Over 100 years ago, Russia became core of USSR and the pioneer of international struggle for workers’ liberation, poverty lifting, enlightenment, scientific progress and propagation of socialism and communism.
Now – in my humble and maybe biased by liberal propaganda view – Russia is one of the most reactionary, conservative, backward-looking, clerical country. Please excuse me posting some liberal, imperialist shit here, but seems that Kremlin officially admits going far-right: https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/kremlin-finally-puts-together-ideology
Speaking locally, there seems to be evidence that Polish far-right party PiS (Law and Justice) is backed by Kremlin as well as the extremely influential priest, Tadeusz Rydzyk, founder and director of the ultra-catholic, conservative Radio Maryja station has/had ties with Polish and Russian security services before the end of People’s Republic of Poland and USSR (sic!). I have some generally available videos, but in Polish, sadly.
Could you tell me how far this is true? If so, what purpose had the late communist states and today’s Russia in spreading far-right propaganda? WTF went wrong?
I’m going to disagree here. While there are right wing elements in Russia and there is a lot of nationalist sentiment, it’s also a fact that communism is still very popular. Polls consistently show that most people see USSR in a positive light, and many people consider the Soviet system to be generally correct. KPRF has a lot of support which appears to be growing. It might not be perfect, but it’s certainly not a far right party.
For example, here’s a recent poll from Russia:
And here’s another poll showing that most people think the Soviet economic system was more correct
Russia is also increasingly falling into China’s orbit and it doesn’t escape people in Russia that going back to a socialist system would result in similar benefits that people in China are currently enjoying.
Considering that, do you think it’s possible for Russia to have successful reforms into social democracy or socialism? I don’t see a revolution on the table.
It’s hard to say to be honest. I don’t think there’s any revolutionary potential either right now. However, I do think that reforms that bring Russia ever closer to Chinese model are indeed likely. In fact, we’ve already seen some of this happen out of necessity after the start of the war. There’s a lot more state control over business now, and state owned enterprise is playing an increasingly central role in the economy.
Also worth noting that a full on counter revolution wasn’t required for transition to capitalism. So, perhaps we will see a similar shift back towards an explicitly socialist system. There is going to be a power vacuum after Putin is gone, and that will be an opportunity for change. I don’t think we’ll be seeing any drastic changes until that time.
I’m not very knowledgeable about either country, but I’m not sure if there’s any benefit in the Russian state having better control of businesses and the economy, if the workers have no control over the state. Maybe it’ll be more efficient, but I don’t see how that efficiency will be directed at people’s needs.
And I hope Putin only dies/retires after NATO is no longer a threat. There’s no country Westerners want to destroy and dismantle as much as Russia, and a shaky transition might be too much.
I think that having an economy organized in this way lowers the barrier for the transition. For example, if the capitalists were overthrown politically, then it just becomes a matter of democratizing state owned workplaces without having to wrestle them away from the oligarchs first. And agree that the best chance to break NATO would be if the current leadership finishes what they started. This is the primary contradiction in the world right now.
That is all true, and it is somewhat uplifting. However, there is a long way for Russia to be a communist country, also many people can be just nostalgic about their youth, as well as many people may remember USSR as the late one, where many of ideals of the original Bolsheviks were compromised. Some of them just miss «the strong nation», not the Bolsheviks’ ideals of creating a just workers’ society and propagating it to the whole World. Without clear and not-too-pragmatic socialist leadership, they see a shadow of a shadow. I think KPRF is exactly in this flavour – the flavour of late USSR. But with no serious alternatives, their popularity gives me joy as well.
One thing is certainly not true, namely the allegation that PiS is “backed by the Kremlin”. Up until the last election Poland was governed by the PiS party and from the very beginning of the conflict in Ukraine they were one of the biggest supporters of Ukraine in Europe. Without Poland acting as a weapons delivery hub to Ukraine, NATO could never have sustained their Nazi proxy army. PiS pursued an extremely anti-Russia policy, which is not surprising as some of its highest ranking members are personally deeply russophobic.
So you cannot make this blanket statement that Russia backs the European far right, in fact some of the far right parties in eastern Europe are very anti-Russia. Now maybe the situation is reversed in western Europe but so far we have only seen one of them come to power, namely in Italy, and it turned out they were just as pro-NATO and anti-Russia as the liberals.
The situation with Russia is a lot more complicated than the liberal western media makes it seem. There is only one word which fully encapsulates the mess that is today’s Russia and that is: contractions. There are a lot of contradictions in Russia’s culture, its economic system, its government, etc. It has very pronounced reactionary elements, which you have mentioned and which other comrades have explained quite well, but it also has remnants of the old Soviet culture and system.
Because just as Marx said socialist societies would be imprinted for a while with characteristics of the old bourgeois society, so a bourgeois society that is built on the destruction of socialism will retain some imprints. The peculiar thing in Russia’s case as opposed to other eastern European former socialist states which have liberalized more thoroughly, in Russia restoration of the bourgeois system was never fully completed, and in my opinion cannot be completed under present circumstances even though the liberals (including Putin) who have ruled Russia since the 1990s have tried very hard to do so.
Russia is stuck for now in a sort of limbo of an unfinished counter-revolution, partly because of the internal dynamics of Russian society itself and partly due to the renewed hostility of the West toward Russia since around 2008 which has frozen the liberalization process.
I’m not aware how true this is for Russia, but Orthodox Christianity has been entrenched in Russia for centuries. 70 years of communism was not enough to dislodge it. This plays a major role in the way the political winds are blowing to the right, not just in Russia, but all across Eastern Europe. Orthodox Christian churches are very prone to fascist rhetoric and extremely conservative. From the medieval ages, Orthodox churches have managed to weave themselves together with national/cultural identity in their areas, to such a degree, that they are considered one and the same nowadays. In most Eastern European countries, you will find Orthodox high-ranking priests behind far right parties, conservative movements and racist/anti-immigrant actions.
There’s a lot of diffusion of ideology happenning across all Orthodox churches, so I assume this due to what’s going on where I leave.
Orthodoxy is also very prone to conspiracy theories, especially those coming from the right in the West. Such as Harry Potter is a real witch handbook, Pokemon are evil, hollow earth and lizardpeople conspiracies, etc. Anything that reinforces the belief that the devil is alive and actively seeking to control the world.
Catholicism had exact same role in the catholic socialist countries. Both churches served as capitalist 5th column in each and every socialist state, restitution of capitalism was in their interest.
I hate that the Orthodox Church has regained much influence in the government (it is like a recurrent cancer that can’t be eradicated), and is indoctrinating a new generation in backwards, ignorant anti-science, conservative nonsense. I despair for those young Russians growing up now who have not experienced Communist education, and have little hope of a new Revolution. There also seems to be a few conservative religious American families moving to Russia for the supposed “traditional values” - such as in this Substack by Friar Joe (and I can’t read through all his nonsense without exploding in rage) - and he exemplifies this awful ignorance.
I can imagine - last 8 years in Poland we had some catholic indoctrination, fortunately it gave almost opposite effect - many kids resign from religion lessons. Sadly, liberal propaganda is overwhelming and so common that regular people even do not notice it ☹️
The USSR became further economically liberal as time went on, and the Gorbachev reforms accelerated it - introducing the market economy collapsed the state and caused the breakup of the USSR.
Socialism seemed discredited, even though it was the abandonment of it, in favor of what the bureaucracy thought would be more efficient - better for the nation. The same kind of nationalism became the hegemonic narrative in the country since.
Yeltsin was known for a mixture of lassiez Faire market economics which caused a collapse of living standards, skyrocketing crime and of course the entrenchment of a new bourgeois class. Mixed with general incompetence on both a personal and political level, he was despised.
Nationalists went by the assumption that the solution to the woes of the country was the lack of a strong leader to make everything alright. Putin filled the role perfectly.
His politics and supporters from both proletariat and bourgeoisie are nationalistic, and sees Russia and it’s businesses as in direct competition with the west (indeed, not unfounded due to their interference in the USSR and 90s Russia and the way capitalism works) - spreading far-right ideology to countries aligned with the west is how Russia aims to gain support and a sphere of influence in a competition of blocs. Unlike the USSR’s support of communist parties - there was fertile ground for growth of fascist groupings in the west, also caused by political developments in the USA.
spreading far-right ideology to countries aligned with the west is how Russia aims to gain support and a sphere of influence in a competition of blocs
In my view this is a shameful and destructive strategy, completely opposite to ideals of communism, who should rather enlighten people, than make their minds darker. Not to mention that breeds xenophobia, nationalism, fascism, etc. hand to hand with U$ imperialism. Some may call my view childish and utopian, but for me the truth is essential. I’m not sure about China, but seems that the biggest countries become nationalist, what I perceive as a great danger. There is no moral leader, as one hundred ago biggest minds, scientists and politicians in the East and in the West supported USRR and took example. We are living in dark times again.
The USSR became further economically liberal as time went on, and the Gorbachev reforms accelerated it - introducing the market economy collapsed the state and caused the breakup of the USSR.
I see it similarly, but when – you think – it started? Brezhnev? As long as Khrushchev? It may be seen that China also went toward market economy, but – in the metric of GDP – with a great success. So what went wrong with USSR? Is it that it was more laissez-faire than the controlled Chinese economy? I am aware that I essentially ask another question than in the topic, but explaining what went wrong really concerns me.
In my view this is a shameful and destructive strategy, completely opposite to ideals of communism
Russia isn’t communist, nor does it claim to be.
It’s also not about morality, or GDP - it’s about the goals a government sets itself. Do they want to proceed to a stateless, classless society, or are they simply concerned with good government and to make the country be stronger than the competition, be it through sword or construction?
It’s hard to say where the winds are blowing in the CPC - United Russia, however, just wants a strong Russia.
As for the USSR’s market turn, it’s hard to say. Most people here would probably say Khrushcev due to the rejection of the necessity of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the policy of peaceful coexistence (in spite of the grand announcement of communism by 1980). Other communists would blame Stalin for say, having a more nationalistic policy than Lenin and his pragmatism in foreign policy matters. Of course, as the rot continued it became easier to see obvious liberals. The USSR probably started rejecting a planned economy in the Brezhnev era, with the Kosygin reforms. Of course, the question is - did the CPSU pursue communism then? Some undoubtedly did, while others were merely nationalistic technocrats.
I am aware that the market turn was a complex and unclear process, as well as deciding whether Stalin was personally leaned towards more nationalist policies or he was forced by the external factors is difficult (both things extremely interesting, but somewhat outside of the scope of this thread). Anyway, thank you for interesting answers comrade.
Edit: Patriotic education is supported by the communist party, self-hating Russians are too common. Textbooks made by George Soros for years have been teaching kids to hate the country. Students burn their passports, 1/3 students want to leave the country. Putin only change this in 2023 when abandoned by the west. Russian, and Soviet history will no longer be villainised. Russia is nothing like the Western portrayal of it, Z flags and Russian jingoism are far far more common in Serbia than in Russia. Compare Djokovic’s fans to the anti-war Medvedev, Rublev etc.
As Meduza has previously reported, this course was invented by the Russian authorities after the beginning of the full-scale war to explain to students “where Russia is going.” Meduza sources close to the Kremlin have pointed out that this “ideological” course is essentially a direct equivalent of the “scientific communism” taught in Soviet-era universities.
Russia being far right:
Zhirinovsky was the leader of the most right wing faction in the Russian duma and the 2nd political party in the Soviet Union (Liberal Democratic Party of the Soviet Union) before he died in 2022 and I would only describe him as centre-right, he supported the August coup by Soviet hardliners against Gorbachev. The real right-wing, Russian monarchists, were against this.
Putin has transformed the country from what it was in 1999, taking back a lot of power.
The communist party is the largest one in the world that’s not in power. Representing 10-20% of the population, they’ve only become stronger as the country recognizes China’s success.
Lots of far-right parties/groups are banned, not just nazi ones, imperial ones too.
On LGBT he said that they should be able to represent themselves. This is the opposite of what a far-right person would have said. He said this when asked by a Serb weather being LGBT is mandatory for winning western competitions.
But I’ll tell you something unexpected. They too – these topics and these people – have the right to win, show and tell, because this is also part of society. This is also what people live by. It’s bad if they just win all sorts of competitions, that’s of no use.
I believe if China can deal with Israel, then Russia should be allowed to find whatever allies they want. PIS isn’t committing genocide.
This says that it is not so bad – but still Russia cannot be called a communist country nor going in that direction. With using conservative rhetorics, references to tradition, history and religion, it – at least officially – presents itself as a far right country. Look at their coat of arms – it even looks like a tsarist one. Many – if not most – of European conservatives think of Russia as of «the last bastion of Christianity and European civilization». Far right scums like Le Pen was very supportive for Putin. You know there is much more. For me all such things looks plainly reactionary.
Russia should be allowed to find whatever allies they want
Russia is not only allowed, but it has means to enforce it. I am rather concerned that ideologically, morally and mentally Russia is far, far inferior to the early USSR. And this trend affects other countries of the Eastern Block. I live in Poland, which is divided by liberals and ultra-catholic far-rights, most probably backed by Kremlin. The country is literally divided – I can not talk with my father, since he belongs to PiS supporters and acts like a member of a sect. This is not a country I want to live in.
Many – if not most – of European conservatives think of Russia as of «the last bastion of Christianity and European civilization». Far right scums like Le Pen was very supportive for Putin.
For exactly the same reason why some fascists support China or DPRK - they believe into all the western propaganda about these countries and their “atrocities” and like them
