Any discussion, any speculation, about Russia’s future has to begin with a focus on demography. And unless it is known, however roughly, how many human beings will live in the territory in ten, thirty, or fifty years from now, such a discussion will be meaningless, or it will lead not to one conclusion, but to several.
It is believed that in the eighteenth century, after the death of Peter the Great, some five million to six million people lived in what was then Russia. The first and only (“imperial”) census took place in 1897; it took years to prepare, was undeniably thorough, and concluded that the number of people living then in the Russian Empire was 125 million (16 million in towns, the rest in the countryside).
According to Russian nationalists of the extreme variety, there would be six hundred million people living in Russia today were it not for the fact that since 1897 a series of major disasters—World Wars I and II, the civil war of 1918–19, and Communist rule (including starvation following the agricultural policy of collectivization, the Stalinist mass murders, and the gulag)—adversely affected population growth. The actual number today, they claim, is only 142 million.
But disasters cannot by themselves account for this decline: Consider, for instance, the declines in birthrate and the size of the population in the 1990s, a period that experienced no wars, civil wars, mass purges, or violent social upheavals.
Since our task in the present framework is to focus on the future of the country, not its past, it must be questioned whether in addition to a general population decline, the country’s low population density—Russia’s paltry 8.6 people per square kilometer offers a striking contrast to the European Union’s 112 and the United Kingdom’s 246—will jeopardize its ability to maintain its current territory, let alone recover the territories that were lost following the fall of the Soviet Union. It could be argued that the climatic conditions in northern Russia, Siberia, and the Far East are such that its population density will never be similar to that in Europe. On the other hand, global warming and technological development may bring about totally unforeseen changes in population growth.
Present projections by outside commentators vary considerably; while all agree that there has been an improvement from the 1990s, none is excessively optimistic about the future. According to the most recent Russian calculations on current trajectories, the country’s population, absent immigration, is set to shrink by almost 20 percent from one generation to another. The survival rate for men is now sixty-five years; for women, seventy-six. This compares with seventy-seven years for men and eighty-two years for women in Germany. There is general agreement that alcoholism is the single most important factor accounting for the much shorter life span of men. Under Gorbachev, an effort was made to combat alcoholism, but it had no lasting effect. Commentators have noted that Sweden had a similar problem with alcoholism but managed to overcome it by the action of civil society. Why? Because it had a social state serving the population, a national state that defined itself in terms of the individual and his or her rights, and a legal state able to regulate life with the help of laws. Russia has been deficient in all three respects.
The United Nations Population Division projections suggest that depopulation in Russia will continue. The pool of Russian women entering their twenties will shrink rapidly over the next decade, a result of the baby crash in the 1990s. And at just 1.7 percent, Russia’s current reproduction rate is woefully insufficient.
These negative figures will have immediate political consequences. Russian military forces will face a shortage of recruits, especially ethnic Russians. And Russia may experience a serious decline in the number of college graduates; in the 1990s, Russia still accounted for about 9 percent worldwide, but this will have dropped to 3 percent by 2030, according to projections. The fact that budget allocations for education have also decreased in recent years probably contributes to this trend.
Another moderately pessimistic view reaches the conclusion that Putin’s natalist policies (encouraging Russian women of childbearing age to have more babies) may be partly responsible for the slight increase in birthrate and population in Russia. Nevertheless, it remains true that by 2040, the number of Russians aged twenty to twenty-nine will be half that of today. While the decline of Russia seems inevitable in the long run, it may take longer than frequently assumed.
A question that has been discussed for some time is whether pro-natalist policies can reverse depopulation, specifically in Russia. The historical evidence is not clear: Natalist policies were tried in Russia in the 1930s (when there was a sudden, substantial fall in the birthrate), and again under Stalin after the war, it has been tried in Nazi Germany but also more recently in many European countries especially in Scandinavia following the research and initiative of Gunnar and Alva Myrdal.
Such policies can take various forms such as making abortion difficult. In Nazi Germany in 1944 it became a crime of capital punishment. Earlier on in 1941 the production of condoms was stopped. Positive measures have been more frequent such as extending parental leave and financial incentives. Again, the Nazi example has been the most radical, but more in theory than in practice. Hitler and the other Nazi leaders believed that the place of the woman was at home, giving birth and taking care of children. But Nazi economic policies, especially rearmament and wartime exigencies took millions of women away from home to work—mainly in industry. The fact that women received signs of distinction (the “Mother Cross” starting with the third child) had little if any effect and the financial awards were minuscule.
Studying the Russian experience through investigations in 2013, Serafima Chirkova reached the conclusion that, in the short run, the changes in Russian family policy had a significant positive effect on the second birth: the probability of a family’s having a second child increased by 2.2 percent on average. According to the 2007 family policy reforms, the “maternity capital” concept was introduced. There was a minimum benefit of 40 euros for the first child and 85 euros for the second child. The experience in Scandinavia was similar; in the Nordic countries provisions are also made for keeping the place of work for some considerable time after pregnancy—up to three years. In Russia maternity leave consists of twenty weeks, usually ten weeks during, and ten weeks after birth.
However, these conclusions apply for the time being to the short term only—and to the probability of having a second child. Whereas in Russia a higher birthrate is needed to prevent depopulation. In other words, natalist policies can slow the process of depopulation but not drastically reverse it.
If the depopulation of Russia has not been more extensive, it is the result of immigration, and this will probably be true in the future. Most of the history of immigration to Russia dates back to the eighteenth century when the empress Catherine (herself a German princess born in Szczecin) induced German settlers mainly from southwest Germany to settle in Russia; most of them became known as the Volga Germans. A first office dealing with migrants from Central Europe was established in 1763—it was probably the first of its kind in the world. The immigrants of recent years come from the Central Asian republics once part of the Soviet Union and from the Caucasus. Their exact number is unknown, although they account for some 8 percent of the Russian GNP. According to the World Bank, some twelve million foreign workers are employed in Russia, only about one million legally. If Russia were to deport many of them and to refrain from keeping its gates at least partly open in the future, this would be a heavy blow to the Russian economy and negatively affect the demographic structure. For this reason, Putin has opposed steps aimed at drastically reducing their number.
However, the presence of so many millions has caused friction in a country that, like many others, is not known for welcoming foreigners with open arms. “Russia for the Russians” is the slogan chanted by thousands of Muscovites, and this, despite economic needs, is also the policy of the government.
Putin has been dealing with the topic of “law-abiding migrants with desirable characteristics” in a number of articles and speeches—all of them in favor of assimilation with Russia. As he sees it, the multicultural project rejecting the notion of integration through assimilation has failed. Multiculturalism resulted in the formation of closed national and religious communities that not only refuse to assimilate, but do not even adapt. He expressed astonishment that neighborhoods and entire cities in the Western world where generations of immigrants are living on welfare do not even speak the language of the host country: “There can be just one outcome for such a social model—xenophobia on the part of the indigenous population which understandably seeks to protect its interests, jobs, and social benefits from the foreign competitors.”
Putin said that historical Russia was neither an ethnic state nor an American melting pot, where everyone was one way or another an immigrant. Russia developed over centuries as a multiethnic state in which there was mutual adjustment, mutual understanding, and unification of people through families, friendship, and work, with hundreds of ethnicities living together on the same land. The core, the binding fabric for the Russian future, was the Russian people and the Russian culture that united them. There was a Russian cultural dominance flowing not only from ethnic Russians, but from all carriers of this identity regardless of nationality. This was the cultural code that should be nourished, strengthened, and protected—mainly through education. Putin also referred to the American (Western) cultural canon, the hundred books that should be read by every self-respecting student, and suggested a similar project for Russia:
We need a national policy strategy based on civil patriotism. Any person living in our country should not forget their faith and ethnicity. But before anything else he must be a citizen of Russia and be proud. No one has the right to put ethnic and religious considerations above the state laws.
This in barest outline is Putin’s vision of integration on which Russia’s future is to be based; strong institutions are a precondition to that end. It is, as commentators have noted, a trumpet call not only for the dominance of Russian culture, but for patriotism and a strong state. At the same time, there have been warnings against chauvinism and other exaggerations.
Putin’s observations about the shortcomings and difficulties of multiculturalism can hardly be denied; the successes of anti-immigrant movements in the United Kingdom, France, and other European countries in recent years provide clear evidence to this effect. Nor can there be any doubts with regard to the greatness of Russian culture. The difficulties arise once one moves from the realm of what might be desirable to realities. With all the respect and sympathy for Russian culture, ethnic and religious groups may prefer their own traditions, customs, culture, and way of life. In other words, they may accept assimilation only up to a certain point. They may prefer a commonwealth, a loose alliance of states, to the existence of one strong state as envisaged by Putin. Putin invokes pride, but not everything that happened in Russian history can instill pride within ethnic and nonethnic Russians alike. The experience of the Soviet Union over seventy years has not been positive. The moment the strong state disappeared, the Soviet Union fell apart. It can be endlessly discussed whether this was a good thing or bad, whether all the independent states that emerged are viable. In brief, certain interests and ambitions will have to be overruled by others; there will have to be coercion. And the question is how much of this is compatible with democratic norms. This emerges perhaps most clearly when considering the status and ambitions of Muslim minorities in Russia, to which we shall turn next.
Islam is “Russia’s fate”—thus predicted Alexey Malashenko, one of Russia’s leading experts in the field. His pronouncement gained attention at a time when fighting was going on in the Caucasus. Fighting there still continues in some parts, and it probably will not cease entirely in the foreseeable future. But Russian Islam remains an issue of paramount importance.
The Russian encounter with Islam goes back many centuries; in certain parts of the country, it predates the meeting with Christianity. For a long time, much of Russia was under Tatar rule. But despite such coexistence, Muslims were largely regarded as alien in Russia. The Tatars over the years became familiar. They took care, after all, as superintendents of many houses in Moscow. And who would not be enchanted by Aida Garifullina (a native of Kazan), by her looks as much as her voice. A generation earlier, Muslim Magomayev (1942–2008) was one of the most popular tenors in the Soviet Union and Russia.
The Muslims in the middle Volga region, Kazan, and vicinity were a shining example of peaceful coexistence. Nor was it exactly a depressed region. Average income, especially from industries connected with oil and gas, provided a standard of living higher than that in many other parts of Russia except its capital. However, the Russian attitude toward Muslims from other parts of the country, especially the Caucasus, remained negative.
Inasmuch as foreign relations were concerned, the Muslim countries ceased to be of much interest after the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire. Muslim countries (Turkey, Iran, the Arab world) were not considered much of a threat, but also not much as potential allies against the West. Past experience after World War II had not been encouraging from Moscow’s point of view. There was Pan-Turanism, and the Iranians too tried to gain a foothold in Central Asia, but they were not very successful and therefore not considered particularly dangerous. This changed somewhat when Russian security services became aware of the activities of radical preachers (usually called Wahhabi in Russia) from the Arab world. They were active above all in Central Asia and caused the rise of extremist (and terrorist) activities in Muslim communities. But such information barely reached the general public. A somewhat greater impact had a certain literature highlighting the growing importance of Islam in Europe and in Russia as a result of the demographic growth of these communities. One widely read novel by Elena Chudinova, The Notre Dame de Paris Mosque, describes France following a Muslim takeover; it starts with a public stoning at the Arc de Triomphe. In the field of nonfiction, a study such as Islamizatsiya Rossii (The Islamization of Russia, by Golubchikov and Mnatsakanyan [2005]) ought to be mentioned. It concludes with four scenarios, none of them very happy.
There are about twenty million Muslims in Russia. There is no exact figure because of the presence in Russia of millions of “guest workers,” most of them illegal, from the Central Asian republics. Muslim communities in Russia are concentrated in three regions—the Caucasus, Moscow, and the middle Volga region. The Central Asian republics were overwhelmingly Muslim, but they seceded from Russia when the Soviet Union disintegrated.
The conquest of the Caucasus took many years and inspired two generations of Russian writers, from Alexander Pushkin and Mikhail Lermontov to Leo Tolstoy. Lermontov had called a fellow officer a gorets (Muslim highlander), which, considered an insult, led to a duel in which Lermontov was killed. Alexander Griboedov, one of the leading Russian writers of his day and a diplomat, was sent on a mission to Persia; he was killed by a fanatic mob in Tehran. The Slavophiles such as Aleksey Khomyakov wrote occasionally on Islam, but they were not really well informed, and much of the writing was speculation. Academic institutions for the study of Islam, centered in Kazan, came into being in the late nineteenth century.
Resistance against Russian rule continued on a local scale, but it was suppressed by the central authorities without much difficulty. Examples include the Central Asian rebellion of 1916, when about one-third of the Kyrgyz people fled to China, and the Basmachi campaign after the Bolshevik takeover, which lasted almost seven years. There was the widespread impression among Western observers in the l930s that the Soviet government, whatever its other shortcomings, had succeeded in solving what was then known as “the national question.” This proved to be a mistake; the Central Asian and Caucasian republics opted for independence when the Soviet Union disintegrated. They all seceded, even though some of them remained in various respects dependent on Russia. As for the smaller autonomous republics within Russia, they too would have preferred independence but were too small and poor to exist as viable bodies. Chechnya was subdued in two protracted wars, and an uneasy modus vivendi was achieved in Dagestan.
In Chechnya, the Kadyrov clan remained in power, but sharia replaced Russian laws, and the little country became one of the world’s most repressive regions. The Russian government was willing to accept this as well as the exodus of most of the Russian population and far-reaching Islamization, provided Chechnya accepted Russian overlordship. The situation in Dagestan was similar except that there it did not turn into an all-out war. Violence became a permanent feature, albeit on a lower level. Despite Islamization, the ruling clans in both republics remained “traitors” as far as the opposition was concerned. However, militarily the opposition had been defeated and was no longer in a position to engage in major military or terrorist operations. In 2009, the Kremlin declared that counterterrorist operations on a major scale in Chechnya had ended; five years later, Moscow established a new Ministry for Caucasian Affairs.
It remains to be seen whether those representing Moscow’s interests in Chechnya and Dagestan can be trusted. Their desire for greater freedom of action, if not full independence, remains undiminished. However, as long as the central government is strong, their chances of obtaining greater concessions from Moscow are small. If the hold of the central government should weaken, their loyalty cannot be taken for granted. Even at the present time, contacts between the local pro-Russian authorities in Dagestan (and to a lesser extent in Chechnya) and the more radical opposition have been reported. Moscow’s man in Dagestan is Ramazan Abdulatipov, who followed a very hard aggressive line with some success. Even so, about fifty to sixty people are killed monthly in terrorist incidents.
It is impossible to say whether he will be successful in the long run—as usual in such conditions, much depends on the presence or absence of a few capable and loyal leaders and on the Kremlin’s willingness to give substantial financial support to Dagestan. But at a time of economic stagnation, there is considerable resistance to providing such help, for it will mean cuts in other parts of the Russian budget.
How strong is the influence of the Islamists—the radical Muslims standing for secession and, if need be, violent struggle? According to certain information, it is far stronger in the Caucasus than in the other Muslim concentrations. But even there the evidence is so widely divergent as to be meaningless. It ranges from assertions that there are no radicals to claims that everyone is a radical. According to some elections in Dagestan, the Communists emerged as the leading party, which, if correct, probably had less to do with political/ideological issues than with the personality of the candidate standing for election (who likely belonged to an influential clan and picked the party as a platform that would give the most freedom of action).
The strongest Muslim trend in the Caucasus was Sufism for a long time, and in many regions it still is. Radical missions have been carried out by the Salafi movement rather than a political or religious party and by the Hizb ut-Tahrir (more in Central Asia than in the Caucasus). This is an organization founded in Arab Jerusalem in 1953, active in some parts of the world such as the United Kingdom, but hardly in existence in others. They demand the abolition of present-day borders between Muslim states and the establishment of a single entity—the caliphate. However, generally speaking, a considerable part of radical activity seems to depend on the character and activities of local clans.
The religious-political awakening of Islam (and of radical Islam) coincided with the growth of a radical nationalist mood among the Russian population. This, needless to say, was bound to lead to tensions. It had to do with a major influx of Muslim workers mainly from Central Asia and the Caucasus into Russian cities.
They have not been adequately housed and do not enjoy various other essential services. They are served by a very few mosques only; resentment against them being what it is, the present mayor of Moscow has declared that there will be no more mosques in his city. However, if they pray in the streets, they are accused of disturbing public order and interfering with public transport. At the same time, safety in the streets has been affected, and in many ways it is surprising that there have not been more riots. A paradoxical situation has arisen, considered highly undesirable from the government’s point of view.
While the security services have worried about the subversive separatist activities among the migrants and the local police about maintaining law and order, the Foreign Ministry has been preoccupied with the negative impression created in the Muslim world about anti-Muslim sentiment (and activities) in Russian cities. Following the initiative of the then Russian foreign minister Yevgeny Primakov (an Arabist by training), a high-level conference took place to engage in damage control. The reputation of Russia in the Muslim world had already been low following the Afghan war and the two Chechen wars. The Foreign Ministry argued that if Islamophobia were to grow in Russia, it would be a fatal blow to the Russian reputation of tolerance and integrity. Their main worry, of course, was that Russia might miss political opportunities in the Muslim world. However, Russia was saved by the American intervention in Afghanistan. Once Russia had withdrawn from Afghanistan, it ceased to be an immediate target in the Muslim world.
Following the occupation of Crimea, the treatment of the Crimea Tatars became a matter of concern to Muslims in other parts of the country. They were exiled and ill treated under Stalin during and after World War II.
The fate and activities of Russian Muslims have been of little interest to the Muslim world, mainly because of their limited presence outside Russia. Though the haj (the annual pilgrimage to Mecca) has been encouraged in various ways, only relatively few Russian Muslims have made use of what is essentially a religious commandment. Russian Muslims are claiming that many more of them would like to go to Mecca but cannot do so because the number is limited to about twenty thousand by the Saudi authorities. (There have also been complaints among those going to Mecca that there are too many members of the security services keeping an eye on militant Islamists.) The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (formerly the Organization of the Islamic Conference) abstained on various occasions from blaming or criticizing Russia, and it always refused to accord membership to Ichkeria, the political organization of the Chechen rebels. Russian goodwill was more important than solidarity with the co-religionists in Russia.
During the 1990s, something akin to a government strategy vis-à-vis Russian Islam developed. On the whole, pragmatism rather than ideology prevailed. The Russian right wing and especially the Far Right would routinely remind their countrymen that the Muslim countries and especially the Arab states were their natural allies in the struggle against the West. Dmitry Rogozin, at that time head of the far-right Rodina party, even advocated for a while the idea originally suggested by the organization of Muslims from the Lower Volga that there should be a permanent Muslim deputy president of Russia. But the policy of appeasement strategy (sometimes reinforced by “anti-Zionist” arguments) inevitably collided with the anti-Muslim resentments of the Russian street and was therefore dropped. Nor were these leaders of the Far Right willing to give up the Caucasus or make similar far-reaching concessions in exchange for political support by the Muslim countries. For these and other reasons, there has been a long-dating suspicion of Russia in the Muslim world, just as in Russia there has always been the conviction that Russia had no allies that could be trusted except its armed forces. Representatives of Hamas and other Palestinian organizations visited Moscow on various occasions without any tangible results. The only benefit derived from these activities is that Muslim countries have refrained from open support for fellow Muslims inside Russia, much to the disappointment of Muslims inside Russia. One typical example was the relative lack of political support when the Crimea Tatars came under pressure following the Russian invasion in 2014.
The specific problems of the Muslim enclaves in Northern Caucasus, which, in addition to the ones mentioned, included Ingushetia with half a million inhabitants, should be mentioned. While a major crisis had been prevented and while terrorist attacks did not have a major effect, the danger to oil and gas pipelines leading from the Caspian basin to Europe continued to exist
Russian experts and policy makers seem to be fully aware of the threats facing them in the Caucasus and possibly also in other parts of the country. That Islamic separatism is regarded as a major threat emerges from textbooks used at the university of the security forces, whose authors have no sympathy for the regions that have adopted the sharia and an Islamist orientation. But at the same time, they have not suggested how to confront this challenge, except proposing that Russia should turn to the East rather than the West for inspiration and leadership.
Another example of the confusion prevailing in the field is the Geydar Dzhemal phenomenon. Dzhemal, a Moscow public figure in his late sixties, is a poet who has published extensively on psychiatry but also serves as a chairman of the Islamic Committee of Russia. Dzhemal is of mixed Russian and Azerbaijani parentage and advocated at different stages in his life Marxist-Islamism, anti-Semitism (Pamyat), and several other ideologies. According to his teaching, world politics (“mondialization”) can be understood only against the background of the conflict between the two leading superelites (the one headed by the British aristocracy and the Washington American elite). The events on September 11 were a grandiose provocation of one superelite against the United States and the Islamic world. According to Dzhemal, Osama bin Laden and the Taliban were creatures of the CIA and of Zionism together with the KGB, tools leading to a superelite domination of the planet. Connoisseurs of conspiracy theories will recognize where these theories hail from: the influence of the early Alexander Dugin.
In fact, Dzhemal cooperated closely with Dugin during their Pamyat days. Dugin subsequently moved on to the more respectable fields of geopolitics and neo-Eurasianism, whereas Dzhemal remained involved in various Islamic committees. It is impossible to know whether this farrago of nonsensical supposition is genuinely believed by anyone, how much is entertainment or deliberate confusion mongering, or how much is destined more for export than local consumption. In any case, his theories are typical of the state of mind prevailing in these circles.
Since Russia is not strong enough to counteract American and European influence (this was written several years ago), the authors of one of the intelligence textbooks suggest an alliance of Russia, China, India, and Iran (called RIKI). The authors, otherwise not distinguished by a sense of humor, mention that they are aware of Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, the heroic mongoose in Kipling’s Jungle Book. The countries mentioned behaved very well in the past and did not exploit the state of Russian weakness (in the 1990s) after the breakdown of the Soviet Union. (Walter Laqueur, Harvest of a Decade: Disraelia and Other Essays, 2011)
While the tension in the Caucasus continued, great comfort was drawn from the fact that Tatarstan and Bashkortostan were quiet. The media reported that the local population had benefited from the oil and gas boom and that the hold of the traditional Islamic establishment there was strong. True, some radical preachers had arrived there from Saudi Arabia as well as Kuwait and Qatar, but the great majority of the population had no wish to live “in medieval conditions” such as preached by some hothead new clerics from abroad out of touch with local conditions.
The situation seemed under control until suddenly on July 19, 2012, an attempt was made to blow up the car of Ildus Faizov, the supreme mufti of the region. He escaped with injuries, while one of his assistants was killed. This led to detailed investigations and debates, and the picture that emerged was less comforting than the earlier reports. When members of the local parliament met a few weeks later, Artem Khokhorin, head of the local Ministry of Internal Affairs, made it known that for the last thirteen years there had been a virtual state of undeclared war in the region. During that period, Tatarstan had been systematically infiltrated by preachers from certain Arab countries. Some were foreigners, others were local people who had studied in Mecca and Medina—in other words had been indoctrinated by Salafi teachings. Furthermore, the constitution of the congregation who came to the mosque on Fridays and holidays had changed: Half or more were newcomers from Central Asia who had been brainwashed by Salafis at the places where they had come from. The same had happened in other parts of Russia, such as the Stavropol region (where Muslims now constituted more than a quarter of the population), even in southern Ural and western Siberia, which according to some reports had become one of the main targets of the Salafists. The president of Bashkortostan (formerly known as Bashkiria), which had been relatively free of problems, now reported that religious fanaticism was becoming a political threat. The issue was not that the traditional leadership had been unaware of these trends; they had cultivated the radicals. It was that if the attempt to kill Faizov had succeeded, his successor would have been one of the leading Salafi preachers in the country.
Within a short time after the assassination attempt, Ramil Yunusov, head of Kazan’s biggest mosque (the biggest mosque in Eastern Europe), left posthaste for London to improve his English-language skills (according to a spokesman). He has not returned since. While no one accused him of direct involvement in the attack, he had been the leading religious/ideological opponent of the mufti. Further, he had studied for several years in Medina, was considered a charismatic preacher, but at the same time was on good terms with the religious establishment. More generally speaking, the younger Saudi-trained preachers were more popular than the establishment clerics who had the support of the secular authorities and the Russian security services.
If the Kazan events had been an exception and of purely local character, they would not have attracted wider political attention. But they were not untypical. To again quote Alexey Malashenko: “In some previously docile parts of Russia, the Muslim population is becoming radical, even extremist. Even before the attempt to kill the mufti there were attacks, some of them successful, against preachers considered moderate, including al Tirqawi, a spiritual leader of the Tariqists (a Sufi sect): Some observers regard the present situation as the beginning of the Caucasization of the Volga region.”
True, there is the occasional tendency to exaggerate Salafist influence; establishment preachers are inclined to denounce all their opponents, whatever their views, as Salafists. But there is no doubt that the problem of radical Islam has been spreading and becoming more acute. And it is no longer confined to a few concentrations but has spread to most places where Muslims live in Russia.
What could Russian authorities do to limit the influence of the extremists? They could switch their support from the traditionalists to the more popular (especially among those who have an influence on the younger generation). But it is doubtful whether these preachers would cooperate at a time when there has been a nationalist radicalization among Russian communities.
Furthermore, the danger of infection has grown from neighboring countries such as Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan has been much better off economically than the neighboring Muslim republics, but this has not prevented the spread of Islamic extremism and terrorism. In December 2012, the government of Kazakhstan announced for the first time that the caliphate army posed a threat to national security. This followed several suicide attacks in the republic.
Some of the terrorists hailed from the Caucasus, others had been trained in Afghanistan. However, the Kazakh police also established that there had been local terrorist training centers for attacks within the country. Since Kazakhstan under the Shanghai Cooperation Organization can count on Chinese and Russian help in such emergencies, the size of the present danger should perhaps not be overrated. On the other hand, hundreds of thousands of Kazakh “guest workers” and even more from the neighboring republics now live inside Russia. Radical influences among them will have an immediate effect.
Alarmist reports about Russia becoming a Muslim country within a generation or two are probably exaggerated. But no great political acumen is needed to understand that serious problems are likely to arise well before the Muslim community amounts to 51 percent of the population. Putin’s population strategy and “Russia for the Russians” are policies that cannot be combined, and it remains doubtful whether Russia will be able to carry out a policy leading to the integration of the many millions of newcomers. Legislation in recent years does not give the autonomous republics a great deal of autonomy; on the contrary, it is now more limited than in the past.
Moreover, it is not only the “Russia for the Russians” crowd that makes life difficult for Putin. The Russian Orthodox Church likewise opposes what it regards as the official appeasement of Islam; it wants to preserve its old/new status as the state religion. On top of all this, the majority of public opinion is opposed to the official policy.
Russian foreign policy vis-à-vis Islam and Islamism has been undecided, trying to keep all options open. With America still looming as the great threat, Islamist antiactivities should have been welcomed without reservation, and very often they were. But with the American and NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan, that country is bound once again to become a Russian problem as a base for jihadist activities in Central Asia, for Russia is near and America far away. Still, Russian government strategy is dominated by the American shadow and the conviction that what helps the United States must be bad for Russia. It may take a long time for Russia to unlearn its obsession with the Western danger. It has been Russia’s destiny to see dangers and enemies in the wrong places and overlook real ones. Such inclinations have deep roots and are unlikely to disappear soon.
The post-Soviet governments had to face domestic resistance from the beginning. In the early days, this had mainly to do with changes in the constitution, particularly with the leading role of the Communist Party in the political life of the country. Later on, this specific obstacle had been cleared and the country had been democratized, at least as far as its laws were concerned.
With Putin’s rise to power, a contrary trend asserted itself: The Russian people wanted stability and order more than freedom and democracy. Gradually, freedoms that had been achieved were again curtailed or ignored in practice. It was widely maintained that the Western forms of democracy were not suitable for Russia, certainly not in present conditions—after the breakdown of the old system and the general upheavals of the 1990s. This happened partly because of the difficulties of the transition from the communism period and the mistakes that were committed during these years. Left open was the question of whether any other form of democracy would suit Russia. The very terms “democracy” and “democratic” acquired a negative connotation.
With the curtailing of political freedoms, demonstrations ensued—and this led to further restrictions. The opposition manifested itself in protests against elections that (it was alleged) had been falsified. There were also peace marches and similar activities. In the beginning, these events were headed by dissidents of the late Soviet era, but gradually a new generation of protesters came to the fore, younger people such as Alexei Navalny and Sergei Udaltsov, the former gravitating more to the right, the latter to the left. But “left” and “right” were also changing their meaning and were no longer as important as they had once been. The demands of the Left had little to do with Marxism-Leninism, and their patriotism was at least as loud as that of the others. The main issues were now corruption and the absence of political freedom. Vladimir Ryzhkov, who had once been deputy prime minister, noted that for years no new political party had been recognized by the government and that this was typical in the absence of political freedom. Whereas the state party United Russia with its youth organization Nashi (Ours) had been given every advantage, they were in fact “crooks and scoundrels,” according to a famous Navalny formula.
A charismatic young lawyer, Alexei Navalny defined himself as a nationalist democrat (or vice versa). He also appeared as a speaker at meetings of far-right organizations. It was generally assumed that he had only a few thousand faithful followers, so it came as a surprise that hundreds of thousands voted for him in the Moscow mayoralty elections in September 2013 against Sergey Sobyanin, who was Putin’s candidate. Navalny had no financial backer, no powerful organization, but he still had his breakthrough as a blogger. How, then, to explain that Navalny and other such protesters have not succeeded against the official candidates?
As usual, there is more than one reason. Virtually all those active in Russian politics at the present time agree that change will not come as the result of elections. If an opposition candidate were to win, it is believed he would be arrested for something—embezzlement, rape, mass murder, a traffic offense, or not paying taxes. He could also be killed.
A second reason: Within the many splits among the opposition, there are countless little parties that seem unable to join forces for common action. Sergei Udaltsov is ideologically close to the Communists and acted as chief of staff of their leader. But in a recent interview, he said that he did not want to see that leader as the next president. His misgivings may well be valid.
Furthermore, Putin has solid backing from certain sections of the population, including retired people, state employees, the church, and the working class. Backing for the opposition comes mainly from the intelligentsia and sections of the middle class. The supporters of Navalny and Udaltsov may believe in the personal honesty of their favorites. However, Navalny’s strong nationalism and Udaltsov’s proximity to the Communists do not inspire confidence.
The Putin government has a virtual monopoly on the media. Censorship was officially abolished under Gorbachev in 1990, but self-censorship is strong indeed. All the major television channels belong to owners who can be relied upon not to broadcast material negative or critical of the government; only a few TV and radio stations such as Echo Moskvy and Dozhd are still independent. Inconvenient journalists have been threatened, physically attacked, and in some cases even killed.
Are the Russian media at present more or less free than in czarist days? There are certain interesting similarities: The writing of Karl Marx could be ordered and bought in Russia before 1917 in English and German but not in Russian. Today, news items may be published in the Moscow Times that will never appear in the Russian-language media. Books in Russia, as in the West, are no longer widely read, whereas most people receive their information from the newer media.
There is, however, one big (and undesirable) hole as far as the authorities are concerned—the Internet, from which many Russians get their information about events in Russia and abroad. For this reason, the government has been trying for some time to push through legislation that would make this impossible by establishing a “national Internet” such as exists in other authoritarian regimes. It could be argued that such an action would inevitably be interpreted as a move by the regime from authoritarian to totalitarian. For this reason, some nonauthoritarian countries retreated from taking such a measure, having considered the implications. Even short of censorship legislation, the Russian authorities have been able to shut down offending Web sites, and the head of VKontakte, Russia’s largest social-networking site, was compelled in 2014 to leave the country. In these conditions, in the absence of freedom of information, the government and the state party have a virtual monopoly on information.
If United Russia, Putin’s state party, was not a success, Putin’s personal popularity remained consistently high. Following the Sochi Winter Olympic Games and the invasion of Crimea in 2014, it approached a record 90 percent. The patriotic/nationalist policy was a winner: Even part of the democratic opposition that did not approve of Putin’s policy in the Ukraine crisis agree with him that Crimea was part of Russia and should belong to it again. As long as Putin could play the patriotic/nationalist card without endangering world peace or causing a major deterioration in the economy, the prospects of the opposition being able to make significant headway were minimal.
Could Russia develop toward full-blown fascism? Some observers have argued that Russia has already reached this stage. But such assertions, while understandable from an emotional-psychological point of view, could hardly withstand rigorous analysis, nor are they helpful in understanding the dynamics of contemporary Russian politics. Boris Nemtsov, one of the leaders of the democratic Solidarnost movement and an erstwhile deputy prime minister, declared that in the spring of 2014 Russia had become a dictatorship. Although a strong case could be made in favor of this assertion, one could not feel altogether happy with such a categorical statement. For Russia had not been a free country even before, and it was not a total dictatorship even after, despite the fact that the trend toward a dictatorship was unmistakable.
It is difficult to find a common denominator for the political regimes commonly referred to as “Fascist” in twentieth-century Europe. Nazi Germany was not “Fascist,” and Fascist Italy was not Nazi. It becomes even more difficult to find common denominators if one also considers the smaller European countries are also considered. This has partly to do with the time factor—the Fascist era did not last long—the second World War II broke out a mere six years after the Nazis had gained power. The very term “Fascist” is of limited use for analysis and understanding.
It is unlikely that all Fascist or para- or quasi-Fascist countries and movements would have developed in the same way. There were obvious differences between large and small Fascist countries—the big ones tended toward expansionism and military aggression, the smaller ones did not, even though they might have been militarist in inspiration. Fascist regimes all shared certain features—for instance, the presence of a leader and the cult of this leader. Regimes that did not impose the domination of a single state party, or that accepted more than one party and more than one ideology, were more likely to be military or right-wing populist dictatorships that were not Fascist in character.
There was in Russia in recent years certainly the beginning of a personality cult (see the anthology edited by Helena Goscilo, Putin as Celebrity and Cultural Icon) though in comparison with the Stalin cult it was quite modest. It was probably because of the intensity of the Stalin cult and its often ludicrous character, which had not left a good impression even among Communists, that a Putin cult was bound to be halfhearted. From time to time, attempts were made to present him as the “father of the nation.” But he was not a father figure, and such attempts were almost certainly bound to fail. His public persona was that of a patriot and a member of the siloviki but lacked other attributes thought necessary for a great leader. There was the strong macho element he had in common with Mussolini. While Mussolini seldom showed the upper part of his body uncovered—his favorite sports were equestrian—Putin quite frequently while exercising or engaged in judo or other sports, displayed his well-developed torso. In Germany among the Nazi leaders this was not considered comme il faut, nor did Hitler, Göring, or Goebbels have the figures that people were proud to display or to have seen. Ebert, the Social Democratic president, was once photographed in a bathing suit: It did him considerable political harm in the 1920s. Ulbricht, the East German leader, was a gymnastics freak but appeared always fully clothed.
The history of political parties in Russia is very short. And while it is true that after the disintegration of the Soviet Union political parties were represented in the Duma, it is not clear whether they were bona fide organizations, who was behind them, who guided and financed them, and whose interests they represented. However, is it not possible that at a time of crisis, these pseudoparties might suddenly turn into independent bodies with a will and a policy of their own? And is it not possible that one day such a situation might arise?
The current leaders of Russia had learned in their youth that a strong political party was needed as a transmission belt to run the country. As long as there were elections and other condiments of a democratic regime, this was needed to mobilize the masses and to conduct propaganda to get the message of the ruling stratum to the people. Gorbachev in his later years and Yeltsin had ruled without a party, but this had created a variety of problems for the leader and those around him. For they needed support—money and activists for all kinds of purposes. They did not want to be too dependent on the oligarchs and the local governors, even though the governors had originally been elected locally whereas now they are appointed by the Kremlin.
In the last days of the Yeltsin regime, various smaller pro-Kremlin groups united and the current state party came into being in preparation for the Duma elections of 1999. They declared themselves to be opposed to left- and right-wing extremism, a centrist, anti-Fascist party. Putin was at one time its leader but later bowed out, as did Dmitry Medvedev and also Sergey Shoygu, who had been its formal leader.
This party has always been the strongest in the Duma, scoring between 49 percent and 72 percent of the total vote; its support was highest in 2007–08, when prosperity was at its peak. Of course, there were frequent accusations of ballot stuffing and other types of fraud, but investigations always proved inconclusive.
In any case, the establishment of a single state party as the country’s leading force has not gone over very well in recent years. Putting up a countrywide youth organization was even more difficult. It took a long time, and in the end did not amount to a dynamic force. It came into being in 2005 in competition with the “orange revolutions” in some of the republics that had split away. It attracted few members; according to rumors those who joined had been found among football fans and showed up only when they were paid for attending demonstrations. According to their official program they were against the extreme Right and Left, against fascism but also against excesses by antipatriotic oligarchs. It was apparently a creation of Surkov, Putin’s chief of staff and main ideologist up to 2011. He did not show much aptitude as an organizer in this assignment, and Nashi was hardly ever much in appearance. All the essential ingredients for a dynamic, effective youth movement—above all enthusiasm—were missing. Probably not all of them were thieves and rascals, as Alexei Navalny had maintained, but they seemed to have been politically rather useless.
Lacking both a political party, which according to the old constitution should be what currently serves as the engine and transmission belt in the country, and an official ideology in the face of an authoritarian regime, Russia cannot exist simply as a society of admirers of Putin. Even for this purpose, an effective organization—along with a group of like-minded people with common interests—is needed. To a certain extent, these have been the members of the KGB (now known as the FSB). According to the famous “vertical system” of government, they are authorized to give orders to the police and judiciary. They may threaten or buy the media. They can establish working alliances with some who have key positions in government—or even place some of their own people in such positions.
Students of political movements and fascism in particular have tried to find features common to them—a “Fascist minimum”—ten, twelve, or fourteen ingredients have been pointed out. Fascism in power always had a leader; it was never ruled by a committee. There always was a single state party, and the absence of such a party immediately raises questions as to the true character of such a regime. A Fascist regime had a monopoly (or a near monopoly) inasmuch as the propagation of its ideas was concerned, and it also had a monopoly (or near monopoly) with regard to political violence. There was no independent judiciary under fascism.
At the same time, each of these regimes were different in some respects. The Russian regime was quite unique inasmuch as it was the first that mutated from communism to an order quite different—be it of the Far Right or semi-Fascist or whatever. While it is interesting to point to these differences between them, not too much mental energy should perhaps be devoted to the categorization, because more often than not these regimes (or movements) are in a state of transition.
The absence of an official ideology after a period of oversaturation with ideology is certainly fascinating, but it is not at all clear whether it will last and how long it will last. There are periods in history in which the absence of a doctrine or belief system can be tolerated, at least temporarily, whereas during others it will be unthinkable. In a similar way, there are periods even in the history of dictatorships during which a minimum of repression will be sufficient to stay in power, whereas during others a great deal will be needed (or will be thought to be needed). If the fear of chaos is great, those in power will not constantly have to prove that a strong hand is needed. The same is true if the dictatorship is of relatively recent date or has shown its efficiency in the recent past.
Is it possible to maintain such a regime under these circumstances?
And what of the opposition? What are the prospects for its success in a political system such as the one currently in power in Russia?
When a regime or a ruler has been in power for very long, a process of routinization sets in, in which the demand for change becomes intense and frequent—unless, of course, that regime has been phenomenally successful in everything it has handled. And even then the hold of the party in power may be endangered if its own power base is deeply split.
Opposition to the Putin regime currently comes to a certain extent from members of the extreme Right, who maintain that the present rulers are not sufficiently aggressive and antidemocratic. However, the increasingly repressive measures taken by the government, the popularity of the takeover of Crimea, and the strong support for the Ukrainian separatists have muted their voices for the moment. As for the democratic opposition, popular support appears unlikely given the current climate, in which a majority of Russians seem to be perfectly content with authoritarian rule.
The Putin regime is based largely on power resting at the center, with regional interests being ignored. It could well be that an opposition representing regional interests would stand a much better chance, but this has not yet been tried.