Mikhail Remizov - about domestic conservatism

On January 27, 2006, the website of the Political News Agency published an analytical review by its editor-in-chief, Mikhail Remizov, "Conservatism Today."

Since this review is very extensive and detailed, we are unable to note all of its provisions and are forced to confine ourselves to listing the main ones, as they appear to us.

The author describes the current state of Russian conservatism as an ideological trend.

At the beginning of his work, he lists "the most prominent of the conservative figures and institutions" (these are "the ideologists of the Seraphim Club"; the "Conservative Press Club" formed around the "Russian Journal", the website of the APN; Orthodox conservatives, both church ones and publicists circle of sites "Pravoslavie.ru" or "Pravaya.ru"; literary and philosophical group "Bastion"; "Conservative Seminar" at the Cultural Foundation, as well as centers that "do not directly declare ideological conservatism, but are directly related to it - in the opinion author, this is Sergey Kurginyan's "Experimental Creative Center", or the Institute of Russian History at the Russian State University for the Humanities, headed by Andrey Fursov).

Then M. Remizov tries to define the subject of conservatism. He cites the points of view on the subject of Karl Mannheim and Samuel Huntington and draws the following conclusion: "Disagreements" between Mannheim and Huntington give rise to talk not just about different approaches, but about different "conservatisms", one of which can be called "situational" or "institutional "(as soon as it talks about the preservation of really established institutions), the other - "integral", or "ideological" (as soon as it talks about conservatism as an independent ideology that opposes liberalism and socialism)" .

"Situational conservatism" seems unproductive to the author ( "In the projection of the current stage of Russian history, this synthesis is an absolute fiction, a simulacrum of conservatism" ). "Ideological" conservatism, on the contrary, seems to him to be a peculiar, very promising ideological and political trend: "Born as a reaction to defeat and loss (which has already been said), he found himself, at the first stage, as a destructor of the foundations of the victorious liberal-democratic ideology" .

Then M. Remizov identifies the axioms of conservative politics - "five regulatory principles that determine the position of ideological conservatism in the political field of modern Russia" (civilizational anti-globalism, religious traditionalism, demographic nationalism, state legitimism), distinguishes between patriotism and conservatism (specifying that "functionally , conservatism is responsible not so much for "stability", but for the "integrity" and identity of the state-political system " ).

After that, the author claims that "ideological conservatism everywhere and always opposes precisely the "anti-system", which also exists everywhere and always in modern societies" , and describes the main strategies for such opposition: these are "apparatus conservatism" , "organizational fascism" and "neo-conservatism" .

Which of these directions is "the most promising"? - asks M. Remizov. “Most likely, both, and the third. The cumulative effect of the simultaneous implementation of these strategies by different, sometimes rival groups of conservative politicians and ideologists can be significant and unexpected,” he concludes. “Of course, provided that the variety of political paths of conservatism will not cross out the commonality of his political goals .

Sources

• Remizov M. Conservatism today: an analytical review // Political News Agency. 2006. January 27.