Russian tango with right hands

We are publishing Alexander Verkhovsky's review of Anton Shekhovtsov's book Russia and the Western Extreme Right. Black Tango" (Anton Shekhovtsov. Russia and the Western Far Right. Tango Noir. - London: Routledge, 2017).

The theme of Russia's influence on Western social and political life is fashionable and multifaceted. If you subtract the most fashionable subtopic - about hackers and influence on elections, there will still be obvious mutual sympathies between the Kremlin and some governments, a long-term campaign for the promotion of "traditional values", etc. Quite thoughtful studies have already been written about this - for example, about the relations of the Russian Orthodox Church with Western (including American) conservative religious circles. But for me, as a person who has been mostly involved in the ultra-right for many years, the recently published book by Anton Shekhovtsov “Russia and the Western Extreme Right. Black Tango” (“Russia and the Western Far Right. Tango Noir”).

The book was published by the academic publishing house Routledge, and the author is a really serious researcher, undoubtedly the best in this topic. It is impossible to retell the book - simply because of the huge number of important details contained in it - but it is possible to formulate the main conclusions that I can draw by reading it and correlating what I read with everything I know myself.

First of all, who are these extreme rightists with whom relations are being established from Russia? These are two not quite clearly distinguishable sets of political groups and parties - the radical ultra-right, even neo-Nazis, and those who are usually called right-wing populists.

Recently, I have more than once had to answer questions relating specifically to neo-Nazis, whether it be because of their dominance in our VKontakte, or because of their fighting friendship with Russian like-minded people. Communication at this level is a long tradition. More often, the interest was from the Russian side - in search of additional legitimation, and this was not always successful: de Benoit quickly became disillusioned with Dugin, the German branch of Blood & Honor did not recognize the Aryans as Russian namesakes. Sometimes the Western extreme right has been sincerely interested in scaling up, like Jean Thiriart, but not as often. Even Shekhovtsov's book could not contain all the lines of such connections; they were and remain - not in vain, for example, it was to Norway that the famous St. Petersburg Nazi Tarzan fled from a psychiatric hospital, and with the start of the Russian-Ukrainian war in 2014, in many ways, it was these ties that brought European fighters to both sides of the front.

Were all these connections effective? Probably not. Participation in the war - how significant is this result? After all, the war without Western fighters would have gone exactly the same way. Of our outcasts, connections with the West helped only a few. If Dugin eventually broke through into the political mainstream, then, say, the editors of the Atenei magazine (Pavel Tulaev and others), which did a lot to establish ties with Western colleagues, remained on the sidelines. Over the years, Zhirinovsky's party has been less and less connected with European neo-Nazis, and has become less and less influential.

The second (and more promising) set of Western partners are right-wing populists, that is, movements that, according to the formula of extremism researcher Casa Madda, combine technical populism in propaganda, authoritarian tendencies and a certain nativism, that is, the idea that the country should be inhabited by “indigenous "people, and other people and, no less important, ideas are destructive for its development. Here, kinship can be seen, rather, not with the Russian ultra-right, or not only with them, but with much larger social movements that put at the forefront discussions about “indigenous peoples”, “traditional values” and at the same time about “traditional religions”. In the 90s, the European right-wing populists were relatively weak, and the Russian officialdom was not at all interested in them. Now, gradually, things have come to the official friendship of United Russia with the Austrian Freedom Party, the French National Front and others.

It is only important to understand that United Russia is reaping the fruits of the long work of various circles of Russian nationalists, both remaining on an inconspicuous roadside (like the same Ateneus), and continuing to flourish. People close to Prokhanov established many connections in their time, albeit often with slightly anecdotal characters, like the American promoted by Glazyev, Lyndon LaRouche. Of course, LaRouche could only be sold as an important economist to the audience of the Zavtra newspaper, as it was difficult to polish the Jean-Marie Le Pen brought by Baburin, but if it weren’t for those visits, maybe everything would not have turned out so easily with his daughter.

Noticeable practical successes in European-Russian far-right integration began to appear as the Kremlin began to be included in it after the Orange Revolution. Then arose - as a typical symmetrical response in the spirit of a reverse cargo cult - a movement of pro-Moscow observers at any non-Russian elections and public condemnation of fascist tendencies (real or imagined) in Eastern Europe, encouraged from above. It is curious that our ultra-rightists, including former figures of the RNE or the Russian Obraz, actively participated in all this. Shekhovtsov details some of these prominent pro-democracy activists, notably former Russian far-right Alexei Kochetkov and former Polish far-right (now just right-wing populist) Mateusz Piskorski. Later, Western guests, mostly far-right figures, actively worked as observers at the Crimean referendum, elections in the DPR and LPR, etc. It is curious that domestic activists are not only not ultra-right, but who have made a career on anti-fascism, like Alexander Brod (“Civil Control”), are also engaged in this specific observational activity. Here one could also speculate about the instrumentalization of anti-fascism for foreign policy purposes, but this is another topic.

This integration began to accelerate at the turn of the decade. In addition to the gradual change in the Kremlin's course, it is equally important that many European extreme rightists began to abandon their traditional anti-Russian sentiments (although Shekhovtsov's book contains a whole chapter on episodes of connections and mutual sympathies back in the Soviet era). At first, many were impressed by Putin’s “anti-oligarchic” policy (which fits perfectly into any far-right rhetoric), later – by the orientation towards conservative values ​​(whatever that means, it’s easy to ignore the specifics), which, as you know, began to be emphasized especially since 2012. Rhetorical exercises on the topic of Eurasianism were also suitable for rapprochement.

The speeches constantly made in Moscow about the pluralism of civilizations (here, among the high-status people, the first should be called the Metropolitan - then - Kirill) are also sympathetic to the Western extreme right: they are trying to present themselves not as a rather archaic opposition, but as a civilizational alternative. They even point directly to modern Russia as a positive example. Of course, such a self-presentation of them does not coincide with Russian rhetoric, which still appeals to the vulgarized Huntingtonian geographical distribution of “civilizations”. But a direct coincidence and a full-fledged coherent presentation of ideas are not needed, since we are not talking about building an ideological "international", as it was in the days of the Comintern, but only about a pragmatic combination of propaganda approaches and narratives (however, the same can be said about ideology and propaganda and within Russia).

An incomplete coincidence of interests and propaganda techniques may prevent the creation of some kind of formal coalition (with this, the European ultra-right is not so simple even within the EU). Some turned out to be completely out of the way with official Moscow, like, say, openly gay Geert Wilders. A rather ambivalent position is taken by the Hungarian Jobbik. But many others on the far right are becoming more open and consistent in their pro-Russian stance.

The supply of new allies from the Russian side, accordingly, is also becoming more and more definitely benevolent. One has only to compare the intonations with which the official media wrote and spoke about the same "National Front" in different years. With obvious neo-Nazis, it is more difficult, of course, but there are different ways. For example, the well-known American white racist leader Richard Spencer was presented by Russia Today as an "expert on Libya." By the way, the participation of the Western extreme right in Russian propaganda is so noticeable that an entire chapter is devoted to this in Shekhovtsov's book. The fact that our ruling party is now signing official cooperation agreements with European far-right parties with clearly neo-Nazi roots is shocking, not because of the fact of cooperation, but because of the frankness of it.

Well, and accordingly, the scale. Therefore, connections cannot be provided only by the forces of old, since the 90s, cadres (although Dugin's role in this sense is still significant), more and more new ones are being connected. Motherland activists, as you know, held the largest conference with the extreme right in St. Petersburg in 2015, if we count the number and political weight of Western participants. Aleksey Komov, a very versatile figure associated with the patriarchy and advocating family values ​​and censorship on the Internet (together with the Safe Internet League, behind which the figure of Malofeev is visible), played a significant role in rapprochement with the Italian League of the North. Contacts were established with the Austrian Freedom Party with the active participation of Maxim Shevchenko, although he can hardly be called an extreme rightist, he is closer in his views to the Islamist Heydar Dzhemal (however, the leaders of this Austrian party even met with Ramzan Kadyrov). Note that we are dealing with a competitive environment, so some initiatives simply die quietly: for example, that scandalous St. Petersburg conference with the Golden Dawn and other eminent neo-Nazis did not receive development.

Shekhovtsov in his book shows that on the Russian side there is no clear division into official and marginal agents for establishing links with the Western extreme right. There is, rather, a complex web of contacts, and he traces it carefully. If we evaluate the dynamics of this process, then a gradual increase in the level is obvious. Very roughly speaking - from Tulaev to Baburin or Prokhanov, then - to almost officialdom like the "Dialogue of Civilizations" sponsored by Yakunin, and then to the activities of Sergei Naryshkin, who from the beginning of the Donbas epic held various events in Moscow with the participation of leaders of the same Freedom Party , the "National Front", the League of the North, but also the Bulgarian "Attack", etc.

What are the fruits of this policy of "domestication" of the Western extreme right of various stripes? Not very good. Sometimes "taming" is disrupted due to the principled nature of potential partners: for example, anti-missionary amendments in the "Yarovaya package" greatly spoiled the emerging friendship with the conservative wing of American Protestants on the basis of "traditional values". Sometimes a frontal attack is counterproductive: the support of Marine Le Pen clearly played against her in the elections (and maybe against Fillon) and rather strengthened Macron's anti-Moscow course. Maybe someone sincerely hoped in this way to nurture a new group of European leaders friendly to the Kremlin, such as Schroeder and Berlusconi, but this attempt failed. What really happened is a close-knit pro-Russian group of far-right MEPs. The low percentage threshold for voting in this body helps small parties, and this vote itself is easier to perceive as a protest, so in the European Parliament the far right is more visible than on average in national parliaments, but they are still a small minority.

So why, then, is the theme of the Kremlin's influence on Western social and political life important? Shekhovtsov concludes his book by considering various options for further development, even the threat of a military scenario: now Russian far-right or former security officials are training Western far-right in several countries, and something similar happened in Ukraine long before the Maidan. Whatever scenario – military, political, mixed, focused on this or that country, more or less plausible – is considered, one thing remains common: the threat does not seem realizable.

But the very presence of a threat is already a political factor for a democratic society, the threat affects the course of all major parties and political leaders, albeit not always in the way one might expect. It is also important that the far-right movements that follow the path of "taming" become more dependent on their eastern partner, and therefore more manageable, but not at the level of everyday steps, of course. In this sense, collaboration really becomes like a tango, with the lead partner setting the main line and the follower the artistic and eye-catching details.

When they say that the Kremlin, with the support of neo-Nazis and right-wing populists, is intimidating the West or can put it entirely or in part under control, this is an exaggeration, but it will not be an exaggeration to say that through this long-term campaign, it was possible to create a more or less controllable mechanism for influencing the politics of many Western countries. .