Colonial Patriotism
For a civilian patriotism
Arseniy Krasnikov
Translated by Dan Erdman
For more than 9 months the terrible conflict between Russia and Ukraine has been going on, bringing the peoples of these countries an incommensurable amount of grief, destruction, and death. The reasons for the successful resistance from the Ukrainian side (despite an economic collapse, nationalism and possible war crimes) are understandable and obvious - they’re engaged in a defense of their own territory, relatives and friends, as well as their national identity. But how is the conflict justified by the Russian side? Not the purely instrumental arguments about “8 years” and “NATO expansion,” but what is the idea behind the actions of the Russian leadership, which recently not only raises questions, but leads to extreme bewilderment?
For a long time, an important aspect of the Russian authorities, and one of its better qualities, was the absence of some “official” ideology in the political structure of the country. Although formally this has not changed in any de facto way, some value-laden political basis of the system has nevertheless been formed. It is a so-called thin ideology (which does not have a sufficiently formalized internal system and structure) of patriotism.
Almost all of the government’s decisions are substantiated by patriotism; it is one of the fundamental values of the state, which must be instilled from the school bench. But what is it? You can, of course, limit yourself to the well-known aphorism: “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel,” but, probably, you should not be so categorical. In the standard definition from Wikipedia - “Patriotism is a political principle, a social feeling, the content of which is love, attachment to the motherland, devotion to it and readiness to sacrifice for its sake” - there is, in general, nothing to criticize. A person of any views who simply wants a better future for his country, is already a patriot.
An interesting classification of patriotism is the division into “blind” and “constructive” subtypes, identified by researchers in the United States in 1999. Blind patriotism seems to be uncritical in relation to the actions of the authorities (and their demand for support) due to the inability to mentally separate the country itself from the people who govern it. Constructive patriotism is characterized by a critical attitude to the actions of the authorities, and a preference for electoral and ideological competition between different ways to both improve the current situation within the state and to raise its international authority.
Russian official patriotism is formed by some key characteristics that distinguish it from the standard dictionary definition: its coloniality and eclecticism - it is these, unfortunately, that “blind” it and in many ways make it a “haunt for scoundrels.”
In discussions about patriotism it is important to consider the way in which the macropolitical national identity is constructed. According to eminent Russian and foreign researchers of symbolic politics, these are divided into two types: positive, based on achievements, a future-directed project, even a certain ideological mission of the country or people; negative, emphasizing differences, conflicts, and confrontations with other states, nations and the global “union” and strengthening the national identity on this antipathy.
It is the second method that dominates the Russian style of constructing a modern national identity; we in the first place are concerned with “who we are NOT”rather than “who we are.” This finds expression in an unhealthy prioritizing of foreign policy over domestic policy, both by the authorities themselves and in our national propaganda (such as the absurd attention to the person of Biden and his everyday failures, like his fall during a bicycle ride). Thus, a significant part of the argument in favor of the Special Military Operation are alibis such as “America has done worse,” and even numerous memes in Russian internet culture, such as the now classic curses against “Gayropa”.
Developing the theme of “Gayropa”, we cannot help but notice that it is precisely from this denial of everything Western that desperate hatred of LGBT people comes out. Gays are the scapegoat, and power is painfully concentrated on any sort of non-traditional sexual relations. At the same time, no special traditional culture or traditional relations exist in Russia today (just look at the number of divorces), especially compared to Western countries, and the very concept of Tradition is as vague and blurry as possible - there are only some “traditional values” that only seem to be invoked as a pretext for an existential confrontation with LGBT people.
And what about colonialism? The fact is that the prevalence of the second type of formation of national identity leads to an extreme dependence of this identity on those “who we are NOT” - the key goal is not to construct something really great, or, more importantly, something independent, like space exploration, cultural achievements, high econometric indicators, or even the building of communism, but rather a permanent attempt to prove one’s distinction in relation to a hated Other, and to hide one’s own shortcomings and inferiority by focusing on their problems.
An even bigger problem in the context of Russian patriotism, however, is its eclecticism (or even absurdity), in the best traditions of postmodernism. There is no general program, structure, or system to Russian patriotism, its images and ideas are absolutely not connected with each other - here we recall the celebration of May 1 in 2022, when the usual, inherently anti-war slogans were written on posters dedicated to the holiday, but twisted now into support of the SMO: “Za (“for”) Peace, Labor, May”, as well as the “Za the President!” (the letters “Z” and “V” are SMO symbols).
One strategy is to throw any remotely patriotic symbols, meanings, political or cultural figures and works of art onto the ideological “wall” and see what sticks. The ideology of eclectic patriotism, formalized by Vladislav Surkov in the mid-2000s, is both becoming stronger and reaching an increasingly absurd and internally awkward, state - Stalin has gradually become the last (?) Emperor of Russia, and Aleksandr Dugin calls for the unity of left and right patriots in support of Putin and the military actions in Ukraine. At its peak, propaganda creates the most extreme and simply ridiculous conceptual juxtapositions - Prokhanov proudly declares the Russian people to be chipmunks, the aforementioned Dugin writes about Snake Island as a sacred center that controls the course of world history, and the recent theft of a raccoonbecomes an important heroic deed of the Russian army (and the whole this outright nonsense fits perfectly into the logic of the ideology of the regime).
Such a value system (which is paradoxical and unsystematic in its essence) at the core of the state is very convenient for the modern Russian government - on one hand, there is a remarkable amount of pathos in it: here you have Peter the Great, and the first man in space, and victories over the Pechenegs and the Cumans with a climax, an apotheosis in the form of modern Russia, which combines the best of all this; on the other hand, under the auspices of a comprehensive and at the same time maximally non-specific patriotism, the regime can take absolutely any actions (after all, everything that is done for the good of the country and is done by understanding people). The obvious example here is the SMO and the strange incidents associated with its execution - from the point of view of elementary logic, the exchange of soldiers of the “Azov” battalion in the context of “denazification” looks absurd, the retreat from Kherson a month after the region was accepted into Russia is mediocre, and multiple attempts to negotiate with Satanists, against whom a “holy war” is being waged, are also blasphemous – however, from the point of view of Russian patriotism, all these decisions are absolutely correct.
Not because they are correct for some specific contextual reasons that will further help achieve the goals of the SMO, but simply because the Russian authorities, by definition, cannot make wrong decisions. The Russian philosopher Ilya Budraitskis very aptly expressed himself on this topic: “All crises and revolutions in Russian history are considered as the results of external interference, because the very concept of the Russian state excludes the possibility of any failure” - such an ideological basis is possible only in the context of an eclectic (where any solution interpreted as, perhaps, not easy, but a solution for the good) and deeply colonial patriotism (through the lens of confrontation between Russia and the collective West in the first place, all problems are from betrayal and enemies).
This is what makes official Russian patriotism so terrible - unlike a healthy, adequate love for the Motherland and the desire to make life in the country better - a sentiment not alien to the socialists, incidentally - it does not even imply the possibility of analyzing the situation, since anyone trying to specifically understand what is happening instantly becomes a “foreign agent,” if not in a legal, then certainly in a symbolic sense. If it is impossible (fortunately) to fully replicate the mass repressions of the Stalinist period for reasons that are not the subject of this article, ideological competition is suppressed even more by such a patriotic rhetoric - dissidents in the Russian Empire and the USSR could position themselves as patriots wishing to change the social system and the ideology of the state, but modern Russian patriotism can co-opt any positive transformations, and therefore, from its point of view, anyone who is against the current system is automatically against not only the system itself and its values, but also the country, culture and people as such - they are traitors to the “higher” order. However, this continues until the moment when power is replaced or changes course, because at the same moment an eclectic set of achievements and values is reshuffled, yesterday’s heroes can turn into enemies and foreign agents, and vice versa. And all along, the content does not change at all.
True, in view of the aimlessness in the long term, as well as all the accumulating internal contradictions, the “Frankenstein” of state Russian patriotism is unlikely to be able to continue to exist in its current form in the not so distant future - some transformation will be necessary, and this is already evident when watching propaganda programs on federal channels (where contradictions have already gradually begun to seep in). There are a lot of options here - a partial way out of eclecticism can be a slide into full-fledged fascism (now, unfortunately, everything seems to point to this), or the disintegration of the state up to the point of collapse (which would also be a terrible outcome), or some attempt to “roll back” the February 24 advance (which the authorities are also trying to do, however, the success of this strategy is unlikely due to the unwillingness of the world community to “understand, forgive and forget”).
Perhaps a more positive alternative to the current “blind” Russian patriotism, designed to justify and support any decisions of the authorities, can be “constructive,” “civilian” patriotism, which aims at real improvement of the country, and also allows ideological competition to achieve this goal. This will be possible, of course, only with increased attention to the problems of the country’s domestic policy and economy, with further democratization, and with the emergence of an international and ideologically leftist desire to be ahead of the rest of the planet not only in the number of nuclear warheads and territories, but also in creation of a modern, attractive culture, technological progress, economic success, social achievements and, of course, the high quality of life of its citizens.
In the US, our hollow abstractions of "freedom and democracy" play the same role as the Russian "patriotism" you describe.
We seem to be tragic mirror images in what, in the final analysis, are wars over commercial alliances.
No gods, no masters, no borders! The nation state is the problem not the solution.