphalian-bipolar, so the globalists decided to introduce the concept of “rules” and proclaimed a world order based on them, where the rules are created, implemented and protected by only one center—the global West.
The theorists of globalism see in the triumph of Western liberal-capitalist civilization the proof of the theory of progress. All other systems—civilizations, nation-states, confrontation of ideologies, etc.—are in the past. They are removed, overcome. The rules of global domination of the collective West become in this case a prolegomenon to a strictly unipolar New World Order.
That is why Russia, which claims to restore its civilizational sovereignty, attacks the rules so fiercely, seeking to insist either on its Westphalian sovereignty (the second nomos of the Earth) or on something even greater, which is guaranteed by nuclear weapons and a seat on the UN Security Council.
Only recently, after the beginning of the Special Military Operation, has the Kremlin begun to think seriously about real multipolarity, which is, in fact, a return to the traditional pre-Columbian civilizational world order. Multipolarity presupposes a system of international law, fundamentally different from unipolarity, transferring the status of sovereignty from the nation-state to the State-Civilization, i.e., a new edition of the traditional Empire, as well as the principle of equality of all poles.
Heptapolarity
Today, after the XV BRICS summit, such a heptapolarity of seven civilizations is broadly outlined:
Liberal West;
Maoist-Confucian China;
Orthodox Eurasian Russia;
Vedantic India;
Islamic world (Sunni-Shia);
Latin America;
Africa.
Its contours are quite clearly outlined. But of course, this model has not yet become a new system of international law. It is a long way off.
However, attention should be paid to how deep a complete and radical break with the West must become in order to justify the right of civilizations and their traditional values to exist. All poles will need to reject the basic postulates of the West that have been consistently and compulsively inculcated in themselves and in all of humanity since the beginning of the New Age:
• individualism, • materialism, • economism, • technology as destiny, • scientism, • secularism, • the dominance of money, • the culture of hedonism and decay, • progressivism, etc.
This must be taken out of one’s culture by anyone who claims an independent pole, a distinctive civilization. None of the big cultures, except Western culture, is based on these principles. All traditional values are completely opposed to it.
The gradual liberation from the West’s colonial ideology will, of necessity, predetermine the basic parameters of the new system of international relations and the new model of international law.
For now, the proponents of a multipolar order are called upon to reactively counteract the entrenchment of rules dictated by the global West, clinging in agony to the unipolar moment. But soon this will not be enough, and the countries of the expanded BRICS—the civilizations that have surfaced—will have to raise the question of the meaning of sacredness, of Tradition and its values, of eternity and the transcendent dimension of existence.
The new nomos of the Earth lies ahead. A fierce battle is going on now for its outlines. First of all, in Ukraine, which is the frontline between the unipolar and multipolar world order. And all the structures of different layers of international law—from antique-classical to Westphalian, bipolar and unipolar—are clearly present in this brutal war for the meanings and orientations of the new world that is being created before our eyes.
Alexander Dugin is a widely-known and influential Russian philosopher. His most famous work is The Fourth Political Theory (a book banned by major book retailers), in which he proposes a new polity, one that transcends liberal democracy, Marxism and fascism. He has also introduced and developed the idea of Eurasianism, rooted in traditionalism. This article appears through the kind courtesy of Geopolitica.
Vyacheslav Volodin, Chairman of the State Duma, made a really important post on his Telegram channel, on September 25. Because of its importance, we will cite it in its entirety:
Seven facts that Washington and Brussels have lost the “war of attrition” against Russia.
Biden, Stoltenberg, and other Western officials, referring to the conflict in Ukraine, have started calling it a “war of attrition.” Huge amounts of money have been poured into militarizing the Kiev regime.
What has this led to? Just the facts:
1. Western arms and ammunition shortages. In June this year, British Defense Secretary Wallace said that Western countries had run out of national stocks of weapons that could be supplied to Kiev. For his part, Biden admitted in July that the decision to give cluster munitions to Ukraine was made because conventional shells had been exhausted.
2. Public confidence in politicians in Europe and the U.S. has been lost. Ratings of distrust towards the heads of state of the EU and the USA are at a historical peak. 57 percent disapprove of Biden’s actions, 69 percent disapprove of Macron’s actions, 72 percent disapprove of Scholz’s actions. The majority of people in the US and European countries oppose supplying arms to Ukraine.
3. The failure of the Kiev regime’s counteroffensive. The Ukrainian military, backed by NATO, has suffered huge losses in equipment and manpower. The lack of any results has disappointed Western sponsors.
4. Economic problems of Europe and the USA. Eurozone economies are in recession. Germany is forced to cut social payments to poor families because of the costs of militarization of the Kiev regime. France has reduced the number of aid recipients; food packages are no longer distributed to those in need, and reimbursing of the purchase of medicines has been cut back. International agencies, expecting deterioration of the financial situation of the United States in the next three years, downgraded the long-term investment rating of the United States.
5. Shortage of Ukrainian army personnel. The Kiev regime is mobilizing men over 50 years old, as well as those with tuberculosis, viral hepatitis, HIV, and others. From October 1, 2023, women will also be enrolled in the military register. Nurses, doctors and pharmacists will be barred from leaving Ukraine.
6. Ukraine is bankrupt. Ukraine’s GDP in 2022 fell by 30.4 percent—the worst result in the country’s history. Without help from Washington and Brussels, Kiev cannot fulfill its obligations to its citizens. Ukraine has lost its financial autonomy.
7. Demographic catastrophe in Ukraine. More than 10.5 million people fled from Ukraine. Another 11.2 million residents of Crimea, Sevastopol, Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, as well as Zaporizhya and Kherson regions made their choice to be with Russia. Since 2014, Ukraine has lost 53.7 percent of its population.
These 7 facts speak for themselves:
Either the Kiev regime capitulates on the terms of the Russian Federation
or Ukraine will cease to exist as a state.
It is the conclusions that are important. The fact that Volodin says this means that the position of the authorities set out here is clear and unambiguous: unconditional surrender or the complete liberation of Ukraine with the abolition of its statehood.
But… Obviously, both require impressive and convincing forceful military backing. The fact that Russia survived and Ukraine lost half of its population is important and correct, but for the rabid horde of obsessives it is no argument at all. They are fighting, supplying tons of new fighters to the front lines, trying to advance. They have no hesitation, no despair, no sense of defeat. So far, they haven’t even flinched. And they certainly won’t flinch at Volodin’s statement.
In order for Moscow’s ultimatum (and Volodin is the speaker, that is, the voice of Moscow) to be taken seriously, forceful and visible arguments must be made. These could be:
immediate destruction of the political and military top brass in Kiev; an effective blow to the centers of decision-making; infliction of such damage to the enemy’s military and economic infrastructure that every Ukrainian would immediately feel it; massive offensive of the Russian army with visible and considerable results.
Then the formula, “surrender or death,” would be taken seriously. And, so, too often we have threatened the enemy and did not back it up with substantial and convincing (for him, and for us) actions. This is very dangerous for a great country: to threaten and then pretend that nothing happened, without answering for what was said. Great countries don’t do that. The hysteria and lies of the enemy should not be compared to us: our superiority is that we are not like the demonic creatures on the other side of the front. Even the comparison is humiliating. So, we need to take quite concrete steps. And they must be substantial and verifiable—both for the enemy and for ourselves.
Once again in the history of the Special Military Operation, we have come to a critical line. Volodin made his statement at the right time. This needed to be said clearly and precisely. But then there should be concrete actions that follow.
And the absence of such actions will have a negative impact—why then should we give serious people more than serious ultimatums if we are unable to back them up? This discredits the country, makes it seem weak and incapable. And it is not.
I believe it is necessary to gather an army of millions, to awaken society to the end, to stop threatening and to start winning. Nietzsche said, “I love those who throw golden words in front of themselves and cover them with even more golden deeds.”
Volodin threw golden words. The absence of golden deeds will not just devalue them, but turn them into their opposite—from gold to lead.
And it is time to engage in patriotic re-education of society in earnest. From top to bottom—and especially from the top. Because the behavior of the elites increasingly resembles a simulation—ersatz patriotism.
Alexander Dugin is a widely-known and influential Russian philosopher. His most famous work is The Fourth Political Theory (a book banned by major book retailers), in which he proposes a new polity, one that transcends liberal democracy, Marxism and fascism. He has also introduced and developed the idea of Eurasianism, rooted in traditionalism. This article appears through the kind courtesy of Geopolitica.
Featured: Feat of Cavalry Regiment at the Battle of Austerlitz in 1805, Bogdan Willewalde; painted in 1884.
Viktor Nikolayevich Zemskov (1946—2015), the eminent Russia historian, carried out pivotal and decisive archival research, often in fonds that were previously closed to researchers, for over a decade (1980s to 1990s). He focused on the history of political repression in the USSR, the statistics of Gulag prisoners, the fate of those repatriated after the Second World War, the Soviet working class, and military history of Russia. In the process, he answered a grim but crucial question—how many people did Stalin really kill?
In the West, the Great Purge, or the Great Terror has acquired mythic dimensions (thanks to Solzhenitsyn), in which millions are said to have perished. But the meticulous, cool-headed work of Professor Zemskov uncovered a different—and surprising—reality: from 1930 to 1953, a total of 786,000 people were “purged.”
We are able to bring you Professor Zemskov’s foundational article on Soviet repression, which he published in 1995, in Sotsiologicheskiye issledovaniya (Sociological Research), No. 9. His work continues to be ignored in the West, perhaps because it denies the various Cold War myths about Russia. This article appears through the kind courtesy of Sotsiologicheskiye issledovaniya.
Human life is priceless. The murder of innocent people cannot be justified—whether it is one person or millions. But the researcher cannot limit himself to moral evaluation of historical events and phenomena. His duty is to resurrect the true image of our past. All the more so when certain aspects of it become the object of political speculation. All this fully applies to the problem of statistics (scale) of political repressions in the USSR. This article attempts to deal objectively with this acute and painful issue.
By the end of the 1980s, historical science was faced with an urgent need for access to the secret fonds of the security agencies (former and present), since the literature and radio and television constantly mentioned various estimated, virtual figures of repressions, which were not confirmed by anything, and which we, professional historians, could not introduce into the scientific discourse without appropriate documentary confirmation.
In the second half of the 1980s, a somewhat paradoxical situation emerged for a while, when the lifting of the ban on the publication of works and materials on this topic was combined with the traditional lack of a source base, since the relevant archival fonds were still closed to researchers. In terms of style and tone, the bulk of publications from Gorbachev’s “perestroika” period (and later, too) were, as a rule, sharply expositional in nature, being in line with the anti-Stalinist propaganda campaign launched at that time (we are referring primarily to the numerous journalistic articles and notes in newspapers, Ogonyok magazine, etc.). The scarcity of concrete-historical material in these publications was more than compensated for by repeatedly exaggerated “homemade statistics” of the victims of repression, which amazed the readership with their gigantism.
In early 1989, by decision of the Presidium of the USSR Academy of Sciences, a commission of the History Department of the USSR Academy of Sciences, headed by corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences Yuri A. Polyakov, was established to determine population losses. As a member of this commission, we were among the first historians to gain access to the statistical reports of the OGPU–NKVD–MVD–MGB, the highest bodies of state power and state administration of the USSR, which had not been given to researchers before, and which were in special storage in the Central State Archive of the October Revolution (TsGaOR USSR), now renamed the State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF).
The Commission of the History Department was active in the late 1980s and early 1990s; and even then we published a series of articles on the statistics of repressions, prisoners, special settlers, displaced persons, etc. We continued this work in the years that followed, right up to the present time.
The Commission of the History Department was active in the late 1980s and early 1990s; and even then we published a series of articles on the statistics of repressions, prisoners, special settlers, displaced persons, etc. We continued this work in the years that followed and up to the present time.
As early as the beginning of 1954, the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs drew up a certificate addressed to Nikita S. Khrushchev on the number of those convicted for counter-revolutionary crimes, i.e., under Article 58 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR and under the corresponding articles of the Criminal Codes of other Union republics, for the period 1921-1953. (The document was signed by three persons—the USSR Prosecutor, General Roman A. Rudenko, the USSR Minister of Internal Affairs, Sergei N. Kruglov, and the USSR Minister of Justice, Konstantin P. Gorshenin).
The document stated that, according to the data available in the USSR Interior Ministry, for the period from 1921 to the present, that is, until the beginning of 1954, 3,777,380 people had been convicted of counter-revolutionary crimes by the OGPU Collegium, NKVD troikas, Special Consultation, Military Collegium, courts and military tribunals, including 642,980 to capital punishment (see, State Archive of the Russian Federation, Ф. 9401. Op. 2. Д. 450).
At the end of 1953, the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs prepared another report. Based on statistical reports of the 1st Special Department of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs. It gave the number of those convicted for counter-revolutionary and other particularly dangerous state crimes for the period from January 1, 1921 to July 1, 1953—4,060,306 people (on January 5, 1954, a letter signed by Sergei N. Kruglov, with the content of this information, was sent to Georgy M. Malenkov and Nikita S. Khrushchev).
This figure consisted of 3,777,380 convicted for counter-revolutionary crimes and 282,926 for other especially dangerous state crimes. The latter were convicted not under Article 58, but under other articles equivalent to it, primarily, under paragraphs 2 and 3 of Article 59 (especially dangerous banditry) and Article 193-24 (military espionage). For example, some Basmachi were convicted not under Article 58, but under Article 59. (See Table 1):
Table 1: Number of Persons Convicted of Counter-Revolutionary and other Particularly Dangerous State Crimes in 1921-1953
Note: Between June 1947 and January 1950, the death penalty was abolished in the USSR. This explains the absence of death sentences in 1948-1949. Other penalties included credit for time in custody, compulsory treatment and expulsion abroad.
It should be borne in mind that the terms “arrested” and “convicted” are not identical. The total number of convicted persons does not include those arrested who, during the preliminary investigation, i.e., before conviction, died, fled or were released.
This information was a state secret in the USSR until the late 1980s. For the first time the true statistics of those convicted for counter-revolutionary crimes (3,777,380 for 1921-1953) was published in September 1989, in an article by Vladimir F. Nekrasov in Komsomolskaya Pravda. Then this information was presented in more detail, in articles by Aleksandr N. Dugin (in the newspaper, Na boyevom postu, December 1989), Viktor N. Zemskov and D. N. Nokhotovich (Argumenty i Fakty, February 1990), in other publications by Viktor N. Zemskov and Aleksandr N. Dugin. The number of those convicted for counter-revolutionary and other particularly dangerous state crimes (4,060,306 for 1921-1953) was first publicized in 1990, in an article by Aleksandr N. Yakovlev, a member of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee, in the newspaper Izvestya. In more detail, these statistics (1st Special Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs), with trends by years, was published in 1992 by V. P. Popov in the journal, Otechestvennyye arkhivy,
We specifically draw attention to these publications, because they contain the true statistics of political repressions. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, they were, figuratively speaking, a drop in the ocean, compared to numerous publications of another kind, which gave unreliable figures, usually exaggerated many times.
The public reaction to the publication of authentic statistics of political repressions was mixed. It was often suggested that it was fake. The journalist Anto V. Antonov-Ovseenko, emphasizing that these documents were signed by such vested individuals as Rudenko, Kruglov and Gorshenin, insinuated to the readers of the Literaturnaya gazeta in 1991: “The disinformation service was at its best at all times. Under Khrushchev, too… So, in 32 years—less than four million. It is clear who needs such criminal certificates” (A.V. Antonov-Ovseenko, “Protivostoyaniye,” Literaturnaya gazeta, April 3, 1991, p. 3). Despite Antonov-Ovseenko’s confidence that these statistics were disinformation, we will allow ourselves the courage to assert that he is wrong. These are genuine statistics, compiled by totaling, for the years 1921-1953, the relevant data available in the 1st Special Department. This special department, which at different times was part of the structure of the OGPU, NKVD, MGB (since 1953 and up to now, the Ministry of Internal Affairs), was engaged in collecting complete information on the number of those convicted on political grounds from all judicial and non-judicial bodies. The 1st Special Department was not a body for disinformation, but for comprehensive objective information collection.
After Antonov-Ovseenko, another journalist, Lev E. Razgon, sharply criticized us in 1992 (L.E. Razgon, “Lozh’ pod vidom statistiki: Ob odnoy publikatsii,” in the journal, Sotsiologicheskiye issledovaniya, (8)1992, pp., 13-14). The essence of Antonov-Ovseenko’s and Razgon’s accusations boiled down to the fact that Viktor N. Zemskov was engaged in falsification, operating with fabricated statistics, and that the documents he used were unreliable and even false. Moreover, Razgon insinuated that Zemskov was involved in the production of these false documents. At the same time, they failed to back up such accusations with any convincing evidence. My responses to Antonov-Ovseenko’s and Razgon’s criticism of us were published in 1991-1992 in the academic journals Istoriya SSSR and Sotsiologicheskiye issledovaniya (see, Istoriya SSSR, No. 5, 1991, pp. 151-152; Sotsiologicheskiye issledovaniya, No. 6, 1992, pp. 155-156).
Antonov-Ovseenko’s and Razgon’s sharp rejection of our publications based on archival documents was also triggered by their desire to “save” their “homemade statistics,” which were not supported by any documents and were nothing more than the fruit of their own fantasy. Thus, Antonov-Ovseenko published a book in English in the United States as early as 1980 called Portrait of a Tyrant, where he named the number of those arrested for political reasons only for the period 1935-1940—as 18.8 million people (see, Antonov-Ovseenko, The Time of Stalin: Portrait of a Tyranny, p. 212). Our publications, based on archival documents, directly exposed his “statistics” as pure charlatanism. Hence Antonov-Ovseenko’s and Razgon’s clumsy attempts to present the case in such a way that their “statistics” were correct, and Zemskov was allegedly a falsifier and published fabricated statistics.
Razgon attempted to contrast the archival documents with the testimonies of repressed NKVD officers with whom he interacted in detention. According to Razgon, “at the beginning of 1940, a former head of the financial department of the NKVD, who met me at one of the transit stations, when asked: ‘How many people were imprisoned?’—hesitated and answered: ‘I know that on January 1, 1939 in prisons and camps there were about 9 million living prisoners’” (“Lozh’ pod vidom statistiki: Ob odnoy publikatsii,” in the journal, Sotsiologicheskiye issledovaniya, No. 8, 1992, p. 14). We, professional historians, know very well how doubtful such information is and how dangerous it is to introduce it into scientific circulation without careful checking and double-checking. A detailed study of the current and summary statistical reports of the NKVD led, as one would expect, to the refutation of this “evidence”—in fact, in early 1939, there were about 2 million prisoners in camps, penal colonies and prisons, of whom 1,317,000 were in camps (see, GARF: Ф. 9413. Оп. 1. Д. 6. Л. 7—8; Ф. 9414. Оп. 1. Д. 1154. Л. 2—4; Д. 1155. Л. 2, 20—22).
It should be noted that the total number of prisoners in all places of deprivation of liberty (camps, penal colonies, prisons) on certain dates rarely exceeded 2.5 million. Usually, it fluctuated in different periods from 1.5 million to 2.5 million. The highest number of prisoners in Soviet history was recorded as of January 1, 1950—2,760,095 people, of whom 1,416,300 were in camps, 1,145,051 were in penal colonies and 198,744 were in prisons (see, GARF: Ф. 9414. Оп. 1. Д. 330. Л. 55; Д. 1155. Л. 1—3; Д. 1190. Л. 1—34; Д. 1390. Л. 1—21; Д. 1398. Л. 1; Д. 1426. Л. 39; Д. 1427. Л. 132–133, 140–141, 177—178).
Therefore, one cannot take seriously, for example, Antonov-Ovseenko’s assertions that after the war there were 16 million prisoners in the camps and penal colonies of the Gulag (see, Antonov-Ovseenko, “Protivostoyaniye,” Literaturnaya gazeta, April 3, 1991, p. 3). It should be understood that on the date Antonov-Ovseenko has in mind (1946), there were not 16 million but 1.6 million prisoners in the camps and penal colonies of the Gulag. One really should pay attention to the point in-between the two figures.
Antonov-Ovseenko and Razgon were powerless to prevent the mass introduction of archival documents into scientific circulation, including the statistics of repressions, which they hated. This direction of historical science became firmly grounded in the documentary archival database (and not only in our country, but also abroad). In this connection, in 1999, Antonov-Ovseenko, still in the deeply erroneous belief that the statistics published by Zemskov were false, and his (Antonov-Ovseenko’s) “own statistics” being supposedly correct (in reality—monstrously perverted), again sadly stated: “The disinformation service was at its best at all times. It is alive and well nowadays. Otherwise, how to explain the ‘sensational’ discoveries of V. N. Zemskov? Unfortunately, obviously falsified (for the archive) statistics flew around many printed publications and found supporters among scientists” (A.V. Antonov-Ovseyenko, “Chernyye advokaty,” Vozrozhdeniye nadezhdy, No. 8, 1999, p. 3). This “cry of the soul” was nothing more than a cry in the wilderness, useless and hopeless (for Antonov-Ovseenko). The idea of “obviously falsified (for the archive) statistics” has long been perceived in the scholarly world as ridiculous and absurd; such assessments do not provoke any reaction other than amazement and ridicule.
This was the natural result of the battle between professionalism and dilettantism—because professionalism must win in the end. Antonov-Ovseenko’s and Razgon’s “criticism” of us was thus in the general vein of the attack of militant dilettantism, with the aim of subjugating historical science, imposing its own rules and methods of scientific (or rather, pseudoscientific) research, which from a professional point of view are completely unacceptable.
Nikita Khrushchev also contributed to the falsification of the issue of the number of prisoners, when he wrote in his memoirs: “…When Stalin died, there were up to 10 million people in the camps” (“Memuary Nikity Sergeyevicha Khrushchova,” Voprosy istorii, No. 3, 1990, p. 82). Even if we understand the term “camps” broadly, including also colonies and prisons, then even taking this into account, in early 1953 there were about 2.6 million prisoners (see, Naseleniye Rossii v XX veke: Istoricheskiye ocherki, 2001, Vol. 2, p. 183). The State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF) keeps copies of the report of the USSR Interior Ministry leadership to Khrushchev indicating the exact number of prisoners, including at the time of Stalin’s death. Consequently, Khrushchev was well informed about the true number of prisoners and exaggerated it almost 4 times deliberately.
The publication of Roy A. Medvedev in Moskovskie Novosti (November 1988) about the statistics of the victims of Stalinism provoked a great reaction in society (see, Roy A. Medvedev, “Nash isk Stalinu,” Moskovskie Novosti, November 27, 1988). According to his calculations, during the period 1927-1953, about 40 million people were repressed, including the kulaks, deportees, those who died of starvation in 1933, and others. In 1989-1991, this figure was one of the most popular in the propaganda of Stalinist crimes and became quite firmly embedded in the mass consciousness.
In fact, such a number (40 million) is not possible even with the most expansive interpretation of the concept of “victims of repression.” In these 40 million, Medvedev included 10 million of those who were kulaks in 1929-1933 (in reality, there were about 4 million of them), almost 2 million Poles evicted in 1939-1940 (in reality—about 380,000), and in like manner for absolutely all the elements that made up this astronomical figure.
However, these 40 million soon ceased to satisfy the “growing needs” of certain political forces to denigrate the national history of the Soviet period. The “research” of American and other Western Sovietologists, according to which 50-60 million people died of terror and repression in the USSR, was used. Like Medvedev, all components of such calculations were extremely overstated; the difference of 10-20 million was explained by the fact that Medvedev started counting from 1927, while Western Sovietologists—started counting from 1917. While Medvedev stipulated in his article that repressions are not always death, that the majority of the kulaks survived, that a smaller part of those repressed in 1937-1938 were shot, etc., a number of his Western colleagues called the figure of 50-60 million people as physically exterminated and as having died as a result of terror, repressions, famine, collectivization, and so on, and the number of those who died as a result of repressions, famine, collectivization, etc., as a result of the repressions. In short, they worked hard to fulfill the demands of politicians and special interests of their countries in order to discredit in a scientific form their opponent in the “Cold War,” not hesitating to fabricate direct slander.
This, of course, does not mean that there were no researchers in foreign Sovietology who tried to study Soviet history objectively and in good faith. Major scientists, experts on Soviet history J. Arch Getty (USA), Stephen G. Wheatcroft (Australia), Robert W. Davies (England), Gabor Rittersporn (France) and some others openly criticized the research of most Sovietologists and proved that in reality the number of victims of repression, collectivization, famine, etc. in the USSR was much lower.
However, the works of these foreign scientists with their incomparably more objective assessment of the scale of repressions were silenced in our country. Only that which contained unreliable, many-times exaggerated statistics of repressions was actively introduced into the mass consciousness. And the mythical 50-60 million soon eclipsed Roy Medvedev’s 40 million in the mass consciousness.
Therefore, when the chairman of the KGB of the USSR Vladimir A. Kryuchkov, in his speeches on television, referred to the true statistics of political repressions (he repeatedly cited the data in the records of the KGB of the USSR for 1930-1953—3,778,234 convicted political prisoners, of whom 786,098 were sentenced to execution) (see, Pravda, February 14, 1990), many people literally could not believe their ears, thinking that they had misheard. In 1990, the journalist A. Milchakov shared his impression of V. A. Kryuchkov’s speech with the readers of Vechernyaya Moskva: “…And then he went on to say: thus, tens of millions are out of the question. I don’t know whether he did it consciously. But I am familiar with the latest widespread studies, which I believe, and I ask the readers of Vechernyaya Moskva once again to carefully read Alexandr I. Solzhenitsyn’s work, The Gulag Archipelago. I ask you to familiarize yourself with the studies published in Moskovsky Komsomolets by I. Vinogradov, our most famous literary scholar. He cites the figure of 50-60 million people. I would like to draw attention to the studies of American Sovietologists, which confirm this figure. And I am deeply convinced of it” (Vechernaya Moskva, April 14, 1990).
Comments, as they say, are superfluous. Distrust was shown only for documented information and immense trust for information of the opposite nature.
However, even this was not the limit of deceiving the public. In June 1991, Komsomolskaya Pravda published Solzhenitsyn’s interview with Spanish television in 1976. From it we learn the following: “Professor Kurganov indirectly calculated that from 1917 to 1959, just from the internal war of the Soviet regime against its people, i.e., from annihilation by hunger, collectivization, exile of peasants for extermination, prisons, camps, simple shootings—just from this alone we lost, together with our civil war, 66 million people… According to his calculations, we lost in the Second World War from its [the government’s] negligent, from its sloppy conduct, 44 million people! So, in total, we lost 110 million people from the socialist system!” (“Razmyshleniya po povodu dvukh grazhdanskikh voyn: Interv’yu A.I. Solzhenitsyna ispanskomu televideniyu v 1976 g,” Komsomolskaya Pravda, June 4, 1991).
With the wording “from its negligent, from its sloppy conduct” Solzhenitsyn actually equated all the human losses in the Great Patriotic War with those who died and perished as a result of collectivization and famine, which many historians and publicists include in the number of victims of political terror and repression. We are inclined to strongly distance ourselves from such an equation.
The estimate of these losses of 44 million people is, of course, extremely overstated. We are also skeptical of the recently accepted estimate of 27 million, which has been included in many textbooks, and also consider it overstated. Without taking into account the usual annual mortality of the population (as well as the decline in birth rate), we tried to establish the human losses (military and civilian), in one way or another related to the fighting. To the losses of the armed forces who died (11.5 million, including those who died in captivity), were added the losses of civilian volunteer formations (militias, partisans, etc.), Leningrad blockades, victims of the Nazi genocide in the occupied territory, killed and tortured Soviet citizens in fascist camps, etc. The final figure does not exceed 16 million people.
In the mass media from time to time, but quite regularly, statistics of political repressions based on the memoirs of Olga G. Shatunovskaya were quoted. She was a former member of the Committee for Party Control under the CPSU Central Committee, the commission to investigate the murder of Sergei M. Kirov and the political trials of the 1930s, during the time of Khrushchev. In 1990, Argumenty i Fakty published her memoirs, where she, referring to a certain document of the KGB of the USSR, later allegedly mysteriously disappeared, noted: “…From January 1, 1935 to June 22, 1941, 19,840,000 “enemies of the people” were arrested. Of these, 7 million were shot. Most of the rest died in the camps” (O.G. Shatunovskaya, “Fal’sifikatsiya,” Argumenty i Fakty, No. 22, 1990).
The motives of Shatunovskaya’s actions are not quite clear; whether she deliberately invented these figures for the purpose of revenge (she was repressed), or whether she herself became a victim of some misinformation. Shatunovskaya asserted that Khrushchev allegedly requested the certificate, which contained these sensational figures, in 1956. This is very doubtful. All the information on the statistics of political repressions was set forth in the two certificates prepared at the end of 1953 and the beginning of 1954, which we have mentioned above.
We are sure that such a document never existed. After all, the relevant question is: what prevents the political forces currently in power, no less interested, we must assume, in exposing the crimes of Stalinism, to officially confirm Shatunovskaya’s statistics with reference to a credible document? If, according to Shatunovskaya’s version, the security service prepared such a summary in 1956, what prevented it from doing the same in 1991-1993 and later? Even if the summary of 1956 was destroyed, the primary data were preserved.
Neither the Ministry of Security of the Russian Federation (MBRF, later the FSB of the Russian Federation), nor the Ministry of Internal Affairs, nor other bodies could do this for the simple reason that all the relevant information they have directly refutes Shatunovskaya’s statistics.
Shatunovskaya’s statement that “most of the rest died in the camps” (we must assume 7-10 million, if we count from her virtual almost 13 million “others”), of course, also does not correspond to the truth. Such statements can be perceived as reliable only in an environment dominated by misconceptions that tens of millions of people allegedly died and perished in the Gulag. A detailed study of statistical reports on prisoner mortality gives a different picture. In 1930-1953, about 1.8 million prisoners died in places of deprivation of liberty (camps, penal colonies and prisons), of which almost 1.2 million died in camps and over 0.6 million in colonies and prisons. These calculations are not estimates, but are based on documents. And here arises a difficult question: what is the share of those political among these 1.8 million dead prisoners (political and criminal). There is no answer to this question in the documents. It seems that political prisoners accounted for about one third, i.e., about 600,000. This conclusion is based on the fact that those convicted of criminal offenses usually accounted for about 2/3rd of the prisoners. Consequently, out of the number of those sentenced to serve their sentences in camps, penal colonies and prisons, indicated in Tables 1 and 2, approximately this number (about 600,000) did not live to be released (between 1930 and 1953).
The highest mortality rate occurred in 1942-1943—during these two years, 661,000 prisoners died in camps, penal colonies, and prisons, which was mainly a consequence of significant cuts in nutritional standards due to the extreme war situation. Later on, the mortality rate began to steadily decline and amounted in 1951-1952 to 45.3 thousand people, or 14.6 times less than in 1942-1943 (see, Naseleniye Rossii v XX veke: Istoricheskiye ocherki, 2001, Vol. 2, p. 195). At the same time, we would like to draw attention to one curious nuance: according to the data we have for 1954, among the free population of the Soviet Union, for every 1,000 people, there died an average of 8.9 people, while in the camps and colonies of the Gulag, for every 1,000 prisoners—only 6.5 people died (see, GARF: Ф. 9414. Оп. 1. Д. 2887. Л. 64).
Having documented evidence that Shatunovskaya’s statistics are unreliable, in 1991 we published the relevant refutation in the pages of the academic journal, Sotsiologicheskiye issledovaniya (see, V.N. Zemskov, “GULAG: istoriko-sotsiologicheskiy aspekt,” in Sotsiologicheskiye issledovaniya, No. 6, 1991, p. 13).
It seemed that with Shatunovskaya’s version the question was solved even then. But that was not the case. Both radio and television continued to propagandize her figures in a rather obsessive form. For example, on March 5, 1992, in the evening program, Novosti, the host, T. Komarova, broadcast to a multimillion audience about the 19,840,000 repressed, including 7 million shot in 1935-1940, as an allegedly unquestionable fact. And this was happening at a time when historical science had proved the unreliability of this information and had genuine statistics on hand.
On August 2, 1992, a briefing was held in the press center of the Ministry of Security of the Russian Federation (MBRF), at which Major General A. Krayushkin, head of the MBRF’s Department of Registration and Archival Fonds, told journalists and other invitees that during the entire period of communist rule (1918-1990) in the USSR, 3,853,900 people were convicted on charges of state crimes and some other articles of criminal legislation of similar nature, 827,995 of whom were sentenced to execution. In the terminology used at the briefing, this corresponds to the wording “for counter-revolutionary and other particularly dangerous crimes against the state.” The reaction of the mass media to this event was curious—most of the newspapers kept a sepulchral silence. To some, these figures seemed too large; to others—too small; and as a result the editorial boards of newspapers and magazines of various directions preferred not to publish this material, thus withholding from their readers socially significant information (silence, as we know, is a form of slander). We should pay tribute to the editorial board of Izvestya newspaper, which published a detailed report on the briefing with the statistics quoted there (see, V. Rudnev, “NKVD—rasstrelival, MBRF—reabilitiruyet,” in Izvestya, August 3, 1992).
It is noteworthy that the addition of information for 1918-1920 and 1954-1990, in the above-mentioned MBRF data, did not fundamentally change the statistics of political repressions for the period 1921-1953. The MBRF staff used some other source, the data of which slightly diverge from the statistics of the 1st Special Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Comparison of data from these two sources leads to a very unexpected result: according to IBRF information, in 1918-1990, 3,853,900 people were convicted on political grounds; while according to the statistics of the 1st Special Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in 1921-1953—4,060,306 people. In our opinion, this discrepancy should be explained not by the incompleteness of the MBRF source, but by the more strict approach of the compilers of this source to the concept of “victims of political repression.” When working in the GARF with operational materials of the OGPU-NKVD, we noticed that quite often cases were submitted for consideration by the Collegium of the OGPU, the Special Conference and other bodies, of ordinary criminals who robbed factory warehouses, collective farm storerooms, etc., as political or especially dangerous state criminals.
For this reason, they were included in the statistics of the 1st Special Department as “counter-revolutionaries” and, according to present-day concepts, are “victims of political repressions” (this can be said of recidivist thieves only in mockery); while in the IBRF source they are excluded.
The problem of eliminating criminals from the total number of those convicted of counter-revolutionary and other particularly dangerous state crimes is much more serious than it may seem at first glance. If the IBRF source did screen them out, it was far from complete. In one of the certificates prepared by the 1st Special Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR, in December 1953, there is a note: “Total convicted for 1921-1938—2,944,849 people, of whom 30 percent (1,062,000)—criminals” (GARF: Ф. 9401. Оп. 1. Д. 4157. Л. 202). This means that in 1921-1938 there were 1,883,000 people convicted as purely political; for the period of 1921-1953 it turns out not 4,060,000, but less than 3 million. This is, provided that in 1939-1953 there were no criminals among the convicted “counter-revolutionaries,” which is very doubtful. However, in practice there were facts when even political persons were convicted under criminal articles.
In 1997, Viktor V. Luneev published annual statistics of political convicts, taken from the source of the USSR KGB (MBRF, FSB RF) (see, V. V. Luneev, Prestupnost’ XX veka, 1997, p. 180). This made it possible to compile a comparative table of statistics of those convicted in 1921-1952 on political grounds (with the number of those sentenced to execution) according to the data of two sources—the 1st Special Department of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs and the KGB of the USSR (see Table 2). For 15 years, out of 32, the corresponding figures of these two sources coincide exactly (including 1937-1938); for the remaining 17 years, there are discrepancies, the reasons for which are yet to be clarified.
Table 2: Comparative Statistics. Convicted in 1921-1952, on Political Grounds (based on data from the 1st Special Department of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs and the USSR KGB)
The comparative statistics for the years 1921-1952 are not without some strange phenomena. Thus, according to the KGB (FSB) records for this period, the number of convicted “counter-revolutionaries” is almost 300,000 less than according to the statistics of the 1st Special Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, while the number of those sentenced to death among them is 163,000 thousand more. Of course, the main reason for this situation lies in the data for 1941, when the state security agencies took into account 23,726 people sentenced to capital punishment for political reasons, and the 1st Special Department of the NKVD—only 8011.
Two years (1937 and 1938), known as the years of the “Great Terror,” when there was a sharp rise (or jump) in the scale of political repressions, occupy a special place in these statistics. During these two years, 1,345,000 people were convicted on charges of a political nature, or 35 percent of the total number for the period 1918-1990.
The picture is even more impressive in terms of the statistics of those sentenced to death from among them. In total, for the whole Soviet period, there were 828,000 of them, of which 682,000 (or over 82 percent) fall in these two years (1937-1938). The remaining 70 years of the Soviet period accounted for a total of 146,000 death sentences on political grounds, or less than 18 percent.
Since this article is devoted to the scale, i.e., statistics of political repressions, it is not intended to investigate their causes and motivation. But we still wanted to draw attention to one circumstance, namely, the role of Stalin in this case. Recently there have been voices claiming that Stalin did not personally initiate the mass repressions, including the “Great Terror” of 1937-1938, that it was allegedly imposed on him by local party elites, etc. We should realize that this is not true.
There is a large number of documents, including published ones, which clearly show Stalin’s proactive role in repressive policy. Take, for example, his speech at the February-March Plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks (b) in 1937, after which the “Great Terror” began. In this speech, Stalin said that the country was in an extremely dangerous situation due to the intrigues of saboteurs, spies, subversives, as well as those who artificially generated difficulties, thus creating a large number of the dissatisfied and irritated. This reached into the leadership cadres, who, according to Stalin, were complacent and had lost the ability to recognize the true face of the enemy.
It is quite clear to us that these statements of Stalin at the February-March Plenum of 1937 are a call for the “Great Terror,” and he, Stalin, was its main initiator and inspirer.
It is natural to want to compare the scale of political repression in the USSR with the corresponding indicators in other countries, primarily with Hitler’s Germany and Francoist Spain.
At the same time, I would like to warn against the incorrect nature of comparisons with the scale of political repression in Nazi Germany. It is claimed that the scale of repressions against German citizens in Germany was much smaller. Yes, political repressions against ethnic Germans seem relatively low, although we are talking about tens of thousands of people. But in this case we cannot stay confined in the framework of individual states, and we should put the question in a different way: what did Hitler’s regime bring to humanity? And it turns out that it is the Holocaust with six million victims and a long series of humanitarian crimes with many victims numbering many millions against the Russian, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Polish, Serbian and other peoples.
Or another example—a comparison with the scale of political repression in Francoist Spain. Now, in the USSR there were over 800,000 death sentences for political reasons. In Spain under Franco—over 80,000, or 10 times less. Hence the conclusion is made that the scale of political terror in the USSR was immeasurably higher than in Spain. This conclusion is completely wrong, in fact; these scales were approximately the same. The lion’s share of death sentences on political grounds in Spain falls on the late 1930s—early 1940s, when the population of Spain was about 20 million people, and the population of the USSR at the beginning of the Great Patriotic War was approaching 200 million; that is, the difference in population was 10 times. Yes, in Francoist Spain there were 10 times less death sentences for political reasons than in the USSR, but the population of the country was also 10 times less; that is, in terms of per capita these indicators are the same, almost identical.
We are by no means attacking the well-known postulate that there were no politically motivated prosecutions in the United States. However, we have grounds to assert that American jurisprudence deliberately qualifies certain crimes that have a political background as purely criminal. Indeed, in the USSR, Nikolaev, the murderer of Kirov, was unambiguously a political criminal. In the United States, Lee Harvey Oswald, the assassin of President Kennedy, was no less unambiguously a criminal, although he committed a purely political murder. In the USSR, identified spies were convicted under the political Article 58, while in the U.S. such spies are criminals. With such an approach, Americans naturally have every reason to advertise themselves as a society in which there is a complete absence of persecution and conviction on political grounds.
A grandiose mystification is the well-known myth about the total (or almost total) repression in the USSR of Soviet servicemen who were Nazi prisoners of war. The mythology is built, as a rule, in the darkest and most sinister colors. This applies to various publications published in the West and to journalism in our country. In order to present the process of repatriation of Soviet prisoners of war to the USSR from Germany and other countries and its consequences in the most gruesome way possible, an extremely biased selection of facts is used, which in itself is a sophisticated method of slander. In particular, sometimes gruesome scenes of violent repatriation of personnel of collaborationist military units are relished, and the corresponding conclusions and generalizations are transferred to the bulk of prisoners of war, which is wrong in principle. Accordingly, their repatriation, which, despite all the costs, was based on the natural and moving epic of finding the homeland of many hundreds of thousands of people, forcibly deprived of it by foreign invaders, is interpreted as a direction almost to the “belly of the beast.” Moreover, the biased facts are presented in a distorted form with a given interpretation, literally imposing an absurd conclusion on the reader, as if the repatriation of Soviet prisoners of war was carried out allegedly only to repress them in the Soviet Union, and there were no other reasons for repatriation.
However, the data presented in Table 3 do not strongly support such pessimistic assessments. On the contrary, they shatter the myth about the alleged almost universal repression in the USSR of Soviet servicemen who had been in Nazi captivity. This statistic includes 1,539,475 prisoners of war who entered the USSR during the period from October 1944 to March 1, 1946, from Germany and other countries, of which 960,039 came from the zones of action of the Allies (West Germany, France, Italy, etc.) and 579,436 from the zones of action of the Red Army abroad (East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, etc.), (see, GARF: Ф. 9526. Оп. 4а. Д. 1. Л. 62, 223—226). In 1945, 13 age-categories of servicemen were demobilized from the army, and accordingly their peers among prisoners of war (over 280,000) were released home. A part of the POWs of non-demobilizable ages were enrolled in work battalions—these were not at all repressed, but were one of the forms of mobilized labor force (a common practice at that time), and their assignment to the place of residence was made dependent on the future demobilization of their peers who continued to serve in the Red (Soviet) Army. The majority of prisoners of war of non-demobilizable ages were reinstated into military service. Only the special contingent of the NKVD remained (the share of the total number of prisoners of war was as follows—less than 15 percent); but we must not forget that the bulk of this category of repatriated prisoners of war were persons who, after their capture, had entered the military or police service of the enemy.
Table 3: Distribution of Repatriated Soviet Prisoners of War by Category (as of March 1, 1946)
The notion that the highest political leadership of the USSR allegedly equated the concepts of “prisoners” and “traitors” belongs to the category of retrospectively invented falsehoods (artifacts). Such “making up” usually pursued the goal of more slander and to discredit Stalin. In particular, the expression attributed to Stalin—”we have no prisoners, we have traitors”—is a fable (artifact), composed in 1956 in the writer-publicist environment, during the wave of criticism of the personality cult of Stalin. Actually, there are quite a lot of invented artifacts. They include, for example, the tale of Stalin’s “refusal” to exchange prisoners—Field Marshal Paulus for his son Yakov Dzhugashvili (in reality, this did not happen; it is a later fiction). Specially for the purpose of discrediting Stalin in Khrushchev’s time was fabricated the fake “report” of Soviet intelligence officer Richard Sorge, allegedly dated June 15, 1941 and which reported the date of the German invasion—June 22, 1941 (in fact, Sorge did not send such a report, because he did not know the exact date of the German attack on the USSR).
Medvedev suggests that up to 1946 inclusive, NKVD agencies repressed from 2 to 3 million people living on the territory of the USSR, which was subjected to fascist occupation (see, R.A. Medvedev, “Nash isk Stalinu,” in Moskovskiye novosti, November 27, 1988). In reality, 321,651 people were convicted on political grounds throughout the Soviet Union in 1944-1946, of whom 101,77 were sentenced to capital punishment (according to the records of the 1st Special Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs). It seems that the majority of those convicted from the former occupied territory were punished justly—for specific treasonous activities.
The statement widely used in Western Sovietology that 6-7 million peasants (mostly kulaks) perished during the collectivization of 1929-1932 does not stand up to criticism. In 1930-1931, just over 1.8 million peasants were sent into “kulak exile,” and at the beginning of 1932, 1.3 million remained there. The loss of 0.5 million was due to deaths, escapes, and the release of the “wrongly exiled.” During 1932-1940, in the “kulak exile,” 230,258 people were born, 389,521 died, 629,042 escaped and 235,120 returned after escaping. And from 1935, the birth rate began to exceed the death rate: in 1932-1934, in the “kulak exile,” were born 49,168 and 271,367 died; in 1935-1940—respectively 181,090 and 108,154 people (see, GARF: Ф. 9479. Оп. 1. Д. 89. Л. 205, 216).
There is no agreement in the scientific and journalistic literature on the question of whether or not to include the dispossessed peasants among the victims of political repressions. The kulaks were divided into three categories, and their total number varied from 3.5 million to 4 million (it is still difficult to establish the exact number). Here it should be noted immediately that the kulaks of the 1st category (arrested and convicted) are included in the statistics of political repressions given in Tables 1 and 2. The question of the 2nd category, kulaks sent under escort to live in “cold lands” (special resettlement), is disputable, where they were under the supervision of the NKVD agencies, which looked very much like political exile. As for the kulaks of the 3rd category, who avoided both arrest and conviction, and were sent to special settlement, there is no reason, in our opinion, to include them in the number of victims of political repression. In passing, we note that among the landlords whose property was expropriated in 1918, only those who were subsequently arrested and convicted by the punitive bodies of the Soviet power can be considered victims of political repression. The concepts of “expropriated” and “repressed” should not be equated.
We have studied the entire set of statistical reports of the Special Settlements Department of the NKVD-MVD of the USSR. It shows that in 1930-1940 about 2.5 million people were in “kulak exile,” of whom about 2.3 million were kulak peasants and about 200 thousand were “admixture” in the form of urban declassified element, the “dubious element” from border zones and others. During this period (1930-1940), approximately 700,000 people died there, the vast majority of them in 1930-1933 (see, V. N. Zemskov, Spetsposelentsy v SSSR. 1930—1960: Abstract of the dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Historical Sciences, Moscow, 2005, pp. 34-35). In light of this well-known and often quoted statement of Winston Churchill that in one of the conversations with him, Stalin allegedly named 10 million expelled and dead kulaks (see, Winston Churchill, The Second World War, Vol. 4, The Hinge of Fate, pp. 447-448), should be perceived as a misunderstanding.
The victims of political terror often include those who died of hunger in 1933, which is hardly legitimate. After all, we are talking about the fiscal policy of the state in the conditions of a natural disaster (drought). At that time, in the regions affected by drought (Ukraine, the North Caucasus, part of the Volga region, the Urals, Siberia, Kazakhstan), the state did not find it necessary to reduce the volume of obligatory supplies and confiscated from the peasants the meager harvest to the last grain. The polemics on the issue of the number of those who died from the famine is far from being finalized—estimates vary mainly within the range from 2 million to 8 million (see, V.P. Danilov, “”Diskussiya v zapadnoy presse o golode 1932—1933 gg. i «demograficheskaya katastrofa» 30—40-kh godov v SSSR,” in Voprosy istorii, no. 3, 1988, pp. 116-121; R. Konkvest, “Zhatva skorbi,” in Voprosy istorii, No. 4, 1990, p. 86; Naseleniye Rossii v XX veke: Istoricheskiye ocherki, Vol. 1, pp. 270-271). According to our estimates, the victims of the Holodomor of 1932-1933 were about 3 million people, about half of them in Ukraine. Our conclusion, of course, is not original, since approximately the same estimates were given by historians V.P. Danilov (USSR), S. Wheatcroft (Australia) and others back in the 80s of the XX century (see, V.P. Danilov, “Kollektivizatsiya: kak eto bylo,” in Stranitsy istorii sovetskogo obshchestva: fakty, problemy, lyudi, Moscow, 1989, p. 250).
The main obstacle to the inclusion of those who died from the famine in 1933 among the victims of political terror with the formulation developed in human rights organizations of “artificially organized famine with the purpose of causing mass death of people” is the fact that the fiscal policy was a secondary factor, and the primary factor was a natural disaster (drought). Nor was it intended to cause mass deaths (the political leadership of the USSR did not foresee and did not expect such negative consequences of its fiscal policy in conditions of drought).
In recent years, the idea has been actively promoted in Ukraine (including in scientific circles) that the famine of 1932-1933 was the result of Moscow’s anti-Ukrainian policy, that it was a deliberate genocide against Ukrainians, etc. the population of the North Caucasus, the Volga region, Kazakhstan and other areas where there was a famine. There was no selective anti-Russian, anti-Ukrainian, anti-Kazakh or any other orientation here. In fact, the United Nations was guided by the same considerations, which in 2008 refused to recognize the fact of the genocide of the Ukrainian people by a majority vote (although the United States and England voted for such recognition, they were in the minority).
The losses of the peoples deported in 1941-1944—Germans, Kalmyks, Chechens, Ingush, Karachais, Balkars, Crimean Tatars, etc.—are also greatly exaggerated. In the press, for example, there were estimates that up to 40 percent of Crimean Tatars died during transportation to the places of expulsion. Whereas the documents show that out of 151,720 Crimean Tatars sent in May 1944 to the Uzbek SSR, 151,529 were accepted by the NKVD of Uzbekistan, and 191 people (0.13%) died on the way (see, GARF: Ф. 9479. Оп. 1. Д. 179. Л. 241—242).
It is another matter that in the first years of life in the special settlement, in the process of painful adaptation, the mortality rate significantly exceeded the birth rate From the moment of the initial settlement until October 1, 1948—25,792 were born and 45,275 died among the evicted Germans (excluding the labor army); among the North Caucasians (Chechens, Ingush, Karachays, Balkars, etc.)— respectively 28,120 and 146,892; among the Crimeans (Tatars, Armenians, Bulgarians, Greeks)—6,564 and 44,887; among those deported in 1944 from Georgia (Meskhetian Turks, etc.)—2,873 and 15,432; among Kalmyks—2,702 and 16,594 people. Since 1949, among all of them, the birth rate became higher than the death rate (see, GARF: Д. 436. Л. 14, 26, 65—67).
History dilettantes include all human losses during the Russian Civil War among the unconditional “victims of the Bolshevik regime.” From the fall of 1917 to the beginning of 1922, the population of the country decreased by 12,741,300 people (see, T.A. Polyakov, Sovetskaya strana posle okonchaniya Grazhdanskoy voyny: territoriya i naseleniye, Moscow, 1986, pp. 98, 118); this also includes White emigration, the number of which is not precisely known (approximately 1.5 to 2 million). Only one warring party (the Red) is declared the culprit of the Civil War, and all the victims, including its own, are attributed to it. How many “exposé” materials have been published in recent years about the “sealed train,” the “intrigues of the Bolsheviks,” etc.?! It is impossible to count. It has often been claimed that if it had not been for Lenin, Trotsky, and other Bolshevik leaders, there would have been no revolution, no Red Movement, and no Civil War (we should add, with the same “success” one can claim that if it had not been for Denikin, Kolchak, Yudenich, and Wrangel, there would have been no White Movement). The absurdity of such assertions is quite obvious. The most powerful social upheaval in world history, such as the events of 1917-1920 in Russia, was predetermined by the entire previous course of history and was caused by a complex set of intractable social, class, national, regional and other tensions. In light of this, science cannot broadly interpret the concept of “victims of political repression” and includes in it only persons arrested and convicted by the punitive bodies of the Soviet power for political reasons. This means that the victims of political repressions are not the millions who died of typhus, typhoid, typhoid fever and other diseases. Nor are the millions of people who died on the fronts of the Civil War on all opposing sides, who died of hunger, cold, etc., the victims of political repression.
And as a result, it turns out that the victims of political repressions (during the years of “Red Terror”) are not counted in millions at all. The most we can talk about is tens of thousands. It is not without reason that when at the briefing in the press center of the IBRF on August 2, 1992, the number of those convicted on political grounds since 1917 was named, it did not fundamentally affect the corresponding statistics, if we count from the year 1921.
According to the available records in the FSB RF, in 1918-1920, 62,231 people were sentenced for “counter-revolutionary crime,” including 25,709 for execution (see, V. V. Luneev, Prestupnost’ XX veka, 1997, p. 180; V.N. Kudryavtsev, A.I. Trusov, Politicheskaya yustitsiya v SSSR, Moscow, 2000, p. 314). This information is part of the statistics above, mentioned at the briefing, at the press center of the IBRF, on August 2, 1992. We believe that the above statistics for the period of the Civil War are incomplete. Many victims of lynchings of “counter-revolutionaries” are probably not taken into account. These lynchings were often not documented at all, and the FSB has clearly taken into account only the number that is confirmed by documents. It is also doubtful that in 1918-1920 Moscow received exhaustive information about the number of the repressed from localities. But even taking all this into consideration, we believe that the total number of repressed “counter-revolutionaries” (including victims of the “Red Terror”) in 1918-1920 hardly exceeded 100,000 people.
Our publications with the statistics of political repressions, Gulag prisoners, and “kulak exile,” based on archival documents, had a significant impact on Western Sovietology, forcing it to abandon its main thesis about the alleged 50-60 million victims of the Soviet regime. Western Sovietologists cannot simply dismiss published archival statistics as an annoying fly and are forced to take them into account. In the Black Book of Communism, written in the late 1990s by French specialists, this figure is reduced to 20 million (see, The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression, 1999, p. 4).
But even this “reduced” figure (20 million) we cannot recognize as acceptable. It includes both a number of reliable data, confirmed by archival documents, and estimated figures (many millions) of demographic losses in the Civil War, those who died of hunger in different periods, etc. The authors of The Black Book of Communism even included in the number of victims of political terror those who died of starvation in 1921-1922 (famine in the Volga region, caused by a severe drought), which neither Medvedev nor many other experts in this field had never done before.
Nevertheless, the very fact that the estimated scale of victims of the Soviet regime has decreased (from 50-60 million to 20 million) indicates that during the 1990s, Western Sovietology underwent a significant evolution towards common sense, but, however, got stuck halfway through this positive process.
According to our calculations, strictly based on the documents, it turns out to be no more than 2.6 million, with a rather extended interpretation of the concept of “victims of political terror and repression.” This number includes more than 800,000 sentenced to capital punishment on political grounds, about 600,000 political prisoners who died in places of deprivation of liberty, and about 1.2 million who died in places of expulsion (including “kulak exile”), as well as during transportation there (deported peoples, etc.). The components of our calculations correspond readily to four criteria specified in The Black Book of Communism in defining the concept of “victims of political terror and repression,” namely: “shooting, hanging, drowning, beating to death;” “deportation—death during transportation;” “death in places of expulsion;” “death as a result of forced labor (exhausting labor, disease, malnutrition, cold)” (Black Book, p. 4).
As a result, we have four main variants of the scale of victims (executed and killed by other means) of political terror and repression in the USSR: 110 million (Solzhenitsyn); 50-60 million (Western Sovietology during the Cold War); 20 million (Western Sovietology in the post-Soviet period); 2.6 million (our document-based calculations).
The question may arise—where is Roy Medvedev’s 40 million? This figure is not comparable with the above figures; there we are talking only about those executed and killed by other means, while Medvedev’s statistics also includes millions of people who, although subjected to various repressions, remained alive. This, however, does not cancel out the fact that Medvedev’s statistics are still exaggerated many times over.
In the serious scientific literature of the modern period, authors avoid making frivolous statements about the allegedly many tens of millions of victims of Bolshevism and the Soviet regime. In light of this, the book by Yuri L. Dyakov, Ideologiya bol’shevizma i real’nyy sotsializm—The Ideology of Bolshevism and Real Socialism (2009), in which, in the list of crimes of the CPSU, there is also mentioned “the destruction of tens of millions of its people” (p. 146), is in sharp contrast. Moreover, Dyakov considers the so-called “calculations” of Professor Ivan A. Kurganov (which in his time were accepted by Solzhenitsyn) to be quite reliable, according to which, due to the fault of Bolshevism, the population losses in Russia (USSR) in 1918-1958 amounted to more than 110 million people (p. 234). The position of Dyakov in his book rests on the complete disregard of the whole complex of available historical sources. The use of documentarily refuted statistics by Dyakov, on the basis of which he draws far-reaching conclusions and generalizations on the topic under study, cannot be called other than a pathological deviation from the mainstream in this area of historical science.
And the last issue we would like to highlight is the statistics of rehabilitation and its stages. Let us return to our basic figure—3,854,000 (more precisely—3,853,900) convicted on political grounds for all 73 years of Soviet power. This figure was used to calculate the number and proportion of those rehabilitated.
Rehabilitations took place during Stalin’s lifetime, but their scale was quite insignificant. The period of mass rehabilitation began in 1953, immediately after the famous events associated with the death of Stalin, the arrest and execution of Beria, and especially after the 20th Congress of the CPSU in 1956, which condemned the cult of personality of Stalin.
The rehabilitation was led by the former Stalinist entourage headed by Khrushchev, directly involved in the former Stalinist repressions. In this case, they, especially Khrushchev, showed a well-known political foresight. In the first years after Stalin’s death, the situation was such that to continue the line of the late leader without significant adjustments—was a path of deliberate political suicide. The idea of mass rehabilitation for many reasons was politically advantageous and was literally necessary. The fact that this process was initiated and led by Stalin’s former entourage, which was directly involved in the repressions, we can formulate their internal motivations as follows: “It is better that we do it, rather than someone else does it instead of us.” The instinct of political self-preservation worked here.
The rehabilitation process had its ups and downs over time. Its first stage—the mass “Khrushchev’s” rehabilitation—covers the period 1953-1961. Then rehabilitation declined, but nevertheless continued (at a slower pace). Since 1987, the mass “Gorbachev’s” rehabilitation began, which significantly surpassed the “Khrushchev’s” rehabilitation. The number and proportion of the rehabilitated (and unrehabilitated) are presented in Table 4.
Table 4: The Rehabilitation Process, from 1953 to 1999
The term “innocently convicted” does not apply to all those rehabilitated. Indeed, hundreds of thousands were victims of entirely far-fetched and fabricated charges. But there were also many who had done concrete actions (including those of an armed nature) against the existing system. They were rehabilitated on the grounds that their struggle against Bolshevism and Soviet power was allegedly “just.” In particular, in the mid-1990s, under this politically biased and legally questionable thesis, practically all participants in the numerous kulak-peasant uprisings and rebellions of the period 1918-1933 were rehabilitated (and everyone was rehabilitated, including executioners who shot and hanged communists, Komsomol members and non-party Soviet activists).
It even came to the point that in 1996, SS Gruppenführer Helmuth von Pannwitz was rehabilitated by the decision of the Chief Military Prosecutor’s Office. Cossack units under the command of Pannwitz—the 1st Cossack Cavalry Division, then deployed in the 15th Cossack Cavalry Corps—participated in punitive operations in Yugoslavia. In 1947, together with other war criminals, he was hanged by sentence of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR. However, in 2001 the Military Prosecutor’s office of the Russian Federation made a different conclusion: von Pannwitz was justifiably convicted for his criminal acts and cannot be rehabilitated.
Table 4 shows that out of almost 3,854,000 convicted on political grounds (according to the personalized record available in the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation) by the beginning of 2000, 2,438,000 (63.3 percent) were rehabilitated and about 1,416,000 (36.7 percent) remained unrehabilitated.
Later on, the rehabilitation process stalled, because, in fact, there was no one to rehabilitate. The bulk of the unrehabilitated were accomplices of the fascist occupiers—all those Polizei, the Karateli [death squads], Sonderkommando bosses, Vlasovites, etc., etc., who, as a rule, were held under Article 58 as political criminals. There was a provision in Soviet legislation that prohibited the rehabilitation of accomplices of the Nazi occupiers. This provision has passed into the current Russian legislation, i.e., their rehabilitation is expressly prohibited by law. In addition to accomplices of the Nazi occupiers, a number of other persons remain unrehabilitated, whose actions were of such a nature that it is simply impossible to rehabilitate them.
Such are the complex pages of national history, if we do not fantasize, but rely on the facts reflected in the documents.
To answer the question about the impact of repressions in their real scale on Soviet society, we would suggest familiarizing ourselves with the conclusions of the American historian Robert Thurston, who in the mid-1990s published a scientific monograph Life and Terror in Stalin’s Russia, 1934-1941 (1996). The main conclusions, according to Thurston, are as follows:
The Stalinist terror system as described by previous generations of Western researchers never existed; the impact of terror on Soviet society in the Stalin years was not significant;
There was no mass fear of repression in the Soviet Union in the 1930s;
Repression was limited and did not affect the majority of the Soviet people;
Soviet society supported the Stalinist regime rather than feared it;
The Stalinist system provided the majority of people with the opportunity to live in the Soviet Union
These conclusions of Thurston, which are almost blasphemous from the perspective of the traditions and spirit of Western Sovietology and as perceived by the majority of Sovietologists, are based on documented facts and statistics. In addition, Thurston, not being a supporter of communism and Soviet power, nevertheless in his endeavor to get to the historical truth managed to be detached from the established anti-communist and anti-Soviet stereotypes and dogmas. This is, figuratively speaking, a ray of light in a dark realm.
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Featured: Still Life, by Yuri Neprintsev; painted in 1979.
Michael Jabara Carley has just published Stalin’s Gamble. The Search for Allies against Hitler, 1930–1936, which is the first volume of his tour de force trilogy on Soviet-Western relations during the 1930s. This work will be an indispensible text in Russian studies.
True to form, Stalin’s Gamble is meticulously researched, lucidly written and prodigious in its many insights. The book has that rare quality in that it appeals both to the scholar and the general reader. We are pleased to bring you an excerpt, courtesy of the University of Toronto Press.
This is a book well worth spending time with., Make sure to pick up your copy.
Prologue to Crisis
On 1 January 1930, few Europeans worried about the outbreak of a Second World War. Parisian fortune tellers might have ventured such a sensational prediction on their advertising coupons. The French, of course, worried instinctively about a new war with a revanchist Germany. In fifteen years, predicted the French politician Edouard Herriot. That was in 1922, and he was not a fortune teller. The Soviet commissar, or narkom for foreign affairs, Maksim Maksimovich Litvinov, sometimes speculated about such possibilities. Marxist ideologues thought of world war as the inevitable result of capitalist and imperialist rivalries. Litvinov opined that with the possible exceptions of the Italian fascist leader, Benito Mussolini, and Jozef Piłsudski, the Polish generalissimo, no government in Europe wanted war. Sure, there was a “war scare” in the Soviet Union in 1927, but Litvinov did not make much of it. Apparently, many rank-and-file communists did not take the war scare too seriously either, considering it “a tool of social agitation,” which undoubtedly it was. Besides the Italian Duce Mussolini, another fascist leader was emerging in Germany. This was Adolf Hitler, who headed a fringe party, the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP) or Nazi Party, who had ideas about a German renaissance of power relying on war as a means of achieving it. He even published a long book, Mein Kampf, in 1925, where he elaborated his plans for the future domination of Europe. It was hard to read Mein Kampf to the end, but you did not have to read every page to understand the message. The Nazi Party did not win a great many votes in the Reichstag elections during the 1920s, and thus did not appear to be a threat to European peace. In January 1930, it is unlikely that Litvinov or anyone else among the Soviet leadership worried much about Hitler.
As the new decade opened, it was more or less business as usual at the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs in Moscow, or the NKID. The principal objective was normalization of relations with the Western powers and the United States. A new world war was not an agenda item. In the autumn of 1929, the British government renewed diplomatic relations with the USSR, which it had broken off more than two years before on a wave of anti-communist hysteria. This was a victory for Soviet diplomacy. The NKID remained alert for Western attempts to organize an anti-Soviet bloc. Litvinov did not consider it a likely possibility, however, since capitalist political and economic rivalries would prevent the Western powers from ganging up on the USSR.
The Soviet Union and Weimar Germany had reasonably functional relations at the beginning of the 1930s. It certainly did not look in Moscow as if they would be at war a decade later. At the beginning of the 1920s Soviet Russia and Germany were pariahs, the one a proscribed revolutionary socialist state and the other condemned to take the blame for provoking the Great War, even though a democratic Weimar Republic had been established in November 1918. The Treaty of Versailles, concluded in June 1919, was supposed to settle the problem of German power, but did not do so. The German government passed the decade attempting to loosen the constraints of Versailles; and the Soviet government, to break out of its diplomatic isolation. What could have been more natural than these two pariah states joining together to escape isolation? In April 1922 they signed an agreement at Rapallo, Italy, to renounce prewar debts and obligations and to re-establish diplomatic and economic relations. The Entente Powers, France and Britain, were furious, realizing that the two outcasts had slipped out of their control. The pressure, both political and economic, would now be on the Entente Powers to come to terms with Weimar Germany and Soviet Russia.
The pattern of relations in Europe was thus set for the decade of the 1920s with attempts at rapprochement with Britain and France more successful on the German side than on the Soviet. If the Entente Powers succeeded in defeating Wilhelmine Germany during the Great War, they failed to overthrow Soviet power after the Bolshevik Revolution. They tried though as much as they dared. The West’s bete noire in Moscow was the Communist International, or Comintern, established in 1919 not only to pursue the cause of world revolution, but also to defend Soviet Russia against foreign intervention. During the 1920s there were ups and downs in Soviet-Western relations, a crisis now and again, but no danger of another world war.
Western Europe appeared more or less stable and prosperous. It was the Roaring Twenties: the European bourgeoisie had money for leisure and conspicuous consumption. In capital cities like Paris and Berlin, men in tuxedos and women in sleek evening dresses rocked to the beat of big band music and American jazz at nightclubs and cabarets. The menus offered expensive cuisine that went down well with wine and champagne, while dancers perspired on the dance floor. Nor were the slick and well-to-do absent from the terrasses of popular cafes where they rubbed shoulders with American expats, painters, writers, and socialists. “It’s class fraternization,” a Marxist ideologue might have joked.
Politically, France and Britain were often at odds; in fact, their wartime alliance appeared to dissolve on 11 November 1918, the day the Great War ended. This allowed room for both Germany and the Soviet Union to manoeuvre. Germany had the better of the diplomacy. The Red Scare of the 1920s and lingering Soviet revolutionary ambitions hampered efforts to normalize relations in the West. After the premature death in January 1924 of Soviet leader Vladimir Il’ich Lenin, a struggle for power erupted between Iosif Vissarionovich Stalin and Lev Davidovich Trotskii. Hatred is the first word that comes to mind in describing relations between these two Soviet leaders. This conflict had its effects on both Soviet domestic and foreign policy. At the end of the decade, the struggle for power was settled. Stalin established himself as the new, indisputable Soviet leader. Trotskii was sent into exile. Stalin calmed the Bolshevik itch to pursue world revolution and launched a five-year plan for industrialization and collectivization of agricultural lands. The troubles created by these domestic policies were an additional incentive to maintain correct relations with the Western powers.
The architects of Soviet foreign policy in the 1920s were Georgii Vasilievich Chicherin, the narkom for foreign affairs, and his principal deputy, zamnarkom Litvinov.
These two were an odd couple, one descended from the Russian aristocracy, and the other from a rather peculiar middle-class Jewish family. They often differed among themselves, both because of personal rivalries and jealousies and because of differences in temperament. Historians have said they pursued conflicting policies, Chicherin being pro-German, and Litvinov, pro-British. This is untrue, they were not pro this or that Western government, they were pro-Soviet. They sought to protect what they defined as the national interests of the Soviet state. In the northwest that meant the Baltic frontiers; in the south, it meant the borders in Central Asia. On the big issues like Rapallo or better relations with other Western powers, or difficulties with the Comintern, they saw eye to eye. It was on tactics rather than on strategy that their personal rivalries played themselves out. If Chicherin argued white, Litvinov would argue black, and vice versa. This rivalry continued until 1928 when an ailing Chicherin went on leave, never to resume his duties. Litvinov became the acting and then formal narkom of the NKID.
Soviet foreign policy was a complicated business. The NKID had to cope not only with hostile Western governments but also with politics in Moscow where foreign policy was often a stake in the struggle for power between Stalin and Trotskii and then other rivals. There were many arenas where the struggle to succeed Lenin unfolded, but none more important than in the Politburo, which was in effect the cabinet of the Soviet government. In most cabinets, the minister of foreign affairs is a high-ranking member. In the Politburo, Chicherin was not a member. He and Litvinov were invited consultants when foreign policy was discussed. On the other hand, during the 1920s, the Comintern, the nemesis of the NKID as well as of the West, was represented in succession by two of Stalin’s provisional allies, Grigorii Evseievich Zinoviev and Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin. These two Bolshevik politicians not only represented the Comintern, but used it as a platform for influence and power in the Politburo where Stalin sometimes gave them leeway as he manoeuvred for power. Politburo members tended to think they knew more about foreign policy than the NKID, which exasperated Chicherin and Litvinov. Zinoviev and Bukharin, they complained, talked too much, did not think enough, and irritated Western governments for nothing. The NKID often played the unwanted roll of concierge cleaning up their messes. Litvinov let it slip from time to time with foreign diplomats that he was fed up with the Comintern. Of course Stalin could not say that.
A persistent idea survives that the Comintern conducted Soviet foreign policy during the interwar years, or that the priorities of world revolution dominated it. “National interest” was not a concept much in use in Moscow.3 Such assertions do not stand up well in a close examination of Soviet archives. After Stalin consolidated his power, the Comintern faded into the background. It still functioned, still sought to direct the business of foreign communist parties, and still annoyed the Western powers, though less than before. If there was local resistance to French or British colonialism, the Quai d’Orsay or Foreign Office blamed it on the Comintern. When Litvinov heard such complaints, his stock reply was that indigenous resistance to Western colonialism flourished without any help from the Comintern. What was the USSR supposed to do? Should it become an advocate of colonial empires? This question came up, as readers will see, when Italy invaded Abyssinia in October 1935. Even capitalists were getting used to the Comintern. It was, like a stone in your rubber boot, which you could not take off until you stepped out of the bog. Among the Western powers, the said and unsaid idea was that the Soviet Union should abandon socialism and embrace capitalism, thus behaving like every other state. Why should Stalin and his colleagues do that? Would capitalists ever abandon capitalism?
In the 1930s the Comintern, at times, played a role in support of Soviet national interests, in Spain, for example, during the civil war, although that was a point debated inside the NKID. There were sometimes residual tensions left over from the 1920s, but it was the NKID that formulated foreign policy most of the time and the Politburo (but in reality, Stalin) that approved or modified it.
Stalin sometimes told the Comintern leadership, Georgi Dimitrov, for example, to develop policy without him. I was too busy, he would say: “Decide by yourselves.” He never said that to Litvinov or his deputies in the NKID. Stalin’s involvement in foreign policymaking began after Lenin took ill in 1922–3. The narkom proposed and most of the time the vozhd’, who was Stalin, approved. Occasionally there were clashes. A pervasive Western view holds that there were two Soviet foreign policies, Litvinov’s, pro-Western, and Stalin’s, pro-German, even after Hitler’s rise to power in 1933. The German orientation was Stalin’s preference, but he let Litvinov “talk him into something” in abandoning Rapallo. One often hears the argument, yes, collective security was Litvinov’s policy, but what about Stalin’s real preferences? This view is widespread among Western historians, seeking to explain away Litvinov and the policy of collective security. The fact is there were no personal policies, no duality of policies, only one policy that was Soviet and, perforce, Stalin’s.
It is widely believed in the West that Stalin was a confidence man just waiting for an opportunity to trick the Western powers and to return to the “old” Rapallo policy with Nazi Germany. In the meantime, he would string them along. Collective security and mutual assistance against Nazi Germany were a sham. Stalin was a would-be conqueror, a kind of red Genghis Khan, just waiting for opportunities to strike. The Soviet archival evidence upon which this narrative is based demonstrates that the Soviet leadership was serious about collective security and that Britain and France were not. In the case of France, one can make a partial exception for the period 1933–4. This revelation may come as a surprise to some readers, or others may simply not believe it, sticking to preconceived ideas. There is little evidence to substantiate Stalin’s clandestine pro-German policy, risible in any case because composition with Hitler during 1930s was not a sin, or if it was, everyone was being sinful. Britain and France, not to mention Poland, led the way. Some historians in the West might argue that the Western states had their “liberal scruples” about dealing with “archenemies.” The trouble was that for many European conservatives, Stalin was the arch-enemy, not Hitler.
Two could play at who loves me, who loves me not. Even the narkom Litvinov argued that a minimum of relations with Hitler, mostly economic, should be maintained in order to avoid a diplomatic rupture. Litvinov feared Soviet isolation, which could facilitate Anglo-French security arrangements with Hitler.
The view of Stalin as trickster, “Germanophile,” and “ally” of Hitler has been around for a long time and originates in the anti-communism and Sovietphobia of the interwar years and the second stage of the Cold War after 1945. A.J.P. Taylor, the great British historian of the mid-twentieth century, commented in 1981 that detached study of Soviet foreign policy was unlikely in his lifetime. “Most of my historical colleagues,” he said, “are so corrupted and blinded by their obsession with the Cold War that it is quite impossible for them to see clearly or to speak honestly about Soviet policies.” The same was true of their Soviet counterparts. Taylor was trying to be “balanced.” The Cold War ended in 1991 – at least many people hoped it had – after the dismemberment and disappearance of the Soviet Union. The immense Soviet archives began to open. It was the most extraordinary experience for historians to go to Moscow for the first time and hold in their hands freshly declassified dela, or files, that no one, apart from archivists and a few Soviet historians, had ever before read, let alone explored. Maybe we should talk about “History BC,” before the opening of the Soviet archives, and “History AD,” after the opening. I would respectfully contend that historians cannot study the origins of the Second World War without reference to the Soviet archival sources. Now that we have those files, or a great many of them, it should be possible to get to the bottom of the big questions that divided Taylor’s generation.
Yet here we are, and so far, it has not been possible. A new generation of English-language writers, seemingly disdainful of their predecessors, has resumed old habits. One evokes “memory” to justify not going to the archival records. Another goes to the files, cherry-picking evidence. He uses that part of the archival record which suits his strong ideological objectives and ignores that part which does not. It is dust in the eyes. Such modi operandi, writes one reviewer, “undermine confidence” in the author. Yet even when reviewers catch an author red-handed, it does not appear to bother either author or publisher. In the early 1980s, an untenured “Marxist historian” at Princeton University was drummed out of the profession for mistakes of documentation. Senior historians accused him “of systematically distorting evidence”; he was “called a ‘liar’ and a ‘faker.’” Now, forty years later, those very words, but not the punishment, might apply to certain academics or politicians of a new generation. As politicians go, the prime minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, comes to mind, or delegates at the European Parliament in Strasbourg.
In the flurry of such Western ideas, it goes against the grain to propose that Soviet foreign policy functioned more or less as it did in other states, I mean based on perceptions of national interest. In fact, in the Politburo there existed considerable animosity towards Germany and towards the Rapallo policy, though it continued with ups and downs throughout the 1920s and into the beginning of the 1930s. Germany was the only Western power with which the Soviet Union had tolerable relations. It was the only foothold in Europe and had to be protected lest the USSR risk dangerous isolation. All the better, Litvinov argued, if relations with other powers could be improved, but not at the risk of damaging Rapallo. Litvinov was under no illusions about the permanency of Rapallo. Eventually, Germany and the USSR would part company. Other options, therefore, had to be cultivated, but for the time being such options were “music of the future.”
Western-Soviet tensions came and went like bad weather. Trade turnover rose and fell according to Soviet economic and political needs. Moscow used trade as bait to obtain better political relations, though this strategy never really worked except in Weimar Germany, and even there, bilateral relations were often strained. It was not trade per se but political calculations of national interest on both sides, which kept Rapallo going.
By the end of the 1920s, the Soviet government managed to achieve prewar production levels. It was slow going, too slow for the Bolsheviks, for they were all industrializers and modernizers whatever the disagreements between them on how fast to proceed. The USSR was burdened with millions of peasant smallholdings, which produced only enough grain and other foodstuffs to sustain the peasant producers. Sometimes it did not, and the poorest peasants had to hire themselves out as labourers to the more prosperous so-called kulaks, to make ends meet. There was not enough agricultural surplus to feed the cities, at reasonable prices, in order to support industrialization or to sell in the West to obtain vital foreign exchange. Something had to be done. Having won the conflict to succeed Lenin, Stalin clenched his fists and smashed all the obstacles to industrialization by launching the First Five-Year Plan in 1928 and by forcing at the same time the collectivization of small peasant holdings, grouping them into large collective farms. Forced collectivization provoked a peasant “Luddite” rebellion (a turn of phrase coined by the late Isaac Deutscher), which along with drought and insect infestations, led in 1932–3 to a disastrous concatenation of circumstances, a famine in the Soviet wheat belt. These developments did not affect Soviet foreign policy or the Soviet need to trade. If anything, industrialization increased the need to buy capital goods and to sell agricultural products, lumber, oil, and manganese in the West.
In the 1930s the stakes in Soviet relations with the West changed rapidly. In October 1929, the stock market crashed in New York, setting off what became the Great Depression, which spread from the United States to Europe. The deceptive political and economic stability of the 1920s was shattered. Credit dried up, banks and businesses went broke, industrial production fell, international trade declined, commodity prices plummeted, and unemployment rose to calamitous levels.
The Roaring Twenties became a memory. One imagines that many prized tuxedos and evening gowns collected dust in the closet or ended up in secondhand shops. American expats still flocked to Paris, and jazz men still played the cabarets, but in reality, everything had changed. The music sounded the same, but people were not. The legions of unemployed worried about making ends meet. People were desperate and angry. The far-right leagues (or ligues) in France and the Nazi Brownshirts in Germany went out into the streets looking for trouble, fighting with communists and unionists. There were casualties. It was war, not all-out, but war all the same.
The Depression thus brought renewed political instability, especially in Germany, where the Nazi Party under Hitler made impressive gains in federal elections in September 1930, rising from 12 seats in the Reichstag to 107. Hitler was no longer a fringe politician. Nazi power increased rapidly until Hitler became chancellor in January 1933. This should have set off alarm bells in European capitals and in Washington, and it should have led to changes in policy. Sometimes it did and sometimes not. It certainly did in Moscow. The threat of war, which had largely been a theoretical discussion, became a real, tangible danger. As a result, major changes in foreign policy and in relations with the Western powers took place in the Soviet Union as it turned to face the menace to European peace and security posed by Hitlerite Germany. Sooner or later, Litvinov had said in 1927, Germany and the USSR were bound to go their separate ways. That time had come.
Featured: Joseph Stalin, by Viktor Mikhailovich Oreshnikov; painted in 1948.
Dear friends! Dear participants of the Tradition Festival! Dear founders of the Daria Dugina Prize!
Unfortunately, due to circumstances, I was unable to attend the Tradition Festival this time, although I tried not to miss it before. Tradition is the main word in my life. It became the main and the last word in the life of my daughter, Dasha Dugina.
Only that for which people are ready to sacrifice their lives becomes valuable. Tradition is the highest value. It is what makes the Motherland the Motherland, the people the people, the Church the Church, and culture the culture.
I would like to say a few words about the Creative Award. This is a wonderful initiative. There is hardly a better way to honor her memory. After all, Dasha was the embodiment of creativity. She was a leap into the future. She lived in faith and hope. She was always looking forward and upward. Perhaps, she took it too steeply, as far as “up” is concerned… But her message lives on among us and is only becoming more and more distinct, focused and clear. Her message is an invitation to the Russian future. A future that has yet to come true.
Dasha always thought of herself as a project, as a burst of creative will. She was enflamed by philosophy, religion, politics, culture, and art. She lived so richly, so fully, precisely because she cared about everything. Hence such a range of her interests, her texts, her speeches, her creativity, her endeavors. She wanted very much during her lifetime that Russians would move, that our country and our culture would move from a standstill and take off.
She considered it her mission to live for Russia, and if she had to, to die for Russia. This is what she wrote in her Diaries, Topi i vysi moyego serdtsa (Drown and Rise, my Heart), which we have recently published. Dasha’s second philosophical book, Eskhatologicheskiy Optimizm (Eschatological Optimism) will be published soon—in several languages at once, because Dasha is remembered and loved in the world.
Living for Russia is her message, which should be passed on and on. Dasha’s award is more than a formal encouragement; it is a living vibrating impulse.
We have many wonderful true heroes, warriors, defenders, people of deep soul and pure heart. Some of them gave their lives for the Motherland. Some live with us now. The memory of every hero is sacred. And the memory of Dasha.
The fact is that Dasha is not just a model patriot and citizen, she is also the bearer of an incredible, though not yet fully revealed, only intended (but how intended!) spiritual potential. She sought to embody the grace of imperial Russia, the style of the Silver Age, and the deep interest in Neoplatonist philosophy with which she burned. Sincere and heartfelt Russian Orthodoxy and geopolitics. Modern avant-garde art—in music, theater, painting, film—and a tragic comprehension of the ontology of war. Sober and aristocratically restrained understanding of the fatal crisis of modernity and the fiery will to overcome it. This is eschatological optimism. To look into the eyes of misfortune and horror of modernity and to keep a luminous faith in God, His Mercy, His justice.
I wish that the memory of Dasha would not so much focus attention on the images of her lively, charming, filled-with-pure-energy girl’s life, but becomes a continuation of her ardor, the fulfillment of her plans, her far-reaching, pure imperial dreams.
Today it is clear to many that Dasha has objectively become our national hero. Poems and paintings, cantatas and songs, plays and theater productions are dedicated to her. Streets in towns and cities of Russia are named after her. A monument is being prepared for installation in Moscow, and possibly in other cities.
A young girl who had never taken part in hostilities, who had never called for violence or aggression, who was deep and smiling, naive and well-educated, was brutally murdered in front of her father’s eyes by a heartless, ruthless enemy—a Ukrainian terrorist who did it here, at the festival “Tradition,” not hesitating to involve her young daughter in the murder. She was sent to do this by the authorities in Kiev and the secret services of the Anglo-Saxon world—the staunch enemies of Tradition. A year ago, I gave a lecture here on “the Role of the Devil in History.” Dasha listened. So did the murderer. The Devil was listening to what I was saying about the Devil, preparing to do his diabolical work.
And sure enough, Dasha became immortal. Our people could not remain indifferent to this. And my tragedy, the tragedy of our family, Dasha’s friends, all those who communicated and cooperated with her, became the tragedy of all our people. And tears began to choke people—both those who knew this girl and those who heard about her for the first time.
And these are not simple tears. These are tears of our resurrection, of our purification, of our coming victory.
Dasha is becoming a symbol. She already is. But now it is important that the content of this symbol does not disappear, does not dissolve, does not fade away. It is important not only to preserve the memory of Dasha, but to continue her work. Because she had this Cause. Her Cause.
That is why this prize is so important, why it is important to work on the Daria Dugina Foundation, as suggested by my close and good friends Konstantin Malofeev, Eduard Boyakov and many others. Young philosophers, theologians, priests, musicians, politicians, scientists, poets, artists, journalists, military officers—all those who today are building the spiritual basis of the Russian World, reviving the depths and heights of our Empire. Dasha supports them, inspires them, helps them, protects them above all.
There are saints who help in certain circumstances—those in poverty, those in illness, those in wanderings, those in captivity. Even individual icons are distributed in God’s mercy in such a way that they care for people in different difficult, sometimes desperate situations. “Assuage my Sorrows” is the name of one of the images of the Mother of God. And there is one canon that is recited when it becomes impossible to live at all and everything collapses…..
Mother of God Assuage My Sorrows (a wonderworking icon, Church of St. Nikolaev Odrin Monastery, Karachev, Orlov province, ca. 1640).
And so are the protagonists. They are different, too. Some embody military valor. Others, sacrificial tenderness. Others, strength of mind. Others still, the pinnacle of political will. They are all beautiful.
Dasha embodies the Soul. The Russian Soul.
Both the prize named after her and the Foundation we are going to establish should be dedicated to the Russian Soul. This is the most important thing. If there is no Soul, there will be no Russia; there will be nothing.
Many good people have volunteered to carry the memory of Dasha. There is the People’s Institute of Daria Dugina. There are Daria Dugina’s Lessons of Courage. There is a new series in the wonderful publishing house, Vladimir Dal: “Dasha’s Books.” There are various awards and other initiatives. And let people do what their heart tells them to do. The main thing is to do it all with a soul.
Thanks be to Christ!
Alexander Dugin is a widely-known and influential Russian philosopher. His most famous work is The Fourth Political Theory (a book banned by major book retailers), in which he proposes a new polity, one that transcends liberal democracy, Marxism and fascism. He has also introduced and developed the idea of Eurasianism, rooted in traditionalism. This article appears through the kind courtesy of Geopolitica.
XV BRICS Summit: The Multipolar World is Established
The XV BRICS summit made a historic decision to admit six more countries to the organization—Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Thus, in fact, the formation of the core of the multipolar world was completed.
Although BRICS, formerly BRIC, was a conditional association of semi-peripheral (according to Wallerstein) or “second world” countries, the dialogue between these countries, which are not part of the structure of the collective West (NATO and other rigidly unipolar organizations dominated by the United States), gradually outlined the contours of an alternative world order. If the Western civilization considers itself to be the only one, and this is the essence of globalism and unipolarity, the BRICS countries represented sovereign and independent civilizations, different from the Western one, with a long history and a completely original system of traditional values.
Initially, the BRIC association, created in 2006 at the initiative of Russian President Vladimir Putin, included four countries—Brazil, Russia, India and China. Brazil, the largest power in South America, represented the Latin American continent. Russia, China and India are of sufficient scale on their own to be considered civilizations. But they also represent more than nation-states. Russia is the vanguard of Eurasia, the Eurasian “Greater Space.” China is responsible for a significant area of the contiguous powers of Indochina. India also extends its influence beyond its borders—at least to Bangladesh and Nepal.
When South Africa joined the BRIC countries in 2011 (hence the acronym BRICS—the “S” at the end of South Africa), the continent was symbolically represented as the largest African country.
7 Civilizations (1 vs. 6)
At the XV summit, held from August 22 to 24, 2023 in Johannesburg, the final formation of the multipolar club took place. The entry of three Islamic powers—Shiite Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia and the UAE—was fundamental. Thus, the direct participation in the multipolar world of the entire Islamic civilization, represented by both branches—Sunnism and Shiism—was secured. In addition, along with Portuguese-speaking Brazil, Spanish-speaking Argentina, another strong and independent power, joined BRICS. Back in the mid-twentieth century, theorists of South American unification into a consolidated large space—above all Argentine general Juan Perón and Brazilian president Getúlio Vargas—considered a decisive rapprochement between Brazil and Argentina to be the first step in this process. If this were achieved, the process of integration of the Latin American ecumene would be irreversible. And this is exactly what has happened now in the context of the accession of the two major powers of South America, Brazil and Argentina, to the multipolar club.
Ethiopia’s acceptance is also highly symbolic. It is the only African country that has remained independent throughout the colonial era, preserving its sovereignty, its independence and its unique culture (Ethiopians are the oldest Christian people). Combined with South Africa, Ethiopia is strengthening its presence in the multipolar club of the African continent.
In fact, in the new composition of BRICS, we get a complete model of unification of all poles—civilizations, large spaces, except for the West, which is desperate to preserve its hegemony and unipolar structure. But now it faces not disparate and fragmented countries full of internal and external contradictions, but a united force of the majority of humanity, determined to build a multipolar world.
This multipolar world consists of the following civilizations:
The West (USA+EU and their vassals, which includes, alas, the once proud and distinctive Japan);
China (+Taiwan) with its satellites;
Russia (as an integrator of the entire Eurasian space);
India and its zone of influence;
Latin America (with Brazil + Argentina at its core);
Africa (South Africa + Ethiopia, with Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, etc., emerging from French colonial influence).
Islamic world (in both versions—Shiite Iran, and Sunni Saudi Arabia and UAE).
At the same time, one civilization—the Western one—claims hegemony, while the six others deny it this right, accepting only a multipolar system and recognizing the West only as one of the civilizations, along with others.
Thus, the rightness of Samuel Huntington, who saw the future in the return of civilizations, was confirmed in practice, while the fallacy of Fukuyama’s thesis, who believed that the global hegemony of the liberal West (the end of history) has already been achieved, became obvious. Therefore, Fukuyama can only doomedly lecture Ukrainian neo-Nazis, the last hope of globalists to stop the onset of multipolarity, for which Russia, in Ukraine, is fighting today.
August 2023 can be considered the birthday of the multipolar world.
Having outlined multipolarity, it is time to take a closer look at how the civilizational poles themselves interpret the situation in which they find themselves. And here we should take into account that virtually every sovereign civilization has its own idea of the structure of history, the nature of historical time, its direction and the end of history. Contrary to Fukuyama, who ambitiously proclaimed a single end of history (in his liberal version), each sovereign civilization operates with its own understanding, interpretation and description of the end of history. Let us briefly review this situation.
Each Civilization has its own Idea of the End of the World
Each pole of the multipolar world, that is, each civilization, has its own version of eschatology, somewhere more and somewhere less explicit.
“Eschatology” is the doctrine of the end of the world or the end of history. Eschatologies form a significant part of religious doctrines, but have secular versions as well. Any idea of the linear direction of the historical process and its supposed finale can be considered an “eschatology.”
The multipolar world consists of several civilizations or “big spaces” with a completely unique and original system of traditional values. This is the pole (not the individual state). A pole is precisely a civilization. Each civilization has its own idea of the nature of the historical process, its direction and its goal, and thus its own eschatology.
In some “large spaces” there are even several versions of eschatology, and a number of relatively small political formations, which cannot claim the pole in any way, nevertheless sometimes have a special and even developed eschatology.
Let us outline the different types in the most general terms.
Eschatologies of the West
Eschatology in Western Christianity
Western Christianity originally had the same eschatological doctrine as Eastern Christianity, being one. In Christianity—in both Catholicism and Orthodoxy (and even Protestantism)—the end of the world is considered inevitable, since the world and its history are finite and God is infinite. After the coming of Christ, the world moves toward its end, and the return of Christ itself is seen as taking place “in the last days.” The entire history of the Christian Church is a preparation for the end times, the Last Judgment, and the Second Coming of Christ. Christianity teaches that before the Second Coming there will be a general apostasy in mankind, nations will turn away from Christ and His Church, and will rely only on their own strength (humanism). Later, mankind will degenerate completely and the Antichrist, the messenger of the Devil, the “son of perdition” will seize power.
The Antichrist will rule for a short time—3.5 years, “a time, two times and half a time”), the saints and the prophets Elijah and Enoch, who will have returned to earth, will denounce him, and then the Second Coming, the resurrection of the dead and the Last Judgment will take place. This is what every Christian is obliged to believe.
At the same time, Catholicism, which gradually separated from the united Orthodox trunk, believed that the stronghold of Christians should be the Catholic Church under the Pope, the “City of God,” and the retreat would affect only earthly political entities, the “City of Earth.” There is a spiritual battle between the heavenly politics of the Vatican and the earthly politics of secular monarchs. In Orthodoxy, unlike Catholicism, the main obstacle in the way of the Antichrist is the Holy Empire, eternal Rome.
Traditional Christian eschatology and exactly this—partly pessimistic—view of the vector of history prevailed in Europe until the beginning of the New Age. And this is how traditional Catholics, unaffected by the spirit of modernity, who are becoming fewer and fewer in the West, continue to think about the end of the world.
Protestant eschatologies are more bizarre. In the Anabaptists of Münster or the Czech Hussites, the Second Coming was preceded by the establishment of universal equality (eschatological communism), the abolition of class hierarchies and private property.
Recently, under the influence of modernization and political correctness, many Protestant denominations and the Anglican Church have revised their view of eschatology, finally breaking with the ancient Christian tradition. Masonic Eschatology: The Theory of Progress
At the origins of the Western European civilization of Modernity is European Freemasonry, in the midst of which the idea of “social progress” was born. The idea of progress is a direct antithesis of the Christian understanding of history; it rejects apostasy, the Antichrist, the Last Judgment, the resurrection of the dead and the very existence of the soul.
Masons believed that humanity develops progressively: in the beginning savagery (not earthly paradise), then barbarism (not traditional society), then civilization (culminating in the European New Age and the Enlightenment, i.e., secular atheistic societies, based on a materialistic scientific worldview). Civilization in its formation passes a number of stages from traditional confessions to the humanistic cult of the Great Architect of the Universe and further to liberal democracy, where science, atheism and materialism will fully triumph. And conservative Freemasonry (Scottish Rite) stopped usually with the cult of the Great Architect of the Universe (that is, with deism—the recognition of an undefined non-denominational “god”), and the more revolutionary, the Grand Orient rite was called to go further—to the complete abolition of religion and social hierarchy. The Scottish Rite stands for classical liberalism (big capital), the Grand Orient and other revolutionary lodges stand for liberal democracy (intensive growth of the middle class and redistribution of capital from the big bourgeoisie to the middle and small bourgeoisie).
But in Freemasonry, in both versions, we see a clearly directed vector to the end of history; that is, to the construction of modern progressive global civilization. This is the ideology of globalism in two versions—conservative (gradual) and offensive (revolutionary-democratic).
England: The Fifth Monarchy
During Cromwell’s English Revolution, the theory of the Fifth Monarchy developed in Protestant circles under the influence of Jewish circles and Sabbataism (notably the Dutch Rabbi Manasseh ben-Israel). The traditional Christian doctrine of the Four World Kingdoms (Babylonian, Persian, Greek and Roman) was declared insufficient, and after the fall of Rome (which for Protestants meant the refusal to recognize the authority of the Pope and the overthrow of the monarchy, regicide) the Fifth Kingdom was to come. Earlier, a similar idea had arisen in Portugal in relation to the maritime Portuguese Empire and the special mission of the “vanished King” Sebastian. The Portuguese and Portuguese-centered (mystical-monarchical) version was passed on to the Portuguese Jewish converts (Marranos) and Jews exiled to Holland and Brazil. One of them was Manasseh ben-Israel, from whom this theory passed on to English Protestants and Cromwell’s inner circle (Thomas Harrison).
Proponents of this theory considered Cromwell himself to be the future world Monarch of the Fifth Monarchy. The Fifth Monarchy was to be distinguished by the abolition of Catholicism, hereditary monarchical power, estates and to represent the triumph of bourgeois democracy and capitalism.
This was continued by the current of “British Israelism,” which declared the English to be the “ten lost tribes of Israel” and spread the belief in the coming world domination of England and the Anglo-Saxon race. The world rule of the “New Israelites” (Anglo-Saxons) was seen beyond the Four Kingdoms and broke with traditional Christian eschatology, as the Fifth Monarchy meant the destruction of traditional Christian kingdoms and the rule of the “chosen people” (not Jews, but the English).
From England, extreme Protestant sects transferred these ideas to the USA, which was created as a historical embodiment of the Fifth Monarchy. Hence the American eschatology in the mythologies of William Blake (in America a Prophecy the USA is represented by the giant Orcus freeing himself from the chains of the old god), who was also an adherent of the theory of “British Israelism.” Blake embodied these ideas in his poem “Jerusalem,” which became the unofficial anthem of England.
USA: Dispensationalism
In the United States, the ideas of “British Israelism” and the Fifth Monarchy were developed in some Protestant denominations and became the basis for a special current of dispensationalism based on the ideas of the Plymouth Brethren (preacher John Darby) and the Scofield edition of the Bible, where the eschatological interpretation in a dispensationalist way is incorporated into the biblical text in such a way that to ordinary people it seems to be a single narrative.
Dispensationalism considers Anglo-Saxons and Protestants (“twice born”) to be the chosen people, and applies to them all the prophecies about the Jews. According to this doctrine, mankind lives at the end of the last “dispensation” of the cycle, and the Second Coming of Christ will soon take place, and all the faithful will be raptured into heaven (the Rapture). But this will be preceded by a final battle (Armageddon) with the “king of Rosh, Meshech and Tubal,” which from the 19th century to the present day has meant Russia. Before this Russia would invade Palestine and, there, fight with the “twice-born” (Anglo-Saxons), and then be defeated by them. After that, there would be a mass conversion of Jews to Protestantism and an ascent to heaven (by means of miracles or spacecraft).
In recent decades, this current has merged with political Zionism and has become the basis of the ideology and geopolitics of the American neocons.
France: The Great Monarch
In France, as early as the late Middle Ages and the dawn of the Modern Age, an eschatological theory of the Great Monarch developed, which claimed that a secret French king, chosen by God, would appear at the end of time and save humanity—from decadence, Protestantism, and materialism. This version of eschatology is Francocentric and conservative, and circulated in mystically oriented circles of the aristocracy. The difference from traditional Catholic eschatology is that the French king, rather than the Vatican See, is the barrier to the Antichrist.
Some researchers consider Gaullism to be a secular and simplified geopolitical version of the Great Monarch’s eschatology. General De Gaulle advocated the unification of the peoples of Europe (primarily the French, Germans and Russians) and against NATO and Anglo-Saxon hegemony. The French writer Jean Parvulesco (following Raymond Abellio) called it “the mystical dimension of Gaullism.”
But the vast majority of the French ruling class is dominated by Masonic eschatology—with the exact opposite understanding.
Italy: The Ghibellines and the Greyhound
In the Middle Ages, the confrontation between the Roman throne and imperial power—after Charlemagne proclaimed himself “Emperor”—at times became extremely acute. This led to the creation of two parties—the Guelphs, supporters of the Pope, and the Ghibellines, supporters of the Emperor. They were most widespread in Italy, the possession of which was the basis for German kings to be recognized as Emperors of the (Western) Roman Empire after coronation in Rome.
The poet Dante was a supporter of the Ghibellines and encoded in his poem, Divine Comedy, eschatological teaching of the Ghibellines that after the temporary rule of the Ghibellines and the complete degradation of the Catholic Church, a true Ghibelline monarch would come to Europe, who would revive the morals and spirituality of Western civilization. He is symbolically represented in the figure of the greyhound (veltro) and the mystical number DXV (515), which yields, after rearrangement of letters/digits the word, DVX, “leader.” Dante expounded the ideas of the World Monarchy in a separate treatise. Here again the eschatological theme is connected with monarchical power—and to a greater extent than with the Catholic Church. For Dante, the French monarchy was seen as being on the side of the Antichrist, as was the Roman throne that had risen against the Emperor.
Germany: Hegel and the End of History
The original version of eschatology is given in Hegel’s philosophy. He sees history as a dialectical process of the scattering of the Spirit through Nature, and then a new gathering of the particles of the Spirit in an enlightened society. The culmination of this process according to Hegel would be the creation of a unified German state on the basis of the Prussian monarchy (during his lifetime it did not exist). In this enlightened monarchy, the cycle of the history of the Spirit would be completed. These ideas influenced the Second Reich and Bismarck, and later in a distorted form Hitler’s Third Reich. It was Hegel who put forward the thesis of the “end of history” in a philosophical context, combining in a peculiar combination Christian eschatology (including the figure of the Christian ruler) and a special mystical-monarchical interpretation of social progress (as a preliminary stage before the creation of the world empire of philosophers).
The German philosopher (Catholic) Carl Schmitt correlated the idea of the Reich with the function of the Katechon, the restainer, which was the meaning of imperial power in Byzantium and which was usurped (according to the Orthodox) in the ninth century by the Frankish Emperor Charlemagne. This line was partly in line with the Ghibelline tradition.
The German Jew, Karl Marx, built a theory of communism (the end of history) on an inverted materialist version of Hegelianism, and the Russian philosopher Alexandre Kojève tried to identify the end of history with globalism and the planetary triumph of liberalism. But it is important that Hegel himself, unlike his sectarian interpreters, was an eschatological, Germano-centered monarchist.
Iberia: The Habsburgs and Planetary Evangelization
Eschatology in the Spanish version was linked to the colonization of the Americas and the mission of Charles V Habsburg and his dynastic successors. Since in the prophecies about the end of the world (Pseudo-Methodius of Patara), the sign of the end of the world was the spread of the Gospel to all mankind and the establishment of a worldwide Christian empire under a Catholic world king. The geographical discoveries and the establishment of vast colonies by Spain gave reason to consider the Spanish Habsburgs—above all Charles V and Philip II—as contenders for the role of world monarch. This Catholic-monarchical version, partly consonant with the French version, but in contrast focused on the Austrian Emperors, the traditional opponents of the French dynasty. Christopher Columbus was a proponent of an eschatological world empire during the reigns of the Catholic kings Isabella and Ferdinand, and reflected his eschatological views in The Book of Prophecies, compiled on the eve of his fourth voyage to the Americas and completed immediately after his return.
After the Bourbon reign in Spain, this eschatological line disappeared. Its echoes, partly, can be found in Catholic circles in Latin America and especially in the Jesuits.
The Fifth Empire in the Portuguese version and its Brazilian offshoot are generally close in type to this version of eschatology.
Israel: The Territory of Mashiach
The State of Israel was established in 1948 in Palestine, as a realization of the eschatological aspirations of the Jewish Diaspora, who had been waiting for two millennia for a return to the Promised Land. Jewish eschatology is based on the belief in the chosenness of the Jews and their special role in the end times, when the Jewish Mashiach will come and Jews will rule the world. It is the best studied. In many ways, it is Jewish eschatology that has determined the main scenarios of end-of-the-world visions in monotheistic traditions.
Modern Israel was created as a state prepared for the coming of Mashiach, and if this function is taken out of the picture, its very existence loses its meaning—first of all, in the eyes of the Jews themselves.
Geopolitically, Israel cannot claim to be an independent civilization, an empire, whose scale is necessary for full participation in global eschatological processes. However, if we take into account the rapprochement of political Zionists in the United States with neocons and Protestant dispensationalists, the role of Jews in the last century in the Masonic lodges, the influence of the Diaspora in the ruling and especially economic elites of the West, then the whole picture changes, and the basis for serious eschatological events turns out to be significant.
The Kabbalistic interpretation of the migration route of the bulk of the Jewish Diaspora describes it as following the Shekhinah (God’s Presence) in exile (according to Rabbi Alon Anava). At the beginning of the Galut (dispersion), the bulk of the Jews were concentrated in the Middle East (Mizrahi). Then the Shekhinah began to rise to the north and the Caucasus (Khazar Kaganate). From there, the path of the Shekhinah led to Western Russia, to the Baltics and to Eastern Europe (Ashkenazi). Then its movement led the Ashkenazi to go deeper into Western Europe, and made the Sephardim move from the Iberian Peninsula to Holland and the American colonies. Finally, the bulk of the Jews concentrated in the United States, where they still represent a majority compared to Jewish communities in other countries. Thus, the Shekhinah remains in the United States. The second largest community of Jews is in Israel. When the proportions shift in Israel’s favor, it will mean that the Shekhinah, after a two-thousand-year circle, has returned to Palestine.
Then we should expect the building of the Third Temple and the coming of the Mashiach. This is the logic of Jewish eschatology, clearly visible in the political processes unfolding around Israel. This idea is adhered to by the majority of religious Zionists, who make up a significant percentage of Jews both in Israel and in the Diaspora. But any Jew, wherever he or she may be and whatever ideology he or she may share, cannot fail to recognize the eschatological nature of the modern state of Israel and, consequently, the far-reaching goals of its government.
Orthodox Eschatology
Greeks: The Marble Emperor
In the Orthodox population of Greece, after the fall of Byzantium and the seizure of power by the Ottomans, an eschatological theory developed about the coming of an Orthodox liberator-king—the Marble Emperor. His figure was sometimes interpreted as the return of Constantine XII Paleologos, who, according to legend, did not die when the Turks took Constantinople, but was carried away by an angel to the Marble Gate and there awaits his hour to free the Orthodox (Greeks) from the oppression of foreigners.
In some versions of the eschatological legend this mission was entrusted to the “red-haired king of the north,” by whom in the 18th century many Athonite monks understood the Russian Emperor.
These are echoes of the classical Byzantine doctrine of the Katechon, the “restainer” who is destined to become the main obstacle in the way of the “son of perdition” (Second Epistle of Saint Paul the Apostle to the Thessalonians) and of the Tsar-Savior from the book of Pseudo-Methodius of Patara. Greek political-religious thought retained this eschatological component during the Ottoman period, although after the liberation from the Turks, Greek statehood began to be built on Masonic liberal-democratic models (despite the brief period of rule by a number of European dynasties), completely breaking with the Byzantine heritage.
Russia: The King of the Third Rome, the Savior of the Sects, and Communism
In Russia, eschatology took a stable form by the end of the fifteenth century, which was reflected in the theory of Moscow as the Third Rome. It asserted that the mission of the Katechon, the restainer, after the fall of Constantinople passed to Muscovite Russia, which became the nucleus of the only Orthodox Empire—that is, Rome. The Grand Duke Moscow changed the status and became Tsar, Vasilevs, Emperor, restraining.
Henceforth, the mission of Russia and the Russian people was to slow down the coming of the “son of perdition,” the Antichrist, and to resist him in every possible way. This formed the core of Russian eschatology, and formalized the status of the Russian people as “God-bearers.”
Forgotten in the era of the Western reforms of Peter and his followers, the idea of Moscow as the Third Rome revived again in the 19th century, under the influence of the Slavophiles, and then became a central theme in the Russian Orthodox Church beyond the Frontier.
After the schism, eschatology became widespread among the Old Believers and sectarians. The Old Believers generally believed that the fall of the Third Rome had already irreversibly taken place, while the sectarians (Khlysty, Skoptsy), on the contrary, believed in the imminent coming of the “Russian Christ.”
The secular version of sectarian “optimistic” eschatology was taken up by the Bolsheviks, hiding it under the Marxist version of Hegel’s end of history. In the last period of the USSR, the eschatological belief in communism faded, and the regime and the country collapsed.
The theme of Russian eschatology became relevant again in Russia after the beginning of the Special Military Operation, when the confrontation (with the Masonic-liberal and materialistic-atheistic) civilization of the West became extremely acute. Logically, as Russia establishes itself as a separate civilization, the role of eschatology and the central importance of the function of the Katechon will only increase.
The Islamic World
Sunnism: The Sunni Mahdi
In Sunnism, the end of the world is not described in detail, and the visions of the coming leader of the Islamic community, the Mahdi, pale before the description of the Last Judgment that God (Allah) will administer at the end of time. Nevertheless, this figure is there and is described in some detail in the hadiths. It is about the emergence of a military and political leader of the Islamic world who will restore justice, order and piety, which has fallen into decay by the end of time.
The authoritative Sufi, Ibn Arabi, specifies that the Mahdi will be assisted in ruling by “viziers,” forming the basis of the eschatological government; and according to him, all the viziers of this “metaphysical government,” as assistants and projections of the unified pole (kutbah) will come from non-Arabic Islamic communities.
The Mahdi will defeat al-Dajjal (the Liar) and establish Islamic rule. A peculiar version of Islamic eschatology is also professed by supporters of the Islamic State (banned in Russia). Various figures in Islam claimed for the role of Mahdi. Most recently, the head of the Turkish PMC SADAT Adnan Tanriverdi proclaimed Erdogan as the Mahdi.
Iran: The Twelfth Imam
In Shi’ism, the Mahdi theme is much more fully developed, and eschatology underlies the very political-religious teachings of the Shi’ites. Shi’ites consider only the followers of Ali, the Imams, to be the legitimate rulers of the Islamic community. They believe that the last, Twelth, Imam did not die, but withdrew into concealment. He will appear to people again at the end of time. This will be the beginning of the rise of the Shia world.
Then there will be the appearance of Christ, who together with the Mahdi will fight with al-Dajjal and defeat him, establishing for a short period—just before the end of the world—a just, spiritual order.
Such views are espoused by the majority of Shiites, and in Iran it is the official ideology, largely determining the entire political strategy of this country.
Shiite eschatology in many respects continues the Iranian pre-Islamic tradition of Zoroastrianism, which had a developed theory of the change of cycles and their culmination in the Great Restoration (frashokart). There the image of the coming King-Savior, Saoshyant, who is destined to be born magically from a pure Virgin and defeat the army of the dark beginning (Ahriman) in the last battle, also plays an important role.
Probably, it was the ancient Iranian doctrine about the struggle of light (Ormuzd) and dark (Ahriman) began through history, as a key to its meaning and about the final victory of the warriors of light, became the basis for the eschatological part of monotheistic teachings. But in any case, the influence of Zoroastrianism on Shi’ism is obvious, and this is what gives Iranian eschatology such a sharp and vivid political expression.
Southeast Asia
India: Kalki
In Hinduism, the end of the world has little significance, although a number of sacred texts associated with the Kalachakra cycle tell of kings of the mystical land of Shambhala, where the conditions of the golden age reign. At the ultimate moment in history, one of these kings, Kalki, believed to be the tenth avatar of Vishnu, will appear in the human world and fight the demon Kali. Kalki’s victory will end the dark age and signify a new beginning (satya-yuga).
Kali-yuga (the age of darkness) is described as an era of the decline of mores, traditional values and the spiritual foundations of Indian civilization. Although Indian tradition is quite detached from history and its cycles, believing that spiritual realization can be achieved under any conditions, eschatological motifs are quite present in culture and politics.
In contemporary India, the popular conservative politician and Prime Minister Narendra Modi is recognized by some traditionalist circles as a divine avatar, either of Kalki himself or his harbinger.
Buddhism: The Buddha of Times to Come
Eschatological motifs are also developed in the Buddhist tradition. The end of time is seen in it as the coming of the future buddha, Maitreya. His mission is to renew the spiritual life of the sangha, the Buddhist community, and to turn humanity to the salvific path of awakening.
On Buddhism were based some political systems of the countries of southeast Asia—Japan, combined with the autochthonous cult of Shinto, centered on the figure of the divine Emperor, and a number of states of Indo-China. In some cases, the appeal to the figure of the coming Buddha Maitreya became the basis for political movements and popular uprisings.
Sometimes eschatological Buddhism found support in communist ideology, giving rise to syncretic forms—Cambodia, Vietnam, etc.
China: The Heavenly Mandate
Eschatology is virtually absent in Confucianism, which is the dominant political-ethical mainstream of Chinese tradition. But at the same time, it is developed in some detail in the religion of the Chinese Taoists and in Taoist-Buddhist syncretistic currents. According to Taoist ideas about cycles, the history of the world is reflected in the change of ruling dynasties in China. This change is the result of the loss of what the Taoists call the “heavenly mandate,” which every legitimate ruler of China is obliged to obtain and retain. When this mandate runs out, China is in turmoil, with civil war and unrest. The situation is saved only by obtaining a new heavenly mandate and enthronement of a new dynasty.
The Chinese Middle Empire is perceived by the Chinese themselves as an image of cosmic hierarchy, as the Universe. In the Empire, culture and nature merge to the point of indistinguishability. Therefore, dynastic cycles are cosmic cycles by which epochs are measured.
The Chinese tradition does not know the absolute end of the world, but believes that any deviation of the world order, in any direction, requires symmetrical restoration. This theory implicitly contributed to the Chinese revolution and retains its significance to the present day.
In fact, the figure of the current chairman of the CPC Central Committee, Xi Jinping, is seen as a new appearance of a legitimate Emperor who has received a heavenly mandate.
Africa
Garvey: Black Freemasonry
One of the founders of the movement to restore dignity to African peoples was Jamaican-born Freemason, Marcus Garvey, who applied Masonic progressivism to blacks and called for rebellion against whites.
Garvey took a series of actions to bring American blacks back to the African continent, continuing a process that began in 1820 with the creation of an artificial state on the west coast of Africa, Liberia. Liberia’s government copied the U.S. and so too was composed predominantly of Freemasons.
Garvey interpreted the struggle for the rights of blacks not just as a means to gain equality, but actively promoted the theory of the chosenness of Africans as a special people, which after centuries of slavery was called to establish its dominance—at least in the space of the African continent, but also to claim and assert the rights to power in the U.S. and other colonial countries. And in the center of this world movement should stand the Masonic lodges, where only black people are allowed.
The extreme representatives of this current were the organizations Black Power, Black Panthers and later BLM.
Great Ethiopia
In Africa, among the melanodermatic (black) population, their own original versions of eschatology have developed. All of them (as in Garvey’s eschatology) regard African peoples as endowed with a special historical mission (blacks = New Israel) and foretell the rebirth of themselves and the African continent as a whole. The general scheme of African eschatology considers the era of colonization and slavery as a great spiritual trial for the black race, to be followed by a period of reward, a new golden age.
In one version of this eschatology, the core of African identity is Ethiopia. Its population (Kushites and Semites with dark skin) is seen as the paradigm of African civilization, as Ethiopia is the only African political entity in Africa that has not been colonized, either by European powers or by Muslims.
In this version, all African peoples are considered to be related to Ethiopians, and the Ethiopian monarch, the Negus, is perceived as a prototype of the ruler of the great African Empire. This line was the basis of Rastafarianism, which became popular among the blacks of Jamaica and further spread among the black population of Africa and America.
This version is prevalent among Christian and Christianized peoples. Christian eschatology of Ethiopians (Monophysites) acquires original features connected with the special mission of Ethiopia, which is considered to be the chosen country and the chosen people (hence the legend that the ancestor of Ethiopians was Melchizedek, the King of Peace). In Rastafarianism, this Ethiopian eschatology acquires additional—sometimes quite grotesque—features.
Black Islam
Another version of African eschatology is the Nation of Islam, which emerged in the United States. This doctrine claims that both Moses and Muhammad were black, and that God incarnates in black politico-religious leaders from cycle to cycle. The founder of this current, Wali Fard Muhammad, considered himself to be such an incarnation (this is consonant with the Russian Khlysty). After the death of Wali Fard Mohammed believers expect his return on a spaceship.
Parallel to this is the proclamation of the need for black struggle in the United States and around the world—and not just for their rights, but for recognition of their spiritual and racial leadership in civilization.
Under the contemporary leader of the Nation of Islam, Louis Farrakhan, this current has achieved great influence in the United States and has had a significant impact on the ideological formation of black Muslims in Africa.
Black Egypt
Another version of African political eschatology is the KMT current (from the ancient Egyptian name of Egypt itself), which develops the ideas of the African philosopher Sheikh Anta Diop. He and his followers developed the theory that ancient Egypt was a state of black people, which is evident from its name “KMT,” in the Egyptian language meaning “Black Land” or “Land of Blacks.” Anta Diop believed that all African religious systems are echoes of Egyptian religion, which must be restored in its entirety.
His follower Kemi Seba developed the thesis of African monotheism, which is the basis of a religio-political system where power should be vested in a Metaphysical Government expressing the will of God (like the Mahdi viziers in Ibn Arabi’s version). Life should be based on the principle of closed black communities—kilombo.
At the same time, Africans should return to the traditions of their peoples, fully control the African continent, restore as dark a skin color as possible (through melano-oriented marriages) and carry out a spiritual revolution in the world.
The single, sacred Pan-African language should be the restored ancient Egyptian language (medu neter), and Swahili should be used for practical needs. According to the proponents of KMT theory, black people are the bearers of sacredness, Tradition and the people of the golden age. White civilization, on the other hand, represents perversion, pathology, and anti-civilization, where matter, money, and capital stand above spirit.
The main enemy of Africans and blacks around the world is whites, who are considered the bearers of modernization, colonialism, materialism and spiritual degeneration. Victory over whites is the guarantee of blacks’ fulfillment of their world mission and the crowning achievement of the decolonization process.
Latin America
Ethno-eschatology: Indigenism
In Latin American countries, a number of aboriginal Amerindian peoples see the logical end of colonization as the restoration of ethnic societies (indigenism). These tendencies are developed to varying degrees depending on the country.
Many consider the rebellion of Tupac Amaru II, a descendant of the last Inca ruler, who led an Indian revolt against the Spanish presence in Peru in 1780, as the symbolic beginning of Indian resistance to colonizers.
In Bolivia in 2006, Evo Morales, the first-ever representative of the Aymara Indian people, was elected president. Increasingly, voices are being heard—primarily in Peru and Bolivia—in favor of declaring the ancient Indian cult of the earth goddess Pachamama an official religion.
As a rule, the ethnic eschatology of Latin American Indians is combined with leftist socialist or anarchist currents to create syncretic teachings.
Brazilian Sebastianism
A particular version of eschatology, linked to Portuguese ideas about the Fifth Empire, developed in Brazil. After the capital of the Portuguese Empire was moved to Brazil because of a republican coup d’état in Portugal, the doctrine arose that this transfer of the capital was not accidental and that Brazil itself had a special political-religious mission. If European Portugal lost the doctrine of King Sebastian and followed the path of European bourgeois democracy, then Brazil must now assume this mission and become the territory where, in the critical conditions of the historical cycle, the missing but not dead King Sebastian would be found.
Under the banner of such a doctrine the conservative Catholic-eschatological and imperial revolts against the Masonic liberal government—Canudos, Contestado, etc.—took place in Brazil.
Eschatological Map of Civilizations
Thus, in a multipolar world, different eschatologies clash or enter into an alliance with each other.
In the West, the secular model (progressivism and liberalism) clearly prevails, with a significant addition in the form of extreme Protestant dispensationalism. This is the “end of history,” according to Fukuyama. If we take into account the liberal elite of European countries under full American control, we can speak of a special eschatology that unites almost all NATO countries. We should also add the theory of radical individualism, common to liberals, which demands to free people from all forms of collective identity—up to freedom from sex (gender politics) and even from belonging to the human species (transhumanism, AI). Thus, the new elements of Masonic progressive eschatology, along with the “open society,” are the imperatives of gender reassignment, support for LGBTQ principles, posthumanism, and deep ecology (which rejects the centrality of the human being in the world that all traditional religions and philosophical systems have insisted on).
Although Zionism is not a direct continuation of this version of eschatology, in some of its forms—primarily through its alliance with the American neocons—it partly fits into this strategy; and given the influence of Jews on the ruling elites of the West, these proportions may even be reversed.
Russia and its Katechonic function, which combines the eschatology of the Third Rome and the communist horizon as a legacy of the USSR, stands most blatantly in the way of this end of history.
In China, Western Marxism, already substantially reworked in Maoism, increasingly openly displays Confucian culture, and the head of the CCP, as traditional Emperor, is given a heavenly mandate to rule “All that is under Heaven” (tianxia—天下).
Eschatological sentiments are constantly growing in the Islamic world—both in the Sunni zone and especially in Shiism (primarily in Iran), and it is modern Western civilization—the same one that is now fighting Russia—that is almost unanimously presented as al-Dajjal for all Muslims.
In India, Hindutva-inspired sentiments (the doctrine of the independent identity of Hindus as a special and unique civilization) are gradually growing, proclaiming a return to the roots of the Hindu tradition and its values (which do not coincide at all with Western values), and hence outlining the contours of a special eschatology associated with the phenomenon of Kalka and the overcoming of the Kali-yuga.
Pan-Africanism is developing towards the strengthening of radical teachings about the return of Africans to their identity and a new round of anti-colonial struggle against the white world (understood primarily as colonial countries belonging to the civilization of the West). This describes a new vector of black eschatology.
In Latin America, the desire to strengthen its geopolitical sovereignty is based on both leftist (socialist) eschatology and the defense of Catholic identity, which is particularly evident in Brazil, where both leftists and rightists are increasingly distancing themselves from globalism and U.S. policy (hence Brazil’s participation in the BRICS bloc). The ethno-eschatologies of indigenism, though relatively weak, generally add an important additional dimension to the whole eschatological project.
At the same time, the French aristocratic eschatology (and its secular projection in Gaullism), the German version of the end of history in the form of the German Empire, as well as the Buddhist and Shinto line of the special mission of Japan and the Japanese Emperors—(for now, at least) do not play any noticeable role, being completely bought by the dominant progressive globalist elite and the strategies of the Anglo-Saxons.
Thus, we have a world map of eschatology, corresponding to the contours of a multipolar world.
From this we can now draw whatever conclusions we want.
Alexander Dugin is a widely-known and influential Russian philosopher. His most famous work is The Fourth Political Theory (a book banned by major book retailers), in which he proposes a new polity, one that transcends liberal democracy, Marxism and fascism. He has also introduced and developed the idea of Eurasianism, rooted in traditionalism. This article appears through the kind courtesy of Geopolitica.
Dasha, back at the very beginning of the Special Military Operation, once told me: “Prigozhin is so strong and confident, bold, sharp, that probably no one prays for him. It doesn’t even cross anyone’s mind. Let’s at least start praying for him.”
Today we commemorate (not according to the calendar, but according to the meaning) Moses of Murin, Barbara of Loukan, the seven martyrs of Kerkyra: Iakiskholos, Faustianus, Ianuarius, Marsalius, Euphrasius and Mammius, St. Anthony of Karea. And of course the one who was the first to be in paradise.
We did not notice how we moved from a giggling society to a people deeply immersed in the element of tragedy. Some had already, piercingly realized it in themselves. Some are on the way. Pain, sorrow, grief, anguish, suffering, deafening rage—this is the register of states of a normal person who has entered the structures of war. But also strong faith, quiet hope, a maturing will, a growing mind, a hardened spirit.
The very fact of the death of the heroes of “Wagner” is much more fundamental than the reasons, manipulations and speculations around it. There is no need to get bogged down in details and versions. We are at war, and war means death. And Prigozhin entered the war wholeheartedly, gave himself to it. No one can escape war. Prigozhin realized it before anyone else and did not resist. He acted like a man. And died like a man.
In general, the Wagner group had a special attitude towards death—just face it.
At some point, everyone’s death will come to them. And there is no use squealing about what I am in for. There is always a reason. Prigozhin knew exactly why. God rest the soul of your slain servant, the warrior Eugene.
You know best what to do with him. We only pray that Thy will be done. But still, if it is possible, forgive him. For the sake of Russia, Your country, Your people, forgive him. And forgive us.
If the diabolical enemy is targeting our heroes, it means that we have heroes.
Life, like death, can only be random in random people. There, perhaps, it is mechanical millstones and the sporadic intrusion of randomness. Real people have a destiny, which means a higher meaning, a deeper significance and a great logic—both in life and death. Meaninglessness is far worse than death. Prigozhin, Utkin and the other “Wagner” people were anything but random people.
The power of the people is that thousands take the place of one fallen hero. This is how the people testify that they are alive. Yesterday was the end of the age of technology. The era of ontologies—Russian existence and its laws—is beginning. From now on, it is necessary to speak responsibly and seriously about everything. As if in the presence of people, the tribunal, conscience, death.
The relation of Russians to each other goes not from person to person, but somehow otherwise. Maybe through the land. And, so, through the Russian land we understand, pity and feel each other. Both the living and the dead.
In our hell they were, indeed, the best.
Alexander Dugin is a widely-known and influential Russian philosopher. His most famous work is The Fourth Political Theory (a book banned by major book retailers), in which he proposes a new polity, one that transcends liberal democracy, Marxism and fascism. He has also introduced and developed the idea of Eurasianism, rooted in traditionalism. This article appears through the kind courtesy of Geopolitica.
Featured: Apotheosis of a Warrior, by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, ca. 1696–1770.
The article analyzes the Polish Question in the relationship between Russia and the West. The article considers the Polish Question as an instrument of the West’s ideological struggle against Russia. The article traces the main stages of Russian-Polish relations and concludes that since the Livonian War, Polish authors have been the main transmitters of negative myths about Russia as a barbaric, despotic and expansionist power. The article analyzes the role of the Polish factor in the formation of a negative image of Russia in the West during the partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and during the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars, when the first version of the fake Will of Peter the Great, created by the Polish General Michał Sokolnicki appears. The author analyzes the view of Russia through the prism of the Polish uprisings of 1830-1831 and 1863-1864 and concludes that European Polonophilism had the reverse side of hatred towards Russia. It also concludes that Russia’s suppression of the Polish uprising of 1830-1831 helped to cement its image, not just as an expansionist power, but as a state incompatible with the idea of freedom. It is also noted that despite the fact that after the uprising of 1863-1864 reforms were carried out in Poland, Russia remained the main enemy for new generations of patriotic Poles. The article analyzes the views on Russia of leading European politicians and public figures that were shaped under the influence of the Polish Question. The article also analyzes the racial concepts of Russian inferiority, which were originated by Polish authors, primarily Franciszek Henryk Duchiński, whose ideas had a great influence on the development of European anti-Russian thought.
Introduction
The relationship between Russia and Poland at different stages of historical development was not just complex, but often dramatic, marked by conflicts, Polish interventions, partitions of Poland, and uprisings. It was connected both with political, or, to put it in modern terms, geopolitical contradictions, and with no less important the religious factor, as the origins of the confrontation between Russia and the West are rooted in the split of the churches and the desire to induce Russia to accept the Union.
Beginning in the 14th century, Poland began to pursue an actively offensive policy in the Russian lands. At the same time, as the national researcher Oleg B. Nemensky rightly notes, as the Catholic country territorially closest to Russia, Poland historically was the main source of information about Russians for Western Europe. In 15th-16th centuries, Polish historians created a concept, according to which Russia has long belonged to Poland by right and for all eternity, since the campaigns to Kiev in the 11th century of Bolesław I the Brave and Bolesław II the Bold [Oleg Nemenski, “Rusofobiya kak ideologiya”—”Russophobia as an Ideology,” in Voprosy natsionalizma—Questions of nationalism, (1)2013, p. 13]. As a result, Poland already by the middle of the 16th century “had a full-fledged ideology of the conquest of Russia and the destruction of the “schisma,” i.e., Eastern Christianity” [Nemenski, 2013, p. 33].
From the Livonian War to the Partitions of Poland
During the years of the Livonian War (1558-1583), it was Polish publicists who came to be seen as the main experts on Russia. They became the main transmitters of negative myths about Russia as a barbaric, despotic and expansionist power.
As noted by historian Aleksandr I. Filiushkin, during the Livonian War, which Filiushkin calls the first confrontation between Russia and Europe, the idea of immanent hostility of “Asian” Russia to civilized Europe became one of the main aporias of European historical memory. It was the Polish nobility that played a key role in the formation of the myth of Asian and barbaric Muscovy, the antagonist of the Christian world, later picked up in other countries [A. Filyushkin, Kak Rossiya stala dlya Evropy Aziej? (How did Russia become Asia for Europe?), Moscow: Izobreteniye imperii. Yazyki i praktiki, 2011, p. 21]. The development of printing allowed publishing in large print runs of numerous works about Muscovy, which were distributed throughout Europe. According to O.B. Nemensky, the mass appearance of pamphlets that “exposed” the Russian people and its customs, the Moscow state and its rulers turned Muscovy in the minds of the West into “anti-Europe, a terrible and very dangerous country, combining all the known vices of the human race” [A. Filyushkin, Kak Rossiya stala dlya Evropy Aziej? (How did Russia become Asia for Europe?), Moscow: Izobreteniye imperii. Yazyki i praktiki, 2011, рр. 10-48., p. 34].
These were small texts written in simple style, mostly in German and Polish, which were the forerunners of the modern periodicals. They were modeled on the anti-Turkish pamphlets published in large numbers throughout the 16th century. As Belgian researcher Stefan Mund notes, it is not by chance that both were printed in the same printing houses[Review: A. Filyushkin, “Stéfane Mund, ORBIS RUSSIARUM: Genèse et development de la representation du monde “russe” en Occident à la Renaissance,” in Ab Imperio, (1)2004, p. 563]. And it is no coincidence that the Russians were subjected to pejorative characteristics attributed to the Turks, such as “bloody dogs,” “eternal cruel enemies,” and Russians were depicted on engravings in Turkish decorations [.F. Kudryavcev, “Neuznannaya civilizaciya. Zametki po povodu knigi Stefana Munda «Orbis Russiarum.» Genezis i razvitie predstavlenij o «Russkom mire» na Zapade v epohu Vozrozhdeniya” [“Unrecognized civilization. Notes on Stéfane Mund’s book Orbis Russiarum. Genesis and development of ideas about the ‘Russian world’ in the West in the Renaissance”], in Ancient Rus, 3(21)2005, p. 125].
The Vatican was concerned that victory in the Livonian War could lead to Muscovy’s domination in the Baltic and even beyond. In the future, the Vatican assumed that the Polish-Lithuanian kings would create an outer rampart of Europe, which would “stop at its foot all Muscovites and Tatars” [I. Noimann, Ispol’zovanie «Drugogo»: Obrazy Vostoka v formirovanii evropeiskih identichnostei [The Use of the “Other”: Images of the East in the Formation of European identities]. Moscow: New Publishing House, 2004, p. 110]. The long-prepared Brest Church Union in 1597 abolished legal Orthodoxy in Western Russia, and by the beginning of the 17th century Poles appeared in the Moscow Kremlin. And the conquest of Moscow immediately went under the slogan of “affirmation of Uniatism” [Oleg Nemenski, “Rusofobiya kak ideologiya”—”Russophobia as an Ideology,” in Voprosy natsionalizma—Questions of nationalism, (1)2013, p. 33].
For Europe, the Polish question was a trump card in the struggle with Russia and one of the main arguments for its accusations of expansionism and the desire to subjugate the whole world. These accusations intensified especially after the partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (1772, 1793, 1795). In spite of the fact that Russia, Prussia and Austria took part in them, it was Russia who became the main object of accusations of expansionism and the desire to enslave the unfortunate Poland.
It is no coincidence that it was the Polish author, General Michał Sokolnicki, who wrote the original text of the so-called The Will of Peter the Great. Even the American researcher Raymond McNally in 1958, and in 1967 the French researcher Simone Blanc came to the reasonable conclusion that the author of the original text of the document was Sokolnicki, who in 1797 wrote the document, “General Review of Russia” and offered it to the French Directory. It was a passionate appeal to France, which had forgotten its traditional policy of being an ally and protector of Poland, and which did not know that Poland and the whole of Europe was threatened by Russia [S. Blanc, “Histoire d’une phobie : le Testament de Pierre le Grand,” in Cahiers du monde russe et soviétique, 1(3-4)1968, p. 268]. The end of the text contained the “Plan of Peter I,” which, according to the author, was extracted from Russian archives, captured in Warsaw in 1794 [Blanc, 1968, p. 271]. The government of the Directory did not demand this document at that time, because the objectives were different.
However, Sokolnicki was remembered by Napoleon Bonaparte, who became First Consul and then Emperor in 1804, and who himself aspired to world domination, not mythical but real. In 1811, General Sokolnicki was summoned to Paris and took an active part in the secret preparations for war with Russia. It was Napoleon, having viewed and edited the text of Sokolnicki’s “Opinion on Russia,” ordered to include it in the book by Charles-Louis Lesur, Des progrès de la puissance russe: depuis son origine jusqu’au commencement du XIXe siècle (1812), which was to be published just before the beginning of the Russian campaign. The first version of Lesur’s book appeared in 1807, probably on the eve of the Peace of Tilsit. However, the work was actually published in October 1812. In any case, R. McNally has called this work one of the most influential in the history of Russophobia [R. McNally, “The Origins of Russophobia in France 1812-1830,” in American Slavic East and European Review, 3(17)1958, p. 173].
At the end of the chapter devoted to Peter I, a summary of the “Plan of Peter I” was given [Lesur, 1812, pp. 117-179]. As S. Blanc has noted, the summary of Lesur’s book differs only slightly from Sokolnicki’s text [Blanc, 1968, p. 268]. This leaves no doubt that we have before us one and the same “document,” which differed only by minor editing and very small changes.
The Polish Question in the 19th Century: Between the Congress of Vienna and the Polish Uprisings
The Polish Question became a stumbling block at the Congress of Vienna in 1814-1815, as Russia’s allies in the anti-Napoleonic coalition opposed the annexation of the entire territory of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw to Russia. Despite the fact that Russia granted the Grand Duchy of Poland within Russia wide autonomy and constitution, Europe perceived it solely as a propaganda measure to put to sleep the vigilance for further development of Russia’s expansionist plans [N.P. Tanshina, “Pol’skij vopros po zapiskam imperatora Nikolaya I i grafa Sh.-A. Pocco di Borgo” [“The Polish question according to the notes of Emperor Nicholas I and Count S.-A. Pozzo di Borgo”], in Novaya i noveyshaya istoriya, (2)2018, p. 15-26].
Following 1815, the Polish issue continued to be stirred up in Europe, and the ferment of minds was often the result of the hands of the Poles themselves, especially since European public opinion in liberalizing Europe was not in favor of powerful Russia. In particular, in 1829, under the influence of Polish agitation in Paris, L’ Histoire des legions polonaises en Italie sous le commandement du general Dombrovski, in two volumes, (History of the Polish Legions in Italy under the Command of General Dombrowski) was published, written by Leonard Chodzko; the Preface to the book included words about the Russian threat. (Jan Heinrich Dąbrowski (1755-1818), Polish military officer, division general of the Grand Army. After Napoleon’s abdication he returned to Poland).
The July Revolution of 1830 was the catalyst for the revolutionary movement in Europe. On November 29, 1830, an uprising began in Warsaw. The events in Poland went beyond the internal Russian problem and became the object of close attention and political discussions throughout Europe.
For the average Frenchman, supporting the uprising in Poland and favoring the development of the democratic idea in France were roughly the same thing. But King Louis-Philippe of Orleans was not at all inclined to interfere in the events in Poland, seeing it as an internal Russian affair. However, as in the case of the Russo-Turkish War of 1828-1829, government policy diverged from the mood of public opinion. The authorities, of course, were also Polonophile, but Louis-Philippe, wishing to be recognized as a full-fledged monarch who had no intention of fanning the fires of revolution and exporting it, refused to provide armed aid to Poland. Therefore, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Horace François Bastien Sébastiani de La Portam declared France’s non-interference in the affairs of Poland.
Nevertheless, the public did not stop exerting serious pressure on the government, which, in the opinion of the French, was responsible for the current international situation [N.P. Tanshina, Politicheskaya bor’ba vo Francii po voprosam vneshnej politiki v gody Iyul’skoj monarhii (The Political Struggle in France on Foreign Policy Issues During the July Monarchy). Moscow: Prometheus, 2005, pp. 157-159]. In France, there was active propaganda in favor of Poland. Catholics played an important role in this case. For example, in the Catholic publication, L’Avenir, in December 1830, young Count Charles Montalembert (1810-1870) wrote that in the Polish uprising he saw the struggle of oppressed Catholics against Russian Orthodox-oppressors. The liberal Benjamin Constant and the Polish historian, geographer and social activist, Leonard Chodzko (1800-1871), made fiery speeches calling on all friends of freedom to support Poland. Volunteers were sent to Poland from Paris, Lyon, Strasbourg; Poles were helped by doctors; cultural figures organized charity lotteries in favor of the rebels [Charles Corbet, A l’ère des nationalismes. L’opinion française face à l’inconnue russe. 1799-1894 (1967), p. 161].
In the meantime, Field Marshal Ivan F. Paskevich was sent to Poland. He arrived with the troops on the night of June 13-14 and immediately began to prepare an offensive. At the beginning of August, Warsaw was encircled by Russian troops. The commander-in-chief delivered to the besieged an address by Nicholas I, who promised amnesty for the last time on condition of voluntary surrender of arms and submission to the imperial authority. The deputies of the Sejm rejected the proposal. On August 27 (September 7), 1831, after forty-eight hours of bloody fighting, Russian troops triumphantly entered Warsaw. On February 14/26, 1832, the “Organic Statute” was declared. Poland was deprived of the Constitution of 1815, the Sejm was dissolved, the Polish army was liquidated, and independent government was abolished. Poland became part of Russia with provinces instead of traditional voivodships. They retained only the right to some local liberties. According to the “Organic Statute,” Russian representatives were introduced into the Viceroy’s Council. A state of siege was declared in Warsaw. The leaders of the uprising and rebellious generals were exiled to Siberia and deprived of property, and their children were taken to be educated in the Russian army.
From the beginning of September 1831, the front pages of French newspapers were devoted to the events in Poland. When, finally, on September 15, France learned of Warsaw’s surrender, a riot broke out in Paris. In the streets there were shouts of “Long live the republic!” And Parisians broke the windows of the ministries, tried to get into the Palais Royal. For several days, there were anti-Russian popular demonstrations in the capital, which required the intervention of troops to subdue. Under the windows of the hotel building where the Russian embassy was located, shouts were heard: “Down with the Russians! Long live Poland! Revenge!” The windows of the embassy were broken with stones [Blanc, 1968, p. 220].
At times, Paris was covered by popular anger. In March 1831, news spread in the capital that the Russian army had entered Warsaw. Parisians marched on the Champs-Elysees with slogans “Death to the Russians!” The windows of the Russian Embassy were again broken; the police were barely able to protect it.
The French public reacted avidly to the events in Poland. For example, the famous poet, Auguste-Marseille Barthélemy, wrote: “Noble sister! Warsaw! She died for us! Died with weapons in her hands… Without hearing our cry of compassion… Do not talk any more about the glory of our barricades! You want to see the coming of the Russians: they will come.” Abbot Félicité Robert de La Mennais, in his article, “The Taking of Warsaw,” wrote: “Warsaw has fallen! The heroic Polish nation, abandoned by France, rejected by England, fell in the struggle with the barbarian hordes… Glorious nation, our brother in faith and in arms, when you fought for your life, we could only help you with compassion; and now that you are defeated, we can only mourn you. People of heroes, people of our love, rest in the grave where you have ended up because of the crime of some and the meanness of others. But hope is still alive, and the prophetic voice says: You will be reborn!” [A. Dumas (père), Mémoires, vols. 4-6 (1854), pp. 56-63].
Russia’s suppression of the uprising helped to consolidate its image, not just as an expansionist power, but as a state incompatible with the idea of freedom, which was especially used by liberals and radicals of all stripes. According to the American historian Martin Malia, these events produced a real metamorphosis in the perception of Russia and caused a real shock in Europe. Polish patriots were overnight not only suppressed, but also deprived of constitution and autonomy [Martin Malia, Russia under Western Eyes. From the Bronze Horseman to the Lenin Mausoleum (1999), p. 92]. As the researcher noted, for the first time, the system of autocracy was imposed, undoubtedly, on European territory. The West created a new image of Russia as a bastion of aggressive militant reaction [Malia (1999), p. 93].
Russia was reminded of the partitions of Poland and the entry of Russian troops into Paris, as well as the heroic resistance of the Poles. The words of French Foreign Minister Sebastiani, “Order reigns in Warsaw,” were circulated by the opposition and became the caption for a popular cartoon by Granville, which depicted a Cossack trampling the corpses of Poles. As the Swiss researcher Guy Mettan notes, “Nicholas I lost the laurels of the ‘liberator’ of Greece, which had long challenged other powers, and consolidated his reputation as an Asian despot” [Guy Mettan, Zapad—Rossiya: tysyacheletnyaya vojna. Istoriya rusofobii ot Karla Velikogo do ukrainskogo krizisa [The West—Russia: The Thousand-Year War. History of Russophobia from Charlemagne to the Ukrainian Crisis] (2016), p. 249].
The personification of the changes that occurred to Russia was Prince Adam Czartoryski, formerly a friend and minister of Emperor Alexander, now opposed to Nicholas as head of the Provisional Government in Warsaw.
According to Martin Malia, Europeans suddenly realized that “after France, Poland is the most heroic nation in Europe.” With the growth of the liberal movement in Europe, after the July Revolution, Poland was perceived as the main bulwark of all progressive values of the time, and received an additional halo of glory as the most faithful of the great emperor’s allies. As Malia correctly noted, the more Poland seemed to be a martyr, the more Russia seemed to be an executioner [Malia, 1999, p. 93].
After the suppression of the uprising, its leaders and, in general, many Poles emigrated and settled in different countries, mainly in France and in Great Britain [21]. It was Poles in the following years who raised a powerful anti-Russian wave and shaped public opinion about Russia. And since the Livonian War, Poles were the main “experts on Russia” and the main source of information, and such information was very much in the soul of the Polonophile-minded European public (V.F. Ratch, Pol’skaya emigraciya do i vo vremya poslednego myatezha 1831-1863 [Polish emigration Before and During the Last Rebellion of 1831-1863] (1866), p. 15).
The French government was sufficiently concerned about the presence of Poles in France. As early as November 1831, the government of Casimir Perrier, in an effort to remove the restless Polish element from the capital, issued a circular forbidding Poles from entering Paris. As a result, Polish emigrants were placed first in two large and then in several dozen small groups in provincial French towns where “Polish depots” were established, while only the wealthiest and generally moderate elements of the emigration remained in Paris.
In the years that followed, Poland was an important element in the internal political life of France, and the Polish Question did not stray far from the parliamentary agenda. Thus, at the January session of 1834, Narcisse-Achille de Salvandy, a prominent politician of those years, compared Russia’s actions in rebellious Poland to the policy of Genghis Khan and Tamerlane, but found Russia’s policy even more cruel. François Bignon, an opposition politician, solemnly declared that “the day when the Poles themselves will throw off their chains, or the day when other nations will free them from the bloody yoke pressing on them, will be the day when humanity will triumph over barbarism” [Corbet, 1967, p. 169].
At the same time, it cannot be said that European public opinion was unanimously against Russia, even after the July Revolution and the suppression of the Warsaw Uprising. Everything depended on the system of alliances on which European leaders relied within the framework of the “European concert” at any given moment. In particular, in France at that time, the legitimists, i.e., supporters of the overthrown legitimate Bourbon dynasty, were in favor of an alliance with Russia. Thus, the far-right newspaper Le Quotidienne supported Russia in the Polish issue, not without reason noting that the uprising in Warsaw was a consequence of the July Revolution [Corbet, 1967, p. 176].
In 1835, the Polish Question was once again on the pan-European agenda, and this was due to a speech made by Emperor Nicholas I, on October 5, 1835, in the Lazienkowski Palace in Warsaw. Speaking before a deputation of Polish townspeople, the emperor said: “If you obstinately cherish the dream of a separate, national, independent Poland and all these chimeras, you will only bring great misfortunes upon yourselves. At my command a citadel has been erected here, and I declare to you that at the slightest disturbance I will order to crush your city, I will destroy Warsaw and I will certainly not rebuild it again” [3, p. 215]. [3, с. 215]. This speech was perceived extremely negatively in the West. In the report of the Third Department for this year, it was reported: “It is not surprising that this speech neither the British nor the French liked. Having distorted it and given it a wrong meaning, they filled the newspapers with their reprimands, even rude swear words” [M.V. Sidorova, E.I. Shcherbakova, eds., Rocciya pod nadzorom. Otchety III otdeleniya 1827—1869 [Russia Under Surveillance. Reports of the Third Department, 1827-1869] (Moscow: Russian Cultural Foundation, 2006), pp. 129-131].
With this speech, the Emperor put a very powerful weapon in the hands of his detractors. Even if Nicholas’s character had been more accommodating, this speech would still have been the basis for a new wave of propaganda vilifying the Russians.
The famous journalist, politician, and Sorbonne professor Saint-Marc Girardin spoke very harshly of Emperor Nicholas, publishing a scathing article in his newspaper Le journal des débats, on October 10, 1835. Saint-Marc Girardin (Marc Girardin) (1801-1873) was a French politician, writer, journalist, literary critic and publisher, editor of Le Journal des Débats, and a member of the French Academy. A few months later, speaking in Parliament, on January 11, 1836, he declared that by “confiscating” Poland for itself, Russia had destroyed “one of the barriers protecting it” in Europe; and Girardin went on to trundle out the liberals’ favorite song that Russia and freedom are incompatible, and therefore “freedom is the best barrier against Russia.” And quite in the spirit of the already formed tradition, he frightened his fellow parliamentarians with the “Russian threat”: “Russia did not need a hundred years to reach almost to the door of Constantinople from Azov… It took her sixty years to be where she is now… Sixty more years will pass, and where will she be?” [Corbet, 1967, p. 178].
Many such pro-Polish statements were made. In particular, the already mentioned Count Montalembert until the 1860s consistently opposed Emperor Nicholas I and then Alexander II as far as “Holy Poland” was concerned, and from the Polish Question he turned to the Russian issue. On January 6, 1836, speaking in the House of Peers, he enumerated in detail the “atrocities” of Russia against the Polish people, in an attempt to show that the drama of the Poles was well within the general policy of Russia. The conquest of Poland was only a stage in the realization of a gigantic historical plan: the subjugation of the whole of Europe. Therefore, the Poles were defending not only their independence and their interests, but were defending “civilization against barbarism, the long and noble superiority of the West against the new invasion of the Tartars.” In doing so, Montalembert emphasized that Russia found “admirers and devotees everywhere,” but what did it promise Europe? “Darkness instead of light, military despotism instead of civil liberties, the shame of idolatrous schisma instead of the free beliefs of the West” [Corbet, 1967, pp. 179-180].
Every year, when the French Parliament debated the Address in response to the King’s Speech from the Throne, Montalembert used the opportunity to raise the Polish Question and renew his anti-Russian philippics. On November 17, 1840, on the wave of the Eastern crisis and anti-Russian sentiment, he said in the House of Peers: “We are all threatened by an ever-increasing danger, the predominance of Russia in Europe… Russia is already encircling Europe on all sides: its central border is only 200 leagues from the Rhine… From Bukovina to Kotor, the Slavic peoples of Austria profess her religion; she is awaited and called for” [Corbet, 1967, p. 181].
In England, these themes were developed by David Urquhart (1805-1877), whose name later became synonymous with Russophobia. Of course, Urquhart’s Russophobia was the reverse side of his Turkophilia, but Russian policy in Poland was also one of the main objects of his attacks. All the more so, because the documentary basis of the journal he published from November 1835 to 1837 in English and French (Portfolio, or Collection of State Documents … Illustrating the History of our Time) was the diplomatic documents provided to him by Polish emigrants. These were, first of all, the secret correspondence of Russian ambassadors, allegedly taken in 1831 from the chancery of Grand Duke Konstantin Pavlovich in Warsaw (in fact, most of the documents were forged by Urquhart) [K.V. Dushenko, “Pervye debaty o ‘rusofobii’ (Angliya, 1836–1841)”—”The First Debate about ‘Russophobia’: England, 1836-1841”], in Historical Expertise, 4(2021), p. 230].
Urquhart’s journals had great international resonance and were translated into foreign languages. In 1835, he published a pamphlet “England and Russia” (D.J. Urquhart, England, France, Russia & Turkey), in which he intimidated the reader with the “Russian threat,” emphasizing that for Poland “its space is void in the political map of Europe,” and the powers themselves allowed it, and the French government, moreover, did not help Poland [Urquhart, England & Russia (1835-1856), p. 1-2].
At the same time, in the eyes of Europeans, Poland was a bargaining chip in the defense of their own national interests. Therefore, when Russia was seen as an ally, the Polish Question was interpreted in a completely different way. Such metamorphoses, for example, happened with the famous politician and diplomat, Napoleon’s confessor, Abbé Dominique Dufour de Pradt (1759-1837). From the very beginning of the Restoration regime, he harshly criticized Russian policy, regularly actualizing the theme of the “Russian threat” and intimidating the French that Russia was “fifty leagues from Berlin and Vienna” [D.G.F. Pradt, Système permanent de l’Europe à l’egard de la Russie (1828), p. 6]. However, in 1836, amid the crisis of the French-English “cordial agreement,” Pradt bet on an alliance with Russia and published, Question de l’Orient Sous Les Rapports Généraux Et Particuliers, in which, among other things, he justified Russia’s policy in Poland, emphasizing that at the Congress of Vienna Russia’s demands on Poland were fair, and Poland thanks to Russia received a constitution [Pradt, 1828, pp. 122-123]. He even justified the suppression of the Polish uprising of 1830-1831 and the Warsaw speech of Emperor Nicholas, noting that any sovereign in his place would have done the same [Pradt, 1828, p. 134]. For the politically engaged Pradt, in this text, Russia is Poland’s natural protector, its real guardian angel. However, it should be understood that this was pure conjecture; for in general, the negative view of Russia through the Polish lens was dominant.
In 1839, Leonard Chodzko, mentioned above, a participant of the Polish uprising, published another version of the fake Will of Peter the Great. It was a bestseller, going through six editions from 1839 to 1847, and played a decisive role in popularizing, in European countries, the idea of the conquering intentions of Russian sovereigns [V.P. Kozlov, Tajny fal’sifikacii: Posobie dlya prepodavatelej i studentov vuzov (Secrets of Falsification: A Manual for Teachers and University Students), 1996, p. 81].
In the same year, Marquis de Custine traveled to Russia, writing the most famous book about the country, which to this day is perceived as a bible of Russophobes. Custine, being an outcast in the Parisian salons, had close ties, first of all, with the leaders of the Polish emigration and was a guest in the salon of the wife of Prince Adam Czartoryski. And in Russia, Custine came, according to one version, to advocate for his kind Polish friend Ignacy Gurowski, taking him with him (George Frost Kennan, The Marquis De Custine and His Russia in 1839, p. 24-25).
The most important source of information for Custine was one of the most famous Poles then living in Paris, the poet Adam Mickiewicz (1798-1855). After the suppression of the uprising, he lived in France as a political émigré, and in 1840, thanks to the persistent petition of the famous historian Jules Michelet, received a chair in Slavic languages and literature at the Collège de France. According to Michelet, “Mickiewicz had laid out the general features of Slavic life from above, and, descending into detail, cast deep, admirable glimmers on the true character of Russian government. He would have gone further, but they wouldn’t let him. His chair was nullified [Jules Michelet, Legendes démocratiques du Nord (1854), p. 36] (the authorities were dissatisfied with the preaching of Slavic messianism). This happened in 1844; and in 1849, the wave of Polish propaganda in five volumes was published as a collection of his “lectures”: Slavs [Corbet, 1967, pp. 168-169].
A new outbreak of anti-Russian sentiments occurred in 1846, after the suppression of the Krakow Uprising by Austrian troops, and again during the revolutions of 1848-1849, and especially after Russia suppressed the uprising in Hungary (at the request of the Austrian Emperor). But the apotheosis occurred during the Crimean War (1853-1856) [Nemenski, 2013, pp. 46-51].
On the eve of the war, Jules Michelet, who loved Poland with all his romantic heart and hated Russia just as passionately, wrote a series of articles entitled, Legendes démocratiques du Nord (The Democratic Legends of the North), in which he created a cult of unhappy Poland and the heroic Poles, and dehumanized the Russians, reducing them to the state of not just non-humans, but mollusks at the bottom of the sea. He called Russia’s policy towards Poland deceitful and Jesuitical, emphasizing that Empress Catherine “planned to drag Russia into a religious war, to make the Russian peasants think that it was a question of protecting their brothers in the Greek faith, who in Poland were being persecuted by people of the Latin faith. And this war, continued Michelet, “took on a character of appalling barbarity. Under the impetus of this atheist woman, who preached the crusade, populations and entire villages were tortured and burned alive in the name of tolerance” [11, с. 301]. According to Michelet, Catherine’s true goal was the destruction of Poland [Legendes démocratiques, pp. 53-54].
A similarly powerful anti-Russian wave swept over Europe during the Polish uprising of 1863-1864. Michelet worked hard this time too, publishing a series of articles entitled, “Martyr Poland,” while the equally illustrious Victor Hugo, also for the umpteenth time, unleashed invectives against Russia. Michelet called Poland, “the heart of the North.” Moreover, for him Poland is France itself: “La Pologne est une France avec tous nos anciens défauts, nos qualités” [Jules Michelet, La Pologne martyr: Russie—Danube, p. xv].
Concepts of Russian Racial Inferiority
It was Poles who stood at the origins of the concept of racial inferiority of Russians. Such ideas were first developed by the Polish historian and public figure, participant in the uprising of 1830-1831, Joachim Lelewel. In the form of a full-fledged theory, these ideas were formulated by the historian and ethnographer Franciszek Henryk Duchiński (1816-1893). After the suppression of the uprising of 1830-1831, he emigrated to France and was a professor of history at the Polish School in Paris. His main idea was that the Great Russians, or “Moskals,” do not belong to the Slavic and even to the Aryan tribe, but are a branch of the Turanian tribe, on par with the Mongols, and who only appropriated the name of Russians, which belongs, properly, only to the Little Russians and Belarusians, close to the Poles in their origin [F. Duhinski, “Osnovy istorii Pol’shi, inyh slavyanskih stran i Moskvy,” in, Russkij vopros v istorii politiki i mysli, antologiya, Pod red. A.Yu. Shutova and A.A. Shirinyanca (“Fundamentals of the History of Poland, other Slavic countries and Moscow,” in The Russian Question in the History of Politics and Thought, anthology, edited by A.Y. Shutov and A.A. Shirinyants], Moscow: Moscow University Press, 2013., p. 479].
Duchiński’s texts, which had no scientific basis, were aimed at justifying the necessity of creating a buffer between “Aryan” Europe and “Turanian” Moscow. This buffer was to be an independent Poland, including Ukraine-Rus, Belarus, Lithuania, the Baltic States, Smolensk and Veliky Novgorod.
Duchiński’s ideas were enthusiastically received by the Polish emigration, which dreamed of the restoration of a “Great Poland from sea to sea,” and his ideas also had a great influence on the Western European thought of the 19th century. In particular, Karl Marx was very interested in the concept of Duchiński and spoke in favor of it: “He claims that the real Muscovites, i.e., the inhabitants of the former Grand Duchy of Moscow, are mostly Mongols or Finns, etc., as well as the parts of Russia located further to the east and its southeastern part… I wish that Dukhinsky (thus in the text—NT) was right, and that at least this view would prevail among the Slavs” [letter dated June 24, 1865, in Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Werke, (Berlin: Dietz Verlag, 1978), vol. 31, pp. 126–127].
Duchiński’s theory was enthusiastically accepted by French intellectuals and politicians—E. Renaud, Aimé Martin, K. Delamar and others [Shutova and Shirinyanca (2013), p. 43]. Thus, the historian, publicist and politician Henri Martin (1810-1883), author of Histoire de France (History of France) in nineteen volumes, characterized by an extremely hostile attitude to Russia, in one of his major works, La Russie et l’Europe (1866) (Russia and Europe) described the Russians as a barbaric people of non-European (Turanian) despotism, who had unjustly appropriated the history of Russia. He considered Duchiński’s concept as “excellent,” and explained the Russian craving for subjugation as follows: “Such a feeling arises in peoples who are at an extremely low stage of cultural development of nations, where an individual person is unable to control his fate and does not even express such a desire” [Shutova and Shirinyanca (2013), p. 382].
Despite the fact that after the uprising of 1863-1864, reforms were carried out in Poland, Russia remained the main enemy for newer generations of patriotic Poles, so that at the end of the 19th century, Józef Piłsudski (1867-1935) proclaimed the main goal of his life as the physical destruction of the Russian state with the subsequent restoration of a new Poland, dominating in Central and Eastern Europe on Russia’s ruins [Shutova and Shirinyanca (2013), p. 45]. In the article “Russia,” first published in 1895, he noted: “The Russian Tsar is the main enemy of the Polish working class. Tsarist autocracy—the main obstacle in our way, now and always” [Shutova and Shirinyanca (2013), p. 514].
Conclusion
As the current situation shows, these ideas did not pass away with Pilsudski—and Poles are still perceived in the West as the main experts on Russia. And, of course, the West willingly believes them, because Polish scary myths about Russia, ideas about Russian “Asianness” and Russians “stealing” history fit very well into the pan-European narrative of a barbaric, despotic and expansionist Russia. And Poles, of course, can speak only “the truth” about Russia, and the West willingly believes in this Polish “truth” and uses it in its ideological and geopolitical confrontation with Russia—without thinking much about the Poles themselves. Only now, Ukraine is the “martyr,” and Western love for Ukraine is the reverse side of hatred for Russia.
Natalia P. Tanshina, is Professor in the Department of General History at the Institute of Social Sciences of the Russian Academy of National Economy and Public Administration under the President of the Russian Federation, and is Professor at the Department of Modern and Contemporary History of Europe and America, Moscow State Pedagogical University, Moscow. This article appears courtesy of Nauka Obshestvo Oborona.
Featured: Exposed to the world’s contempt, illustration by Udo J. Keppler, Puck, June 17, 1903.
This paper presents the results of the analysis of relevant aspects of the history of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) in comparison with the policy of the Kiev regime in 2014-2022, using the secrets revealed with the beginning of demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine during the special military operation of the Armed Forces of Russia. These revelations have increased the amount of evidence that the destruction of Russia is the invariable strategic goal of radical Ukrainian nationalism—Ukronazism—throughout its history and in our times, along with the continuity of goals, ideological positions, anti-people policy and crimes of the Banderites and their modern followers. Attention is drawn to the fact that the OUN actively participated in Hitler’s atrocities against Russia and its people. Their leaders and many other Ukronazis were agents and executors of the will of Hitler’s special services, after the victory over fascism, and of special services of the USA and the West. Maidan usurpers of power under the control and with the participation of the United States and their NATO satellites robbed and destroyed Ukraine, turned it into an anti-Russian bridgehead of the United States and NATO and together with them crossed the red line in creating a military threat to the Russian Federation and preparing aggression against it. Russia has therefore taken measures adequate to this threat to protect its national security, to save the people of the Donbass from genocide and to free the fraternal people of Ukraine from neo-Nazism. The most significant common features of radical Ukrainian nationalism in the 1920s-1940s and 2014-2022 are identified. The main elements of the Russian leadership’s decisions to recognize the Lugansk People’s Republic, Donetsk People’s Republic and to conduct a special military operation in Ukraine are summarized. The necessity of the denazification of Ukraine, including the holding of an international military tribunal, is confirmed by numerous facts and the results of preliminary investigations, which have established the involvement of more than 220 persons in crimes against peace and security of humanity.
Introduction: Decision to Conduct a Special Operation. Its Goal and Objectives
On February 24, 2022, a special military operation of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation in Ukraine (special operation) was launched to prevent further civilian casualties and a humanitarian catastrophe in the Donbass, to denazify and demilitarize Ukraine, to prevent Ukraine from becoming a nuclear power and, as a consequence, to protect the state interests and sovereignty of the Russian Federation.
The decision to carry out the special operation was preceded by the Resolution of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation No. 743-8 GD, unanimously adopted by the deputies of the State Duma on February 15, 2022.
The decision to conduct a special operation was preceded by the Resolution, unanimously adopted by the deputies of the State Duma on February 15, 2022, of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, No. 743-8 GD: ” “On the appeal of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation to the President of the Russian Federation, V.V. Putin, on the need to recognize the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Luhansk People’s Republic. The appeal noted:
Residents of Donetsk and Lugansk regions of Ukraine at the all-Ukrainian referendum on March 27, 1994 agreed to the federal-territorial structure of Ukraine and the consolidation of the Russian language as the state language of Ukraine, along with the Ukrainian language, and also supported the use of the Russian language in the territories of Donetsk and Lugansk regions of Ukraine, in the sphere of labor relations, office work, documentation, education, and scientific activities.
The new authorities of Ukraine, glorifying the fascists Bandera, Shukhevych and their followers, became intolerant of the historically established norms of life, as well as the will and religion of the inhabitants of these regions. The actions of the Ukrainian authorities forced residents of certain areas of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions of Ukraine to initiate a referendum and vote, in May 2014, for the adoption of the Act of Self-Determination of the Donetsk People’s Republic (89%) and the Act of Self-Determination of the Luhansk People’s Republic (96%).
For eight years, residents of certain areas of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions of Ukraine lived under shelling of small- and large-caliber weapons. According to the United Nations, more than 10,000 people have died, more than 50,000 have been injured, more than 1.4 million people are internally displaced within Ukraine, and more than 2.5 million people have arrived en masse in the Russian Federation, seeking emergency asylum. The Ukrainian authorities had stopped paying pensions and social benefits to residents and had established a complete economic blockade of the population and enterprises of certain regions of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions of Ukraine. The actions of the Ukrainian authorities can be regarded as the genocide of their own people.
As it became known from the originals of secret cipher telegrams captured by Russian military personnel during the special operation, on January 22, 2022, the commander of the National Guard of Ukraine, Colonel-General Mykola Balan, ordered the heads of the northern Kiev, southern Odessa and western territorial departments of the National Guard of Ukraine to prepare one of the strike groups for offensive operations in the zone of the “Joint Forces Operation” (JFO) in the Donbass. All activities of combat coordination of the nationalists were ordered to be completed on February 28, 2022, in order to continue to carry out combat missions as part of the Ukrainian “Joint Forces Operation” in the Donbass.
By February 2022, Ukrainian forces multiplied the shelling of the Donbass with prohibited large-caliber artillery weapons. Against the background of false statements about the desire for peace, Kyiv had begun large-scale artillery preparations for an offensive by a strike group of troops pulled into eastern Ukraine, with the support of aviation and missile systems.
On February 21, the leaders of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and the Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR) Denis Pushilin and Leonid Pasechnik addressed the President of the Russian Federation V.V. Putin with a request to recognize the republics:
Denis Pushilin, head of the DPR: “On behalf of the entire people of the DPR, we ask you to recognize the Donetsk People’s Republic as an independent, democratic, legal, social state. We also ask you to consider the possibility of concluding an agreement on friendship and cooperation between the DPR and the Russian Federation, providing for cooperation in the field of defense;”
Leonid Pasechnik, head of the LPR: “Dear Vladimir Vladimirovich, in order to prevent the mass death of the civilian population of the republic, 300 thousand of whom are citizens of Russia, I ask you to recognize the sovereignty and independence of the Lugansk People’s Republic.”
On the same day, an unscheduled meeting of the Security Council of the Russian Federation was held in the Kremlin, under the leadership of the head of state, to discuss the appeal and the situation that had developed in the Donbass. Each gave his proposals to the President regarding the appeals of the leaders of the DPR and LPR to Russia, with a request to recognizing their sovereignty, and the resolution of the State Duma of the Russian Federation, calling on the head of state to recognize the independence and sovereignty of the DPR and LPR.
On February 21, the President of the Russian Federation signed Decrees No. 71 “On the Recognition of the Donetsk People’s Republic,” and No. 72 “On the Recognition of the Lugansk People’s Republic.”
On February 22, the State Duma adopted, the Federation Council approved, and the President of the Russian Federation signed and promulgated federal laws No. 15-FZ “On the ratification of the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance between the Russian Federation and the Donetsk People’s Republic,” and No. 16-FZ “On the ratification of the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance between the Russian Federation and the Lugansk People’s Republic.”
On the same day, the President of the Russian Federation submitted to the Federation Council a proposal to adopt a resolution of the Federation Council on consent to the use of the Armed Forces outside the territory of the Russian Federation. On February 22, the Federation Council adopted Decree of the Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation No. 35-SF “On the use of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation outside the territory of the Russian Federation.” The decision of the Federation Council was aimed at establishing peace, preventing the continuation of bloodshed and shelling of citizens.
All these acts were adopted in accordance with the Constitution of the Russian Federation, and in compliance with the necessary procedures provided for the activities of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation.
On February 23, the Heads of the DPR (Denis Pushilin) and LPR (Leonid Pasechnik) appealed to the President of the Russian Federation, with a request to provide assistance in repelling aggression from the Armed Forces of Ukraine (APU), in order to avoid civilian casualties and prevent a humanitarian catastrophe in the Donbass. The appeals emphasized the following:
… at present, due to the aggravation of the situation and threats from Kyiv, the citizens of the republics are forced to leave their homes, their evacuation to Russia continues. In the context of ongoing military aggression by the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the republics, the destruction of civilian and industrial infrastructure, schools, hospitals, kindergartens and, worst of all, the death of the civilian population, including children. The actions of the Kyiv regime testify to the unwillingness to stop the war in the Donbass;
Kyiv continues to build up its military presence on the line of contact, while receiving comprehensive support, including military support, from the United States and other Western states. The Kiev regime is focused on the forceful solution of the conflict.
Taking the above into account, the heads of the two republics, in connection with the current situation, as well as in order to prevent civilian casualties and a humanitarian catastrophe, on the basis of Articles 3 and 4 of the treaties of friendship, cooperation and mutual assistance between the Russian Federation and the republics, asked the President of Russia to assist in repelling the aggression of the armed forces and formations of Ukraine.
On February 24, in accordance with the decision of the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, V.V. Putin, the Russian Armed Forces launched a special military operation to protect the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics.
The President announced his decision in an address to the citizens of Russia on February 24 at 06:00 Moscow time:
Circumstances require us to take decisive and immediate action. The people’s republics of Donbass turned to Russia with a request for help.
In this regard, in accordance with Article 51 of Part 7 of the UN Charter, with the sanction of the Federation Council of Russia, and in pursuance of the treaties of friendship and mutual assistance, ratified by the Federal Assembly on February 22 this year with the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Luhansk People’s Republic, I have decided to conduct a special military operation.
Its goal is to protect people who have been subjected to bullying and genocide by the Kyiv regime for eight years. And for this we will strive for the demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine, as well as bringing to justice those who have committed numerous murderous crimes against civilians, including citizens of the Russian Federation.
In doing so, our plans do not include the occupation of Ukrainian territories. We are not going to impose anything on anyone by force.
When making decisions, as reported by the Chief of the Main Operational Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Federation Armed Forces, First Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Federation Armed Forces, Colonel General Sergey F. Rudskoy, two possible courses of action were considered. The first, to confine ourselves to the territory of the DPR and LPR within the administrative borders of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions, which is enshrined in the constitutions of the republics. The first was to limit the territory of only the DNR and LNR within the administrative borders of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, which is enshrined in the constitutions of the republics. But at that time there was a high probability that the Ukrainian authorities would constantly support the group involved in the so-called joint forces operation. Therefore, the second option was chosen, providing for actions on the entire territory of Ukraine, with the implementation of measures to demilitarize and denazify it.
Ukrainian Nationalism: Origins, Essence and Content
How did nationalism develop so radically in Ukraine that the Russian army has to solve the task of its denazification? What are the essence, content and origins of nationalism in modern Ukraine?
First of all, let us define the concept of “nationalism.” In the West, it is widely used in the same sense as patriotism. And in Russia these concepts have different content. The patriotism of the multinational Russian people is traditionally combined with respect for the interests, culture and patriotic feelings of the peoples of other countries, and nationalism, especially in extreme, radical forms—chauvinism, fascism, Nazism is condemned as an ideology that opposes peoples and states to each other, sowing enmity and serving an aggressive policy. These features are inherent in radical Ukrainian nationalism. Under the slogans of self-determination and independence, Ukrainian radical nationalists, Ukronazis, throughout the history of their movement have pursued the goal of selling their native Ukraine to foreign colonizers in order to become a privileged collaborationist caste of overseers over their compatriots.
In the early 1930s, the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) declared the goal of creating its own “self-styled” state. But realizing that these aspirations were impossible and unattainable, it limited its dreams to being the Ukrainian colony of Germany in the hope of serving the role of henchmen of future colonizers. For the sake of this the OUN fought against full-fledged Ukrainian statehood and for its replacement by the false tinsel of a puppet, self-styled “independence”—and against the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, a full-fledged Ukrainian state, equal among equals with the Soviet federation, and one of the founders of the USSR and the United Nations. And the OUN’s descendants sold for foreign money and cookies the independence of their native Ukraine, obtained with the help of Russia in 1991, together with the huge territories given to it by Russia during the time when both of them were in the United Federation. And the US with its NATO satellites bought Ukraine—along with the sellers—in order to fight against Russia and destroy it.
The roots of terror and genocide in Ukraine in the 21st century are in the ideology and bloody experience of Ukrainian nationalism. In 1900, the “ideologist of Ukrainian sovereign independence” Mykola I. Mikhnovsky, called “the forerunner of strong-willed Ukrainian nationalism,” in a speech, later published in Lvov as a program of the Revolutionary Ukrainian Party (RUP), in the pamphlet Independent Ukraine, proclaimed ultra-radical racist slogans:
One, the only, indivisible, free, independent Ukraine from the Carpathians to the Caucasus.
Everyone who is not for us throughout Ukraine is against us. Ukraine is for Ukrainians, and as long as at least one foreign enemy remains on our territory, we have no right to lay down our arms” [M. Míkhnovsʹkiy, Samostíyna Ukraí̈na. B/m, 2012. (in Ukrainian). p. 17, 18].
The most amazing maxim of this opus is the assertion that “God himself has become a stranger and does not know (in the original “is not able,” apparently, in the meaning “does not know how”—V.K.) the Ukrainian language.
Having created the Ukrainian People’s Party (UNP), even more radical than the RUP, Mikhnovsky published its “code”—”The Ten Commandments of the UNP.” Some of these later became the basis of the ideology of OUN Ukronazism:
One, united, indivisible from the Carpathians right up to the Caucasus, independent, free, democratic Ukraine;
All people are your brothers, but Muscovites, Poles, Hungarians, Romanians and Jews are the enemies of our people;
Ukraine is for Ukrainians. So, drive out the foreign oppressors from everywhere in Ukraine;”
Everywhere and always use the Ukrainian language. Let neither your wife nor your children defile your house with the language of foreign oppressors;
Do not take a wife from strangers, because your children will be your enemies. Do not be friends with the enemies of our people, because you give them strength and courage. Do not act (in the original Ukrainian—“do not mess around”—V.K.) together with our oppressors, for you will be a traitor.
Mikhnovsky’s RUP program was published in Lvov. There, as early as 1897, he established close contacts with pro-Ukrainian figures in Galicia. In Galicia, which was part of Austria-Hungary, the anti-Russian, Russophobic orientation of Ukrainian nationalism was formed. From there, the doctrine of aggressive Galician Ukrainianism began to be planted in Malorossiya, even before the emergence of Italian fascism and German Nazism, in their misanthropic, racist spirit, incited hatred. In 1912, the Ukrainian-language magazine Ukrainska Khata (Ukrainian House), published in Kiev, urged:
If you love Ukraine, you must sacrifice your love for other geographical areas. If you love your language, hate the language of your enemy… Know how to hate. If we are talking about Ukraine, we should operate with one word—hatred of its enemies… Revival of Ukraine is synonymous with hatred of your wife—a Muscovite, to one’s children—Katsaps, to one’s brothers and sisters—Katsaps, to one’s father and mother—Katsaps. To love Ukraine means to sacrifice your Katsap kin… If you love Ukraine, if you want it to be—be with it, do not be with its denial” [Ukraí̈nsʹka khata, 1912, No. 6 (in Ukrainian)].
The predecessor of the OUN, the Ukrainian Military (Army) Organization (UVO), founded in 1920 and headed by Yevhen M. Konovalets, responded to the Polish oppression of the indigenous population of Galicia with terror. The most notorious action was the unsuccessful assassination attempt of the chief of the Polish state Józef Pilsudski, on September 25, 1921 (V. Kruzhkov, “Ukrainskiy natsionalizm v Rossiyskoy imperii i na yeyo oblomkakh,”—”Ukrainian nationalism in the Russian Empire and its ruin,” in Mezhdunarodnaya zhizn’ (9)2021).
Soon Konovalets established cooperation with the German intelligence, and the UVO began to receive money from the Germans for espionage against Poland. The headquarters of the UVO was located in Berlin. With the help of German money, the UVO unleashed terror and sabotage in Poland (explosions, attacks, robberies-expropriations, etc.) [Ukrainskiye natsionalisticheskiye organizatsii v gody Vtoroy mirovoy voyny. Dokumenty—Ukrainian nationalist organizations during the Second World War. V 2 (T. 1. M.: ROSSPEN, 2012), pp. 335, 776; 5].
According to one researcher, “The UVO, in which the OUN originated, was a criminal organization. In the criminal sense, this criminality consisted in terrorist murders. Politically, the crime of the UVO, and later of the OUN, was the usurpation of the representation of the entire Ukrainian people. Neither the UVO nor the OUN received such a mandate from the people… never in their activities received the support of the Ukrainian people” (OUN-UPA: mif i real’nost‘: “Ukrainstvo”—OUN-UPA: Myth and Reality: “Ukrainianness.” Chap. XVII., pp. 142, 143, 143, 143, and V.V. Polishchuk, Gor’kaya pravda. Prestupnost’ OUN-UPA—Bitter Truth. Crimes of the OUN-UPA (Kiev, 2011), pp. 142, 143).
With the establishment of the UVO in 1929, its intelligence service played the dual role of its intelligence and counterintelligence (I.K. Patrylyak, “Sluzhba bezpeky OUN(b),” Entsyklopediya istoriyi Ukrayiny—Security Service of the OUNb. Encyclopedia of the History of Ukraine. Vol. 9. Kiev: Naukova Dumka, 2012, pp. 658-660). Separate from the UVO, the OUN created a control and intelligence reference office in 1932. In Western Ukraine, there was an intelligence branch in the regional executio (Latin “executio”: execution, executive body of the regional wire—the OUN governing body), and intelligence and communications services in the districts (S. Hrab, Sluzhba bezpeky Orhanizatsiyi ukrayinsʹkykh natsionalistiv—Security Service of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists. Voyenna Istoriya, 2008, No. 5).
Some Ukrainian authors directly link the explosive growth of terror of the UVO-OUN in the early 1930s—more than 60 attempts and murders, hundreds of acts of sabotage, and dozens of robberies (“expropriations”)—to the formation of nationalist security structures )D. Vyedyenyeyev, V. Yehorov, Mech i tryzub. Notatky do istoriyi Sluzhby bezpeky Orhanizatsiyi ukrayinsʹkykh natsionalistivyu CH.1. “Z arkhiviv VUCHK, HPU, NKVD, K·HB”—Sword and Trident. Notes on the history of the Security Service of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists. “Part 1. From the archives of the Vuchk, GPU, NKVD, KGB.” 2(4) 2000, pp. 485–503).
According to the conclusion of one of the researchers, “the UVO, in which the OUN was born, was a criminal organization.” In the criminal sense, the crimes consisted of terrorist murders. Neither the UVO nor the OUN received such mandates from the people; never in their activities did they receive support from the Ukrainian people” [6, pp. 142, 143].
With the creation of the UVO intelligence agency in 1929, the OUN played the dual role of its intelligence and counter-intelligence [7, p. 658-660]. They created a separate control-reconnaissance service in the OUN in 1932. In Western Ukraine, the regional executive (from the Latin “executio”—“the executive organ of the regional branch”—the governing body of the Ukrainian government) had intelligence services, and in the districts—intelligence and communications services.
Some Ukrainian authors directly link the explosive growth of UVO-OUN terror in the early 1930s with the establishment of the security structure of nationalists—more than 60 attempts and murders, hundreds of acts of sabotage, dozens of robberies (“expropriations”).
In 1932, the Galician national clerical newspaper Tsel (The Goal) murderously proclaimed:
Ukrainian nationalism must be prepared for all methods of struggle… not excluding mass physical extermination (annihilation), even if only at the cost of sacrificing millions of human existences (essences, lives) [Tsel’, April 17, 1932, 11, p. 6; V.I. Maslovsky, Z kym i proty koho voyuvaly ukrayinsʹki natsionalisty v roky Druhoyi svitovoyi viyny—With whom and against whom Ukrainian nationalists fought during the Second World War (M.: Slavyanskyy Dyaloh)].
The OUN “Military Doctrine of the Ukrainian Nationalists” of 1938 demanded:
Against the hostile element it is necessary to issue such cruelty… so that the tenth generation would be afraid to look in the direction of Ukraine. In the future Ukrainian state, there must be a pure national composition… Poles, Russians and Jews must be destroyed.(“Arkhivy OUN: ukrainskiye natsionalisty stavili tsel’yu vyseleniye i unichtozheniye vsekh polyakov—”OUN archives: Ukrainian nationalists aimed to evict and destroy all Poles.” TASS. 01.12.2016)
In the spring of 1941, Bandera and Co. with the briefing, “Struggle and Activities of the OUN During the War,” specified the tasks of genocide and terror: to destroy “hostile” national minorities—”Moskals,” Poles, Jews. They demanded: “Our power must be terrible for its opponents, terrorize foreign enemies and their traitors… The Ukrainian ruler of his own land must from every rank, at every step be promoted.”
The section, “Organization of the Security Service,” listed the enemies of the OUN to be destroyed: “Moskals,” Jews,”outsiders, mainly various Asians, with whom Moscow is colonizing Ukraine, Poles in the western Ukrainian lands”. The Security Service was given “executive power… to destroy elements hostile to Ukraine… as well as… to control social and political life in general” (“OUN v 1941 rotsi.” Dokumenty. V 2-kh ch. CH. 1. Kyiv: Instytut ictopiyi Ukrayiny NAN Ukrayiny—”OUN in 1941.” Documents, in 2 parts. Part 1. Kyiv: Institute of History of Ukraine of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, 2006, pp. 102, 103, 129, 159).
Roman Y. Shukhevych, the SS Hauptsturmführer, and leader of the UPA and the OUN “on Ukrainian lands,” who was elevated to “hero” of the Banderized Ukraine (“Yushchenko awarded the title of Hero of Ukraine to Shukhevich, one of the UPA leaders,” RIA Novosti. 14.10.2007), demanded: “Not to intimidate, but to physically destroy! There is no need to be afraid that people will curse us for our cruelty. Let half of the 40 million Ukrainian population remain—there is nothing terrible in this” (“Kakiye geroi—takaya i derzhava”—”What heroes-such a power,” in Odna Rodina, 04.01.2016).
Ideology of Nationalism in the Service of the Kiev Regime in Modern Ukraine
The anti-Russian hysteria in Ukraine, which began in the years of perestroika, based on Bandera templates, along with the glorification of the OUN-UPA butchers, became the ideological justification for turning the Ukrainian regime into a puppet and anti-Russian tool of the United States and the West. It has intensified since 2004, when one of the leaders of the first Maidan, head of the “Batkivshchyna” party, people’s deputy of Ukraine (this is the constitutional name for the deputies of its Verkhovna Rada, hereinafter, Nardep), future Prime Minister of Ukraine (in 2005 and 2007-2010), Yulia V. Tymoshenko, demanded that the Donbass be with barbed wire and napalm poured on it (A. Moskval, “‘Molyashchemusya’ Poroshenko o nachale voyny v Donbasse”—“’Praying’ Poroshenko about the beginning of the war in Donbass,” in Odna Rodina, 01.06.2018). Back in 2014, she stated: “…it is necessary… to kill these bloody Katsaps together with their leader… so that, damn it, there is not even a scorched field left of this Russia! …it is necessary to shoot them with atomic weapons.”
In December 2014, MPs Yuriy M. Bereza, Andriy M. Levus, and Igor V. Mosiychuk justified the terrorist attack in Grozny and called for similar crimes in Russia with the help of the media (“SK RF vozbudil delo protiv trokh deputatov Verkhovnoy rady za prizyv k terrorizmu”—”Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation opened a case against three deputies of the Verkhovna Rada for calling for terrorism,” in TASS, 12/06/2014). Ex-prime minister Iryna D. Faryon made criminal (according to the forensic conclusion) calls “to destroy Russia as a state and Russians as a group of people on the basis of nationality,” to carry out genocide (“SKR reshil nakazat’ eks-deputata Rady Farion za prizyvy ‘unichtozhat Rossiyu'”—”TFR decided to punish the ex-deputy of the Rada Faryon for calls to ‘destroy Russia,'” in NTV, 08.07.2015). Tyahnybok’s neo-Banderite Svoboda also called for it:
No matter how qualitatively the Russian-speaking amorphous biomass of living stomachs lives—they will not start singing on October 14 (the date of the alleged formation of the UPA, and since 2014 the holiday, “Day of Defenders and Protectors of Ukraine,” which legalized the substitution of the concepts of “heroism” and “betrayal,” the abuse of the memory of the fallen in battles with fascism and the victims of the Banderites: “Gossovet Respubliki Krym prinyal zayavleniye v svyazi s situatsiyey na Ukraine”—”The State Council of the Republic of Crimea adopted a statement in connection with the situation in Ukraine,” in Sayt Gossoveta Respubliki Krym, 22.10.2014—V.K.).” “Oh, there’s a red viburnum in the meadow…” (since 1914, the song of Ukrainian Sich Sagittarius, which is also sung by the UPA: —V.K.), will not pass in torch procession on January 1 (Bandera’s birthday—V.K.). This herd should be liquidated, somewhere around 5-6 million individuals… For 45-million of Ukraine, the disappearance of 6 million will be imperceptible” (“Iz FB Marii Zakharovoy”—”From FB Maria Zakharova,” in Antimaydan, 19.03.2022).
On Maidan 2014 and afterward, neo-Banderites shouted: “Knife the Moskals!” They called for them to be hanged and made their own meme: “Slit Russians!” This was shouted by two-legged predators, with SS symbols, accompanied by shouts of “Sieg Heil!” and raising of hands in the Nazi salute, by children zombified by them. Oleksandr Turchynov, “Bloody pastor,” ex-speaker of the Verkhovna Rada, by whose decree the acting president began the genocide of the people of the Donbass, proclaimed:
We are ready to destroy the Russians wherever we can. It is necessary to beat Russians not only in Ukraine, but also beyond its borders—on the territory of Russia (“Byvshiy spiker Rady Turchinov prizval k genotsidu russkikh—Former speaker of the Rada Turchinov called for the genocide of Russians,” in Komsomol’skaya Pravda, 01.03.2022).
This position of the Ukronazis was declared even during the special operation, on the Ukrainian Channel24, by its employee Fakhrudin M. Sharafmal (“Operatsiya po zakhvatu natsistskogo prestupnika Adolfa Eykhmana (1960)”—”The operation to capture the Nazi criminal Adolf Eichmann (1960),” in RIA Novosti. 11.05.2020). Eloquently and literally, he quoted the words of the Nazi criminal, one of the organizers and executors of Hitler’s holocaust policy:
Eichmann said… to destroy a nation, it is necessary to destroy first of all children, because by killing their parents—children will grow up and will definitely take revenge. If you kill the children, they will never grow up and the nation will disappear (“V Ukraine net natsizma”—”There is no Nazism in Ukraine,” Pikabu).
And Sharafmal continued, flouting the Geneva (and other) conventions, that
when I get a chance to kill Russians, I will… observe the Adolf Eichmann doctrine and make sure that neither you nor your children will ever live on this earth…. you must realize that this is about victory for the Ukrainian people, not peace. We need victory. If that requires slaughtering all of your families, I will be one of the first to do it… And I hope that there will never be another nation like Russia and the Russians on this earth…. If Ukrainians have the opportunity … to crush, slaughter, kill, strangle the Muskalnaya, I hope that everyone will contribute and ‘mop’ at least one Muskal.
Note: Sharafmal threatened to destroy not Russians, but the nation itself—a set of citizens of one state with a common self-consciousness (identity). All citizens of Russia of all nationalities. (In Ukrainian, “Russians,” the nationality and “Russians,” citizens of Russia of all nationalities are referred to by one word – “Russians”). And it is possible to fulfill this threat only by massacres all over Russia. In fact, he called for a total terrorist war in Ukraine and Russia, desired by the United States. But Sharafmal did not go to the front himself. He “fought” on the air.
These incitements were condemned by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (“V UVKPCH OON osudili prizyv ukrainskogo zhurnalista k genotsidu russkikh,”—”UN OHCHR condemned Ukrainian journalist’s call for genocide of Russians, in RIA Novosti, 03/17/2022). The Main Investigative Directorate of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation opened a criminal case against Sharafmal on the grounds of the crimes stipulated by para. “b” part 2 of article 282 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, “Incitement of hatred or enmity, as well as humiliation of human dignity,” subparagraphs “a,” “c,” part 2 of article 354.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, “Rehabilitation of Nazism.” Ukrainian judiciary is obligated to judge Sharafmal’s incitement under the Criminal Code of Ukraine—Article 2582, “Public calls to commit a terrorist act” (up to five years of imprisonment) and under Article 442 “Genocide,” which provides for up tofive years of imprisonment for public calls for it (Criminal Code of Ukraine, effective from 03/16/2022). But it did not. It seems that justice has disappeared in the Bandarized Ukraine. Acts recognized as crimes by international law, laws of different countries, including Ukraine, have become unpunished demonstrations of “national opinion” (conscience).
It is important to note one more circumstance. The main striking force and organizer of terror, the participation of the Banderites in the fascist genocide of our people was Bandera’s inquisition—the Security Service (SB) of the OUN and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) banned in Russia. (The Ukrainian Insurgent Army, banned in Russia, was an anti-Soviet armed group of Ukrainian nationalists that operated mainly in Western Ukraine, from December 1941 to July 1943—created by Taras-Bulba Borovets. In 1943, the OUNb gangs merged into the UPAb, the Borovets UPA ceased to exist, its members joined the OUNm and UPAb gangs. From 1944-1949, the UPA committed acts of terrorism, sabotage. It was completely liquidated in the early 1950s). The brutal traditions of Bandera’s executioners are continued by their modern-day descendants in Ukraine. Back in 2015, the then head of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) Valentyn O. Nalyvaichenko stated that the SBU should be reformed on the model of the Banderite inquisition: “it is important to take as a basis the traditions and approaches to the work of the Security Service of OUN-UPA” (A. Sidorchik, “Inkvizitsiya Bandery. Kak ‘Sluzhba bezpeki’ sozdavala ‘Ukrainu dlya ukraintsev,'”—”Bandera’s Inquisition. How the ‘Security Service’ created ‘Ukraine for Ukrainians,'” in Argumenty i fakty, 02.04.2015).
Tyahnybok of the far-right nationalist party, Svoboda argued:
The Security Service of Ukraine remains the only carrier of the Ukrainian state idea in the 21st century, a kind of link between its past and future. And, accordingly, the leadership of the nationalist movement should be formed primarily from officers of the security services, because there is no other personnel reserve (I. Matveyev, “SSHA i YES rukami VO «Svoboda» gotovyatsya unichtozhat’ russkikh na Ukraine,”—”The US and the EU are preparing to destroy the Russians in Ukraine with the hands of the VO ‘Svoboda,'” in Voyennoye obozreniye, 26.02.2014).
According to the assessment of the Belarusian analyst, the Banderization regime, starting with President Viktor A. Yushchenko, turned the SBU into the “Service of Ukraine’s Banderization” (N. Malishevsky, “Sluzhba banderizatsii Ukrainy”—“The Banderization Service of Ukraine,” in RIA Novosti. 12/01/2014), and with its atrocities in the Donbass has likened the Ukrainian security forces to the OUN and UPA, which were recognized by the Court of Peoples—the Nuremberg International Military Tribunal—as accomplices to the crimes of Hitler’s Germany, which according to Article 6 of the Statute of the Tribunal are responsible for them (Statute of the International Military Tribunal for the trial and punishment of the main war criminals of the European Axis). As the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation pointed out on November 17, 2014, in its decision to declare the UPA and four other Ukrainian organizations extremist and ban their activities in Russia, the Nuremberg Tribunal recognized the OUN and UPA as collaborators. (From the decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, in case No. AKPI14-1292C of November 17, 2014: “…to recognize the Ukrainian organizations ‘Right Sector,’ ‘Ukrainian National Assembly – Ukrainian People’s Self-Defense’ (UNA-UNSO), ‘Ukrainian Insurgent Army’ (UPA), ‘Stepan Bandera’s Trident,’ and ‘Brotherhood’ as extremist and ban their activities on the territory of the Russian Federation.” See: Official website of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation).
Denazification of Ukraine
To compare the goals and deeds of Hitlerites and accomplices of their crimes—the OUN-UPA and usurpers of power of the Maidan-2014, organizers and participants in the genocide of the people of the Donbass, allow evidence collected by law enforcement and the civilian researchers (Obyknovennyy fashizm: voyennyye prestupleniya ukrainskikh silovikov (2014—2016)—Ordinary Fascism: War crimes of the Ukrainian security forces (2014-2016). Moscow: Kuchkovo Pole, 2016, p. 431), and the media. These are the documents from archives, investigations and courts.
A lawsuit on the facts of genocide of the population of the Donbass and other acts in Ukraine, based on copies of criminal case files handed over by the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation, has been considered by the European Court of Human Rights since July 2021.
“The nationalists who have seized power have unleashed a persecution, a real terror campaign against those who opposed their anti-constitutional actions… A wave of violence swept Ukrainian cities, including a series of high-profile and unpunished murders,” Russian President Vladimir V. Putin stated in an address on February 21, 2022. “One shudders at the memories of the terrible tragedy in Odessa, where peaceful protesters were brutally murdered, burned alive in the House of Trade Unions. The criminals who committed that atrocity have never been punished, and no one is even looking for them. But we know their names and we will do everything to punish them, find them and bring them to justice.”
By February 10, 2022, the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation initiated 467 criminal cases, on the grounds of numerous crimes of the Maidan usurpers of power and their friends against dissenters, on the grounds of genocide of the population of the Donbass, killings and torture of its inhabitants by the agencies of the SBU, the Interior Ministry, the Ukrainian army and nationalist battalions (the Natzbat), which were of a large-scale and systemic nature (Obyknovennyy fashizm. Ukrainskiye voyennyye prestupleniya i narusheniya prav chelovek. 2017-2020—Ordinary Fascism. Ukrainian war crimes and human rights violations. 2017-2020. Moscow: Mezhdunarodnyye otnosheniya, 2020, p. 452). Thus, in 2014, a criminal case was opened on suspicion of crimes of the then head of the SBU, V.A. Nalyvaichenko. In April 2022, another criminal case was opened against Nalyvaichenko for calling for violence against the Russian military. 103 perpetrators were prosecuted in absentia. Among them are the former head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, Arsen B. Avakov and the former governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region, Igor V. Kolomoisky. Former Deputy Interior Minister Anton Y. Gerashchenko, was sentenced to six years in prison in absentia. Criminal cases were investigated against ex-Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Oleksandr V. Turchinov, ex-ministers of defense Anatoliy S. Hrytsenko and Valeriy V. Heletey, and ex-Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Victor M. Muzhenko.
On March 18, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov explained the meaning of Ukraine’s denazification. In his opinion, it implies the abolition of not only laws that encourage Nazi ideology and practices, but also laws that discriminate against the Russian-speaking population.
As the course of the special operation confirmed, the strongholds of the Kyiv regime are nationalist units, such as Azov, Aidar, Right Sector and others recognized in Russia as terrorist organizations. In Mariupol alone, they had more than 7,000 militants who “fought” under the cover of civilians, using them as human shields. The Azov militants drove women and children out of basements, threatening them with weapons and directing them towards the advancing DNR units in order to impede the advance of the People’s Militia. This has become a common practice for them.
Russian investigators found out that the Azov unit is made up of people of different ages, education levels and life experiences. But they are united in their unwavering determination to kill innocent people. This is the essence of Azov nationalists. To understand this, it is enough to give a few examples. In early March, in Mariupol, Azov member, Sergei Mikhailenko, and his colleague with the call sign “Drone” were near a residential building. A passenger car with “Children” written in large letters was moving in their direction. Despite this, they opened fire on the car, killing the four family members in it, including a three-year-old child. Another example. Alexei Mozgovoy and his brother Yuri took positions in a five-story building in Mariupol. There were 15 civilians in the basement, among them a man suffering from a serious illness. The nationalist brothers, threatening to kill, forbade civilians to leave the basement, even to bring medicine to the sick man. As a result, the man died. And when civilians, having seen what had happened, wanted to leave the place, the Mozgovs started shooting at them—four more people died. And, unfortunately, there are many such examples.
The testimonies of civilians who came out of the blockaded settlements and of captured Ukrainian servicemen show that the Ukrainian armed forces’ ability to resist is based on fear of reprisals from neo-Nazis. Their representatives are embedded in all troop units.
On 30 March, Russian Education Minister Sergey Kravtsov said that more than 50 experts, teachers and historians had analyzed textbooks and teaching aids used by teachers and children in Ukraine. It turned out that whole pages of history were rewritten in them. All this was financed by foreign countries.
“We could see that this is deliberate work, fabricating a system that distorts historical truth. This is not only aggression and readiness for a military operation against our country, but also the zombification of teachers, schoolchildren—and often violently—against Russia. We will never allow history, geography to be distorted, the facts of the Great Patriotic War, our friendship with Ukraine and other countries. Our country is always open, has always helped brotherly nations, including Ukraine,” emphasized Sergey Kravtsov.
“History textbooks emphasize military topics. The education minister drew attention to the fact that the authors of the manuals emphasized that “modern Ukraine needs a compact mobile army in the conditions of aggression by the Russian Federation… History textbooks name Bandera and Shukhevych as heroes, which are thus cultivated. The children’s nationalist organization “Plast” has been revived—Bandera and Shukhevych were its members. In it, Nazism is directly elevated to an absolute,” said Kravtsov.
After the investigation, the textbooks were handed over to the museum of the “Russia—My History” park, where a corresponding section of the “Liberation” display will be created. Everyone will be able to familiarize themselves with the facts of the distortion of history and geography in Ukrainian educational materials.
On April 2, the Investigative Committee of Russia, continuing to investigate crimes committed by the Ukrainian military and nationalists against the civilian population of the Lugansk and Donetsk People’s Republics, on the basis of the collected evidence, in addition to the earlier charges under Article 356 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (use of prohibited means and methods of warfare), brought charges in absentia against 22 high-ranking Ukrainian military officers for genocide of the civilian Russian-speaking population (Article 357 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) of Donbas.
In violation of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and other international legal instruments condemning genocide, Ukrainian military officers in leadership positions gave orders, and others followed them, to completely destroy a national group of Russian-speaking citizens living on the territory of the Lugansk and Donetsk People’s Republics.
For eight years, Ukrainian security forces have been shelling populated areas in the Donbass using Grad and Uragan multiple-launch rocket systems, cluster-headed unguided aerial missiles, Tochka-U tactical missiles and other types of heavy offensive weapons with indiscriminate effects. As a result, a large number of civilians were killed and injured and civilian infrastructure and life-supporting facilities were destroyed.
Among the Defendants
High-ranking Ukrainian military charged in absentia for genocide of the Russian-speaking population in the Donbass:
Ukrainian Defense Minister, Valeriy Geletey (from July 2014 to October 2014);
Ukrainian Defense Minister, Stepan Poltorak (from October 2014 to August 2019);
First Deputy Minister of Defense of Ukraine, Ivan Rusnak (since September 2014);
Deputy Minister of Defense of Ukraine, Oleksandr Dublyan (from October 2015 to December 2016);
Deputy Minister of Defense of Ukraine, Igor Pavlovsky (from 2015 to 2019);
Deputy Minister of Defense of Ukraine, Oleg Shevchuk (from November 2016 to September 2019);
Viktor Muzhenko, chief of the AFU General Staff (from July 2014 to May 2019);
Commander of the 13th Army Corps of the AFU Ground Forces (subsequently First Deputy Chief of the AFU General Staff, 2019), Igor Kolesnik;
Deputy Chief of General Staff of the AFU, Vladimir Khizhiy (2014);
Deputy Chief of General Staff of the AFU, Sergey Bessarab (from 2015 to March 2020);
Vasyl Burba, Head of the Main Intelligence Department of the AFU (from 2016 to 2020);
Commander of the AFU Ground Forces, Sergey Popko (from 2014 to 2016);
Commander of the Air Force of the AFU, Sergey Drozdov (from 2015 to 2021);
Commander of the High Mobility Airborne Troops of the AFU, Mikhail Zabrodsky (from 2015 to 2019);
Commander of the AFU Special Operations Forces, Igor Lunev (from 2016 to 2020);
Commander of the AFU Naval Forces, Igor Voronchenko (from 2016 to 2020);
Commander of the troops of the Operational Command “East” of the AFU Ground Forces, Sergey Naev (from 2018 to 2019);
Deputy Commander of the troops of the Operational Command “West” of the AFU Ground Forces (since March 22, 2017—commander of the troops of the Operational Command “West” of the AFU Ground Forces), Oleksandr Pavlyuk;
First Deputy Commander of the Operational Command “North” of the AFU Ground Forces, Andriy Grishchenko (2016);
First Deputy Commander of the troops of the Operational Command “East” of the AFU Ground Forces, Oleksandr Krasnook (2017);
First Deputy Commander of the AFU Ground Forces, Oleksandr Lokota (2016);
Commander of the 30th separate mechanized brigade of the AFU, Ivan Garaz (2015).
In total, as of July 25, 2022, the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation had opened more than 1,300 criminal cases, in which more than 400 persons are being prosecuted. The preliminary investigation has already established the involvement of more than 220 persons, including representatives of the high command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and commanders of military units that shelled civilians, in crimes against peace and security of humanity that have no statute of limitations. A total of 92 commanders and their subordinates have been charged. A total of 96 individuals, including 51 AFU commanders, are wanted.
On April 3, the chairman of the Investigative Committee of Russia, Alexander I. Bastrykin, supported the initiative of the LPR representatives on the need to hold a tribunal on the war crimes of the Ukrainian regime in Donbas, expressing readiness for its establishment. He noted that the Investigative Committee of Russia has been recording all unlawful actions of the AFU and other Ukrainian nationalist military formations against the peaceful population of the Donbass for eight years. Each fact is given a legal assessment. In future, the evidence gathered by the Russian investigation will be presented to the public, and those involved in committing these crimes will be brought to trial.
Numerous war crimes by Ukrainian nationalists have already been recognized at the international level. For example, on April 6, the American publication The New York Times confirmed the authenticity of a video showing Ukrainian nationalists shooting wounded Russian servicemen, and on April 7, at a press conference in Brussels, the NATO Secretary General called for an investigation into all reports of war crimes in Ukraine, but refused to comment on video footage of Ukrainian nationalists killing Russian prisoners of war—”because he knew nothing concrete about it.”
On June 1, 2022, the chairman of the Committee on Criminal and Administrative Legislation of the People’s Council of the DNR, Elena N. Shishkina, stated that the composition of judges at the international tribunal against Ukrainian militants may include representatives of European countries “who will respond and will not be afraid to openly oppose Nazism, which thrives on the territory of the state of Ukraine,” invitations to which have been sent. She also admitted that the first meeting of the interim “Mariupol tribunal,” whose charter is being drafted, might take place before the end of the summer.
At the same time, as Bastrykin noted on July 25, 2022, “given the position of the ‘collective West,’ which openly sponsors Ukrainian nationalism and supports the Kyiv regime,” the establishment of an international tribunal, under the auspices of the United Nations, “is extremely doubtful in the current perspective. It would be more appropriate to work on this issue with Russian partners in such organizations as the CIS, CSTO, BRICS and SCO. The establishment of the court and its statutes could be formalized by an agreement between Russia, member countries of these organizations and the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics. At the same time, it would also be advisable to involve other countries demonstrating an independent position on the Ukrainian issue, based on the norms of international law, in particular Syria, Iran and Bolivia. The establishment of an international judicial body would demonstrate to the entire international community the inevitability of punishment for crimes against the peace and security of mankind and the determination of Russia and our country’s true partners in eradicating Nazism, nationalism and xenophobia.”
However, the inevitability of the complete denazification of Ukraine and the holding of an international tribunal against the war criminals of the Kyiv regime does not stop the succession of their madness, which extends not only to the civilian population of the Donbass but also to civilians in Ukraine and Russia. Thus, on April 27, at around 11 p.m. Moscow time, the Ukrainian armed forces launched a massive missile strike with Tochka-U ballistic missiles and high-powered multiple-launch rocket systems against residential neighborhoods in the central part of the city of Kherson. The targets of the indiscriminate missile strike by the nationalists were residential neighborhoods near Ushakov Avenue, where kindergartens, schools and many social institutions are also located. Russian air defense units repelled the missile attack by Ukrainian troops on residential areas of Kherson. Twelve high-powered multiple rocket launchers and two Ukrainian Tochka-U ballistic missiles were shot down in the air above the city. Fragments of one of the downed Ukrainian Tochka-U missiles fell in Shevchenko Park. The indiscriminate missile strikes by the Kyiv nationalist regime against residential areas in Izium and Kherson constitute a war crime and a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law.
Another example is the shelling, by units of the Ukrainian armed forces, of the liberated villages of Kiselevka and Shirokaya Balka in the Kherson region on May 1st. The Ukrainian nationalists were firing at purely civilian objects. A school and a kindergarten, in the village of Kiselevka, came under artillery fire. Also, artillery fire was purposefully directed at the cemetery located on the outskirts of Shirokaya Balka, where there were people at that moment. As a result of the shelling, civilians were injured and killed. The buildings of the school, kindergarten and private houses were seriously damaged. Because of the consequences of the shelling by the AFU, the residents of these settlements were partially deprived of electricity.
Since February 25, Ukrainian nationalists have been subjecting civilian infrastructure facilities on the territory of Russia—the Belgorod, Bryansk, Voronezh, Kursk and Rostov regions—to artillery and rocket fire and air strikes. On May 11th, such a criminal act ended in tragedy for the first time: one person was killed and six others injured when Ukrainian troops shelled the village of Solokhi in the Belgorod region of the Russian Federation. Subsequently, instances of death of the population of Russia, as a result of the use of firearms by Ukraine, have been recorded on numerous occasions.
On the territory of the LNR and DNR, nationalists destroyed and partially damaged more than 7,000 civilian infrastructure facilities, including residential houses, schools, kindergartens, and vehicles. During the entire period of investigation in the criminal case of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation by mid-July 2022, more than 216,000 people were questioned; more than 91,000 people were recognized as victims, including 14,072 minors.
It is likely that after the publication of this article, other crimes of the Kiev nationalist regime will be uncovered. The investigation and decisions of the courts and the International Tribunal on the genocide of Russian people during the Great Patriotic War and, in 2014-2022, of the population of Donbass, on terror, murders and pogroms in modern Ukraine will provide new arguments to expose Hitlerism, the OUN and their modern followers, and to carry out the denazification of Ukraine.
Conclusion
Banderites in the service of the Third Reich and their pro-American followers in modern Ukraine are united by a single ideology—radical Ukrainian nationalism, Ukronazism, and its anti-Russian orientation; as well as, immorality and inhumanity; venality and service to foreign suzerains for the sake of benefits, along with a cynical trade in the interests, fates and lives of compatriots, of Ukraine and its people; grave crimes against Ukraine, which have had a massive and systemic character, namely, terror and genocide—fascist terror with the participation of the Banderaites against the people of Russia and neo-Nazi terror against the population of Donbas, and terror against the inhabitants of Odessa (Odessa Khatyn), other towns and villages, in which the Ukronazis left a bloody trail.
After the Great Victory, Ukraine was cleansed of OUN gangs and the underground in a matter of years, because the effective struggle of law enforcers against Ukronazism was accompanied by widespread popular support. The betrayal of Soviet elites in the mid-1950s (the “Adenauer-Khrushchev Amnesty”) allowed former nationalist collaborators to return to Ukraine with a completely clean reputation, almost as heroes and even martyrs.
In 2022, Russia, by giving the lives of its loyal sons for the liberation of Ukraine from nationalism, by destroying and capturing neo-Nazis, by revealing the truth about their crimes and criminal plans, is creating the conditions for the final eradication of Nazism. On July 3, as a result of successful combat operations by the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, together with units of the People’s Militia of the LPR, the liberation of the Luhansk People’s Republic was completed. The military victory in the DNR and the international tribunal against the war criminals are approaching.
Both in the liberation of the Donbass and in the denazification of Ukraine, the timing and results of their completion, guarantees against recurrences of Ukronazism and the conditions for reliably ensuring the sovereignty and security of the country, the interests and rights of its population, and the sustainable development of the Ukrainian state and society largely depend on the active participation of the people of Ukraine, their awareness of the danger of radical ideologies and their open condemnation.
Vladimir G. Kiknadze is a Russianhistorian, associate professor and a Colonel in the reserves. He is the author of over 200 published works. This article appears courtesy of Nauka, Obshchestvo, Oborona journal.
Featured: Members of the Azov Battalion, March 11, 2022.
Russia is in dire need of an ideology capable of fighting the enemy on the invisible battlefield.
Yeltsin destroyed the Soviet Union and with it the communist ideology. The ideologues of victorious liberalism—Yegor Gaidar and Anatoly Chubais—built a country that resembled an ugly caricature of the victorious Western civilization.
Russia ceased to be a civilization, ceased to be a country; the Russian people ceased to be a people, and a frenzied liberal broom swept across the once great expanse between three oceans, sweeping away everything associated with Russian uniqueness.
Now that Yeltsin’s Russia is facing a war in Ukraine and liberal ideology is gone along with its ideologues, Russia, robbed, exhausted, deceived, devoid of ideological meanings, is fighting the giant behemoth of the West, which, in addition to the space constellations of Ilon Musk and long-range Himars, has a powerful ideology, tested over the centuries, rooted in the mysterious depths of European metaphysics.
Russia, in dire need of shells and tanks, reserve battalions and divisions, is in dire need of an ideology capable of fighting the enemy on the invisible battlefield, in empires of ideological meanings.
And today a hunt for meanings has been announced in Russia. A lot of political scientists, political technologists, philosophers are looking for meanings. They look for them underfoot, find them, carry them to their laboratories, glue them together with something sticky that is secreted from their political science glands. They take their products to the Kremlin, offering to write history textbooks on the basis of these products, to build a new Russian state, to create public organizations, political movements, new symbols, new songs, a new Russian man capable of winning the battle for history.
But the products fall apart on the approach to the Spasskaya Tower. The sticky secretion of political scientists dries up, and the lumps of meanings found underfoot disintegrate—ideology does not stick together.
Meanings are not obtained in brainstorming sessions of political scientists, nor in discussion clubs of politicians. Meanings are obtained by the revelations of individual God-revealed people, who suddenly open the gates to those heavenly spheres where meanings dwell. Meanings are the inhabitants of high azure spaces, which the religious consciousness of thinkers reaches. Meanings are like nuggets stored in the depths of heaven.
The deep content of Russian civilization, changing its external forms, dressed from century to century in various vestments and robes, remained unchanged in its innermost essence. It was a dream of ideal existence, divine harmony, creating a just kingdom, where there is no violence, oppression, darkness, trampling of the weak by the strong, the rich by the poor. Where the most terrible injustice that haunts the human race is defeated—death is defeated.
The image of this kingdom has moved from pagan fairy tales to Orthodox Christianity, to the fantasies of cosmists, to the mysteries of poets and musicians, to the political declarations of Narodovites and Communists. This image even now lives as a dream in the depths of the people’s feeling, not allowing the people to disappear, encouraging them to fight and build, guiding them to perfection.
The Russian Dream of a just state is a precious treasure of the Russian World, which is conceived by the Creator as a repository of this marvelous idea.
To the achievement of this ideal, to the building of this marvelous kingdom, the Russian codes are the steps up which the nation rises, overcoming terrible difficulties, bitterness, fires and defeats, each time rising from the ashes, and with its charred, burnt hands continuing to build this marvelous edifice.
Russian codes are the meanings, the keyboard on which a great ruler creates a symphony of nation and state—Russian and Tatar, Chechen and Khanty. Great rulers, such as Vladimir the Holy, Ivan Vasilyevich the Terrible, Peter the Great, Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin, owned this keyboard, led Russia from great upheavals to greatness.
But among these thousands of codes there are seven, without which it is impossible to build a sunny Russian state.
There is the code of exaction—the continuous striving for this state, begging for it, calling it out among the rubble of history.
There is the code of sacred labor, which is used not only to obtain daily bread, but also to build the state itself, and to obtain the Kingdom of Heaven, “which is given by works.”
There is the code of resurrection, which allows Russia to rise again after terrible historical defeats, and strive for the ideal bequeathed to it.
There is the code of the Russian miracle, which saves Russia when, it would seem, there is no salvation, and the abyss embraces the country and the people. Russia sinks into the dark depths of Lake Svetloyar to suddenly in the sparkle of the divine miracle to surface again from unknown waters, with its golden domes, marvelous palaces and churches to rise to greatness.
There is the code for a common cause, transforming the nation into a gigantic labor-artel, a vast invincible battalion. And the entrance to this ideal kingdom, to this heavenly Jerusalem, will be realized by all the people—both those who are still living on earth, and those who have already passed away, and those who have not yet been born.
There is the code of defense consciousness, when people defend their dream, their ideal, making colossal sacrifices for its preservation. Russia, defending its ideals, takes on all the darkness of the world, turning it into light. God entrusted Russia to defend this divine ideal, washing it with tears and blood.
There is the code of Russia—the soul of the world. For Russia invites to the historical campaign all kinds of people, wishes spiritual victory not only to itself, but also to all mankind, opens to each person of the Earth a gate to this delightful Russian garden.
The intimate knowledge of Russian codes is the essence of acquiring meanings. Obtained codes must be saved from the enemy.
The enemy, admitted to the storehouse of Russian meanings, destroys them, cuts off people from the sky, expels them from history. All conquerors coming to the Russian land strove for this. Demons of perestroika aspired to it. This is what today’s enemies are striving for, trying to reach with their long-range drones, their high-speed missiles, not just to reach the Kremlin chambers, but also to hit the repository of Russian meanings.
The Izborsky Club gathers into its spiritual brotherhood people with illuminated consciousness, clairvoyants to whom meanings are revealed. It is a school of spiritual knowledge, where the teachers are Russian clairvoyants, be it pagan skomorokhi or Dostoevsky, Seraphim of Sarov or Joseph Stalin.
The forum of the Russian Dream movement has just taken place. It was held in the Grebnevo estate near Moscow, where many confessors of this precious Russian faith came from all over Russia. They shared discoveries, fraternized, and gifted each other with their spiritual discoveries. There were singers, warriors wounded in the Donbass, philosophers and politicians.
At night, on a huge glade, they lit a fire, which blazed, sending countless golden sparks into the sky, and each of them was a prayer, a demand, a hope for the Russian miracle and for the Russian victory.
Sparks, mined by fiery, loving and fearless hearts open to the light.
The confessors of the Russian Dream, the discoverers of Russian meanings pay a huge price for their discoveries. Darya Dugina, her majestic father Alexander Dugin, the brilliant Russian writer Zakhar Prilepin. And now—Alexander Borodai, the hero of Donbass, has been hit by a Ukrainian tank. Wounded, he lies in a Donetsk hospital.
Sasha, get up soon from your bed, Russian meanings are waiting for you.
Alexander Prokhanov, a doyen of Russian letters, is a member of the secretariat of the Writers Union of the Russian Federation and has written more than 30 novels and many short story collections. He also edits the influentail weekly newspaper, Zavtra. This article comes through the kind courtesy of Geopolitica.
Featured: Evening Bells, by Isaac Levitan; painted in 1892.
