How Navalny's nationalism has changed

The North Caucasus reacted with restraint to the calls of the Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny to go to the rally: on January 23, out of seven subjects of the North Caucasian Federal District, only in the Stavropol Territory and Dagestan were crowded actions in his support. In other places, individuals took to the streets, and only the brushes in their hands betrayed their intentions. One of the reasons for the indifference to politics is increasingly called his old statements about the Caucasus.

About Navalny's nationalism, about his speeches at the "Russian Marches" and about why the Soviet practice of "working with nationalities" is preserved in the Caucasian republics, Kavkaz.Realii was told by the director of the information and analytical center "Sova" Alexander Verkhovsky. He studies the problems of nationalism and xenophobia, the relationship between religion and society, as well as the practice of applying anti-extremist legislation in Russia.

- Judging by the comments on social networks, quite a lot of people in the Caucasus do not support Navalny because of his statements about Caucasians. In your opinion, does he really treat the inhabitants of the South of Russia with prejudice?

• In 2011, there was a relatively large campaign run by Russian nationalists. And Navalny was one of the participants in this campaign. "Stop feeding the Caucasus" - this was a formal appeal to the authorities. It was a nationalist campaign, and of course it was aimed at people within this movement, so for the average Russian citizen it sounded rather mysterious, but for those who are "in the know", everything was very clear.

The campaign was based on a long-term discussion among nationalists about whether the Caucasus should be separated from Russia or not. Or maybe you need to somehow tightly control it. Of course, the main thing was not the question of "feeding". "Feeding the Caucasus" is about subsidies from the federal budget not to all regions of the North Caucasus Federal District, but to the national republics. A more acceptable form of discussion was chosen for the general public, and not for the authorities, in what relations the main part of Russia should generally be with the national republics of the North Caucasus.

It was such, as it seemed, a rather successful populist undertaking, which should have attracted a lot of sympathy. But in practice, we know that this did not happen, it did not attract many sympathies. Yes, the media paid attention to this, so we are still discussing it, but the number of people who came to the Russian March that year did not change much.

Then the December protests began, and everyone was no longer up to "stop feeding the Caucasus." And Navalny also left this topic. This does not mean that he has changed his views, they have simply become less relevant for him, less significant.

- He later explained a lot for his statements that, they say, he had in mind only officials.

• Navalny has certain ethnic prejudices, this has repeatedly manifested itself in direct speech. Once he used it in political rhetoric, spoke on the nationalist field at the turn of the 2000s and 10s, but then it quickly became clear, to him in the first place, that this was an unpromising direction. Since then, we have not heard these speeches from him in noticeable numbers. The exception was when there was a mayoral election campaign in Moscow, then it coincided with the general anti-migrant campaign that was carried out by the federal media. I won’t say that all of them, but very many political figures then “marked themselves”, and Navalny was among them, not particularly standing out.

I wouldn't say he has changed much. A couple of years ago, he had a debate with Strelkov ( Igor Strelkov is the former head of the Defense Ministry of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic in eastern Ukraine - Ed. ). This is a very long conversation, in which both reproached the opponent for being "not a real nationalist." Both of them proceed from the fact that a nationalist is good, and the essence of the claims comes down precisely to "fakeness". It is clear that Navalny is very talented as a politician, and he understands that the word "nationalist" has a negative connotation. This is exactly the case in Russia, the Soviet legacy. In Europe, this word has a wider range of meanings. Political figures can, of course, appeal to the European political language, but this does not work well at the level of propaganda. Let's say you can say that Putin is a real nationalist. This is possible in an analytical way, but in propaganda it will be bad. Nobody does that. The same with Navalny. It belongs to one of the varieties of nationalism. But he just has to put it aside and not discuss it. I think this will be discussed sometime later, if the conversation comes to it at all.

-   Could Navalny's nationalism be one of the reasons for such strong support in the central regions?

• I don't think. When he was actively involved in the nationalist agenda, this did not add anything to him. Democratic, let's say, supporters who supported him as a fighter against corruption did not go with him to the rallies "Stop feeding the Caucasus!" and vice versa. And when he spoke at the "Russian March", he was also booed.

These two audiences turned out to be poorly compatible. They have points of contact, but they are politically insignificant. Therefore, I think that all support for Navalny is based on the anti-corruption agenda and on the general democratic one. We can see that last Saturday ( January 23 - Ed. ) rallies were almost everywhere, but they were not anywhere in the North Caucasus, with the exception of Makhachkala. But one cannot say that it is precisely in Dagestan that people do not care about what Navalny said "Stop feeding the Caucasus." But nevertheless, here, apparently, the point is that Dagestan is a more pluralistic region, more free. With all the severity of morals. - That is, after all, the people who went to the rallies on January 23 are not nationalists?

• Mostly not, of course. Among the people who took to the squares, there are nationalists, and there are anti-nationalists. Their general portrait does not emerge in any way. It is an open question what this protest will turn into politically and ideologically. This is very interesting, because Russian nationalism in the form in which it was in the 2000s degraded almost to the point of complete disappearance in the 10s. It actually doesn't exist. And what will arise in this place is the question.

- At the same time, even at the all-Russian level, there is a opposition between Russian and Western.

• This is also a nationalist agenda, but all of its pathos is directed outside the country. This is a variant of nationalism that should unite all citizens against the hostile West. And the nationalism that we saw on the streets before was focused on internal problems. What it will become in a few years is an interesting question. So far, little has changed.

- Why do you think there were no rallies in Karachay-Cherkessia? After all, Navalny had a whole investigation about corruption schemes in this particular republic.

• Don't know. This is a question that requires very specific knowledge. When we say that "people went to a rally," we forget that someone has to organize this rally, set the day and time. Not necessarily a serious organization, but at least some. And if you were at least three times concerned about the problem of corruption in Karachay-Cherkessia, you might simply have nowhere to go. Perhaps there was simply no organized group that could join this series of rallies. Or maybe they didn't want to be associated with Navalny. I don't know.

- In some anonymous, but government-affiliated telegram channels, instagram publics, all "those same" statements of Navalny about the Caucasus have now begun to be replicated. Could this lead to some changes?

• Now and so in the Caucasus there is no great support for Navalnov's rallies. Can it backfire, that such support will appear?

- Rather, that support will not grow and that those who watched the investigation about "Putin's palace" will not go anywhere and stay at home.

• I think that this is the whole calculation, but you can never guess. People who go to rallies organized by Navalny, including in Moscow, may also have certain claims against Navalny, including his former xenophobic statements. But at the end of the day, this is public life, and we can never be one hundred percent in agreement with someone in public life. Someone out of disagreement with Navalny will not go to the rally, but someone will hesitate and go.

- Navalny is far from the first politician who is associated with the words "Stop feeding the Caucasus." Is this such a sore point that is used to attract attention?

- Indeed, this phrase seems to have been coined by Konstantin Krylov ( one of the leaders of Russian nationalists, the creator of the unregistered National Democratic Party. He died in May 2020 as a result of a stroke - Ed. ). And Zhirinovsky, a plug in every barrel, could not get past this campaign either ( Vladimir Zhirinovsky is the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, LDPR ). And it would be okay about "stop feeding", he said, and a lot of other things. But we still know that people vote for his party.

- If we trust the results of the elections, the Liberal Democratic Party used to enjoy more support.

- However, there are organizations supporting Zhirinovsky in the Caucasus, unlike Navalny's support groups. Accordingly, it cannot be said that even such crazy statements exclude support. Including, perhaps, for selfish reasons, when a person wants to make himself a career as a political activist. What choice does he have? Not very big. He can go to Zhirinovsky if he is ready to come to terms with this internally.

- In the Caucasus, the word "nationalism" very often pops up in the context of a discussion of whether this is good or bad. How "safe" is Caucasian nationalism?

• We have not seen separatism for a long time, but somewhere it did not exist. Nationalism is not necessarily separatism. Nationalism as a political ideology is often confused with ethnic intolerance. If a person does not like someone, then this means that he is ethnically intolerant. And nationalism is already a political idea. When it was just emerging in the 19th century, it meant that people of the same nationality (whatever that means) should have their own state. Italians must live in Italy. Hungarians are in Hungary. But this is not necessarily the case. This is not necessarily a requirement of your state. It may be a demand for autonomy, it may be a requirement to pursue a policy in favor of one's ethno-cultural group.

In such dual republics as Kabardino-Balkaria and Karachay-Cherkessia, who is in charge? Kabardians or Balkars? This is a political issue. It does not affect the state as such. It does not lead to territorial demarcation. It concerns which activists and officials, Kabardian or Balkar, will influence political decision-making. It is impossible to say whether this is good or bad. It's unavoidable. If people identify themselves intensively enough with some ethno-cultural community, then they will also have a political representation. The main thing is that this political representation should not lead to violence or discrimination.

- And how to draw this line?

• The slogan "Stop feeding the Caucasus" does not sound like a nationalist one. If we were talking about the fact that it is necessary to stop subsidizing the regions from the federal budget altogether, let everyone live as they know how, this is one thing. If we are not talking about all Russian regions, but only about the Caucasus, this is different. It becomes clear that there is a discriminatory moment. But there are also clearer cases when people directly say that the gypsies ( the people of Roma - Ed. ), let's say, should be evicted from our city.

- In some regions of the North Caucasus there are unspoken rules that one of the three leaders of the republic (head, chairman of the government and speaker of parliament) must be Russian, and the other two belong to the titular nation. Is this rule normal in the 21st century?

• It's not about the century. This is a direct continuation of the order that was under Soviet rule, when the first secretary of the regional committee had to be of local nationality, and the second - Russian. Not even necessarily Russian, but "non-local", from the center. This order was necessary so that there would be no conflict, and then military clashes. This system remained due to fears that an attempt to change it could lead to more serious consequences. It is bad, of course, from the point of view of any norms of democracy, that people are not elected by citizens as they please, but that the system is regulated in this way. This is not good. But this is done in order to avoid the worst, in order to avoid war. If we consider that such a threat no longer exists, then we can try to dismantle this safety mechanism. But this is a risk.

- So you think that at least now it is justified?

• I don't know. I think we need to get away from this. There are more problematic regions, there are less problematic ones. But you have to get away from it.

Sources

• "Stop feeding the Caucasus." How did Navalny's nationalism change? // Caucasus.Realities. 2021. February 1.
• The Russian Ministry of Justice has entered the RFE/RL corporation and some of its projects, including Kavkaz.Realii, into the register of "foreign mass media acting as a foreign agent."