Issuu

Russia and Modern Fascism

The editors Dr Ian Garner is Assistant Professor at the Center for Totalitarian Studies at the Pilecki Institute in Warsaw. He is also an adjunct faculty member in War Studies at the Royal Military College, Canada, Fellow at the Centre for International & Defence Policy, Canada, as well as lifetime fellow of the Royal Historical Society in London. His books include Stalingrad Lives: Stories of Combat and Survival (Mc-Gill-Queen’s UP 2022) and Z Generation: Into the Heart of Russia’s Fascist Youth (Hurst/Oxford UP 2023). He regularly writes for major media outlets including the Globe & Mail, National Post, The Guardian, Foreign Policy, and UnHerd. Dr Taras Kuzio is Professor of Political Science at the National University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy. He is the author and editor of 24 books, including Russia’s War on Ukraine: The Four Roots of Putin’s Invasion (Cambridge University Press 2025, with Michał Wawrzonek), Fascism and Genocide: Russia’s War Against Ukrainians (ibidem 2023), Russian Nationalism and the Russian-Ukrainian War (Routledge 2022), The Sources of Russia’s Great Power Politics (E-IR 2018, with Paul D’Anieri), Putin’s War Against Ukraine (University of Toronto Press 2019), Ukraine: Democratization, and Corruption and the New Russian Imperialism (Praeger 2015).

292

SPPS

Edited by Andreas Umland

Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society

Vol. 292

Garner, Kuzio (eds.)

Russia seems to be hurtling toward fascism. Vladimir Putin and his allies—domestic and foreign—have obliterated and colonised Ukrainian cities in a “holy war,” committed over 100,000 war crimes, introduced Draconian domestic crackdowns on free speech and political opposition, and rewritten the constitution to seize power in perpetuity. The state and its propagandists declare their intentions to destroy the Ukrainian state and commit genocide against the Ukrainian people, to overthrow the liberal international order, and to recreate the Tsarist and Soviet empires. Meanwhile, the Russian population languishes in a militarising culture in which civic life has been replaced by a cult of war, past and present. Each of these phenomena invites comparisons with past fascist regimes. This volume gathers leading experts in the first scholarly study of a new Russian fascism that draws on distinctly modern forms of control and violence as much as on historical precedents. An array of theoretical debates and case studies from across disciplines makes this a pioneering study of modern Russian politics. The volume’s contributors include Jaroslava Barbieri, Paul D’Anieri, Jolanta Darczewska, Maria Domanska, Ian Garner, Joanna Getka, Andreas Heinemann-Grüder, Taras Kuzio, Alexander J. Motyl, Andreas Umland, and Michał Wawrzonek.

SPPS

Ian Garner, Taras Kuzio (eds.)

Russia and Modern Fascism New Perspectives on the Kremlin’s War Against Ukraine With a foreword by David Satter

ISBN: 978-3-8382-2015-4 Distributed by

ibidem

ibd

ibidem

Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society (SPPS)

Vol. 292

ISSN 1614-3515 General Editor: Andreas Umland,

Commissioning Editor: Max Jakob Horstmann,

Stockholm Centre for Eastern European Studies, andreas.umland@ui.se

London, mjh@ibidem.eu

EDITORIAL COMMITTEE* DOMESTIC & COMPARATIVE POLITICS Prof. Ellen Bos, Andrássy University of Budapest Dr. Gergana Dimova, Florida State University Prof. Taras Kuzio, Kyiv-Mohyla Academy Prof. Heiko Pleines, University of Bremen Dr. Sarah Whitmore, Oxford Brookes University Dr. Harald Wydra, University of Cambridge SOCIETY, CLASS & ETHNICITY Col. David Glantz, “Journal of Slavic Military Studies” Dr. Marlène Laruelle, George Washington University Dr. Stephen Shulman, Southern Illinois University Prof. Stefan Troebst, University of Leipzig POLITICAL ECONOMY & PUBLIC POLICY Prof. Andreas Goldthau, University of Erfurt Dr. Robert Kravchuk, University of North Carolina Dr. David Lane, University of Cambridge Dr. Carol Leonard, University of Oxford Dr. Maria Popova, McGill University, Montreal

FOREIGN POLICY & INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS Dr. Peter Duncan, University College London Prof. Andreas Heinemann-Grüder, University of Bonn Prof. Gerhard Mangott, University of Innsbruck Dr. Diana Schmidt-Pfister, University of Konstanz Dr. Lisbeth Tarlow, Harvard University, Cambridge Dr. Christian Wipperfürth, N-Ost Network, Berlin Dr. William Zimmerman, University of Michigan HISTORY, CULTURE & THOUGHT Dr. Catherine Andreyev, University of Oxford Prof. Mark Bassin, Södertörn University Prof. Karsten Brüggemann, Tallinn University Prof. Alexander Etkind, Central European University Dr. Ian Garner, Pilecki Institute, Warsaw Prof. Gasan Gusejnov, Free University of Berlin Prof. Leonid Luks, Catholic University of Eichstaett Dr. Richard Mole, University College London Prof. Andrei Rogatchevski, University of Tromsø Dr. Mark Tauger, West Virginia University

ADVISORY BOARD* Prof. Dominique Arel, University of Ottawa Prof. Jörg Baberowski, Humboldt University of Berlin Prof. Margarita Balmaceda, Seton Hall University Prof. Timm Beichelt, European University Viadrina Dr. Katrin Boeckh, University of Munich Prof. em. Archie Brown, University of Oxford Dr. Vyacheslav Bryukhovetsky, Kyiv-Mohyla Academy Prof. Timothy Colton, Harvard University, Cambridge Prof. Paul D’Anieri, University of California Dr. Heike Dörrenbächer, Friedrich Naumann Foundation Dr. John Dunlop, Hoover Institution, Stanford, California Dr. Sabine Fischer, SWP, Berlin Dr. Geir Flikke, NUPI, Oslo Prof. David Galbreath, University of Aberdeen Prof. Frank Golczewski, University of Hamburg Dr. Nikolas Gvosdev, Naval War College, Newport, RI Prof. Guido Hausmann, University of Regensburg Prof. Dale Herspring, Kansas State University Dr. Stefani Hoffman, Hebrew University of Jerusalem Prof. em. Andrzej Korbonski, University of California Dr. Iris Kempe, “Caucasus Analytical Digest” Prof. Herbert Küpper, Institut für Ostrecht Regensburg Prof. Rainer Lindner, University of Konstanz Dr. Luke March, University of Edinburgh

Prof. Michael McFaul, Stanford University, Palo Alto Prof. Birgit Menzel, University of Mainz-Germersheim Dr. Alex Pravda, University of Oxford Dr. Erik van Ree, University of Amsterdam Dr. Joachim Rogall, Robert Bosch Foundation Stuttgart Prof. Peter Rutland, Wesleyan University, Middletown Prof. Gwendolyn Sasse, University of Oxford Prof. Jutta Scherrer, EHESS, Paris Prof. Robert Service, University of Oxford Mr. James Sherr, RIIA Chatham House London Dr. Oxana Shevel, Tufts University, Medford Prof. Eberhard Schneider, University of Siegen Prof. Olexander Shnyrkov, Shevchenko University, Kyiv Prof. Hans-Henning Schröder, SWP, Berlin Prof. Yuri Shapoval, Ukrainian Academy of Sciences Dr. Lisa Sundstrom, University of British Columbia Dr. Philip Walters, “Religion, State and Society”, Oxford Prof. Zenon Wasyliw, Ithaca College, New York State Dr. Lucan Way, University of Toronto Dr. Markus Wehner, “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung” Dr. Andrew Wilson, University College London Prof. Jan Zielonka, University of Oxford Prof. Andrei Zorin, University of Oxford

* While the Editorial Committee and Advisory Board support the General Editor in the choice and improvement of manuscripts for publication, responsibility for remaining errors and misinterpretations in the series’ volumes lies with the books’ authors.

Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society (SPPS) ISSN 1614-3515 Founded in 2004 and refereed since 2007, SPPS makes available affordable English-, German-, and Russian-language studies on the history of the countries of the former Soviet bloc from the late Tsarist period to today. It publishes between 5 and 20 volumes per year and focuses on issues in transitions to and from democracy such as economic crisis, identity formation, civil society development, and constitutional reform in CEE and the NIS. SPPS also aims to highlight so far understudied themes in East European studies such as right-wing radicalism, religious life, higher education, or human rights protection. The authors and titles of all previously published volumes are listed at the end of this book. For a full description of the series and reviews of its books, see www.ibidem-verlag.de/red/spps.

Recent Volumes 284

Herausgegeben von Memorial Deutschland e.V. ISBN 978-3-8382-1994-3

285

Nadiya Kiss, Monika Wingender (Eds.) Contested Language Diversity in Contemporary Ukraine National Minorities, Language Biographies, and Linguistic Landscape ISBN 978-3-8382-1966-0

286

Richard Ottinger (Ed.) Religious Elements in the Russian War of Aggression Against Ukraine Propaganda, Religious Politics and Pastoral Care, 2014– 2024 ISBN 978-3-8382-1981-3

287

Editorial correspondence & manuscripts should be sent to: Dr. Andreas Umland, Department of Political Science, Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, vul. Voloska 8/5, UA-04070 Kyiv, UKRAINE; andreas.umland@cantab.net

„Alles kann sich ändern“ Letzte Worte politisch Angeklagter vor Gericht in Russland

Yuri Radchenko Vspomogatel'naia politsiia, mestnaia administratsiia SD i Shoa na ukrainsko-rossiisko-belorusskom pogranich'e (1941–1943) With forewords by John-Paul Himka and Kai Struve ISBN 978-3-8382-1878-6

288

Business correspondence & review copy requests should be sent to: ibidem Press, Leuschnerstr. 40, 30457 Hannover, Germany; tel.: +49 511 2622200; fax: +49 511 2622201; 289 spps@ibidem.eu. Authors, reviewers, referees, and editors for (as well as all other persons sympathetic to) SPPS are invited to join its networks at www.fa290 cebook.com/group.php?gid=52638198614 www.linkedin.com/groups?about=&gid=103012 www.xing.com/net/spps-ibidem-verlag/

291

Zsofia Maria Schmidt Hungary’s System of National Cooperation Strategies of Framing in Pro-Governmental Media and Public Discourse, 2010–18 With a foreword by Andreas Schmidt-Schweizer ISBN 978-3-8382-1983-7

Richard Ottinger (Hrsg.) Religiöse Elemente im russischen Angriffskrieg gegen die Ukraine. Propaganda, Religionspolitik und Seelsorge, 2014–2024 ISBN 978-3-8382-1980-6

Galyna Zelenko (Ed.) Crises of Political Development in Ukraine The Challenges of Post-Soviet State-Building and Ways to Overcome Them With a foreword by Oleg Rafalskiy ISBN 978-3-8382-2027-7

Galyna Zelenko (Ed.) Fake Russia Investigations into Moscow’s Imitations of Greatness and Power ISBN 978-3-8382-1997-4

Ian Garner & Taras Kuzio (Eds.)

RUSSIA AND MODERN FASCISM New Perspectives on the Kremlin’s War Against Ukraine

With a foreword by David Satter

Bibliografische Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet über http://dnb.d-nb.de abrufbar. Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de.

Leuschnerstraße 40 30457 Hannover Germany / Deutschland info@ibidem.eu

Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. Dies gilt insbesondere für Vervielfältigungen, Übersetzungen, Mikroverfilmungen und elektronische Speicherformen sowie die Einspeicherung und Verarbeitung in elektronischen Systemen. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

Printed in the EU

Contributors Jaroslava Barbieri is a Doctoral Researcher at the Department of Political Science and International Studies of the University of Birmingham, and a researcher in the Arena Programme at the SNF Agora Institute of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD. Her research interests include Ukrainian politics, Russian foreign policy, EU security and enlargement, disinformation, and the politics of memory in the post-Soviet region. Her commentary has appeared in many British and international media outlets. Paul D’Anieri is Professor of Political Science and Public Policy at the University of California at Riverside. He studies politics in the former Soviet Union, focusing on Ukraine and on Ukraine-Russia relations. He also teaches and studies economics and budgeting in universities at the University of Florida, and University of Kansas. He is the author of, among other books, Ukraine and Russia: From Civilized Divorce to Uncivil War (Cambridge University Press, 2019, 2023), Politics and Society in Ukraine (Routledge, 2018; with Robert Kravchuk and Taras Kuzio), Understanding Ukrainian Politics: Power, Politics, and Institutional Design (Routledge, 2015), International Politics: Power and Purpose in Global Affairs (Cengage Learning, 2009, 2011, 2016, 2020), and Economic Interdependence in Ukrainian-Russian Relations (State University of New York Press, 1999). Jolanta Darczewska is a political scientist, translator, and expert on security issues in the post-Soviet area. From 1992 to 2021, she was affiliated with the Centre for Eastern Studies (OSW) in Warsaw and served as its director from 2007 to 2011. She is the author of numerous publications including Between Overt Disinformation and Covert Practice: The Russian Special Services’ Game (Ośrodek Studiów Wschodnich, 2019), Active Measures: Russia’s Key Export (Ośrodek Studiów Wschodnich, 2017; with Piotr Żochowski), The Devil Is in the Details: Information Warfare in the Light of Russia's Military Doctrine (Ośrodek Studiów Wschodnich, 2015), and The Anatomy of

Russian Information Warfare: The Crimean Operation—A Case Study (Ośrodek Studiów Wschodnich, 2014). Maria Domańska is a Senior Fellow at the Centre for Eastern Studies (OSW) in Warsaw and specialises in Russia’s domestic politics. From 2006 to 2015, she was a diplomat at the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where she worked in the Eastern Policy Department and in the Polish Embassies in Belarus and Russia. For three years, she was head of the Political Section in the Polish Embassy, Moscow. She is the author of Uwarunkowania procesów integracyjnych i dezintegracyjnych na obszarze poradzieckim (Aspra, 2023). Her commentaries and reports have been published by, among others, OSW and Zentrum Liberale Moderne as well as in Nowa Europa Wschodnia, Kultura Liberalna, Institute of National Remembrance Review, New Eastern Europe, Strategic Europe, Sprawy Międzynarodowe, Nowa Debata, Politeja, and other outlets. Ian Garner is Assistant Professor at the Pilecki Institute in Warsaw. A British-Canadian academic, his work on Russian identity and militarism includes Stalingrad Lives: Stories of Combat and Survival (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2022) and Z Generation: Into the Heart of Russia’s Fascist Youth (Hurst, 2023). He is a fellow at the Centre for International and Defence Policy, Canada, and a fellow of the Royal Historical Society in London. He regularly writes for media outlets including the The Globe and Mail, National Post, Guardian, Foreign Policy, and The New Statesman. Joanna Getka is Director of the Institute of Intercultural Studies of Central and Eastern Europe at the University of Warsaw. She is the author of, among others, Faszyzacja antyfaszyzmu: Kulturowe kody wojny Rosji (Uniwersytet Warszawski, 2024; with Jolanta Darczewska), Na drodze do wolności: Białoruska partyzantka kulturowa w przestrzeni publicznej i Internecie (Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego, 2021; with Jolanta Darczewska), U progu modernizacji: Ruskojęzyczne drukarstwo bazyliańskie XVIII wieku (Uniwersytet Warszawski, 2017), and Prosta mowa konca XVIII wieku: Język "Nauk

Parafialnych" (Poczajów 1794) (Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego, 2012). Andreas Heinemann-Grüder is a Senior Fellow at the Centre for Advanced Security, Strategic and Integration Studies (CASSIS), and Professor of Political Science at the University of Bonn. He is, among others, editor of Who Are the Fighters? Irregular Armed Groups in the Russia-Ukrainian War since 2014 (ibidem-Verlag, 2024), Lehren aus dem Ukrainekonflikt: Krisen vorbeugen, Gewalt verhindern (Budrich, 2022; with Claudia Crawford and Tim Peters), Osteuropa zwischen Mauerfall und Ukrainekrieg: Besichtigung einer Epoche (Suhrkamp, 2022; with Angelika Nußberger, Martin Aust, and Ulrich Schmid), Zivile Konfliktbearbeitung: Vom Anspruch zur Wirklichkeit (Budrich, 2013; with Isabella Bauer), and Federalism Doomed? European Federalism between Integration and Separation (Berghahn Books, 2002), as well as author of Föderalismus als Konfliktregelung: Indien, Russland, Nigeria und Spanien im Vergleich (Budrich, 2011), Im Namen der Nato: Sicherheitspolitik und Streitkräftereform in Osteuropa (Agenda Verlag, 2003), Die sowjetische Atombombe (Westfälisches Dampfboot, 2002), Der heterogene Staat (Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, 2000), Die Spezialisten (Dietz, 1992; with Ulrich Albrecht and Arend Wellmann), and Sowjetische Politik im arabisch-israelischen Konflikt (Deutsches Orient-Institut, 1991). Taras Kuzio is Professor of Political Science at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. He is the author or editor of 24 books, including The Four Roots of Russia’s War Against Ukraine (Cambridge University Press, 2025; with Michał Wawrzonek), Fascism and Genocide: Russia’s War Against Ukrainians (ibidem-Verlag, 2023), Russian Disinformation and Western Scholarship (ibidem-Verlag, 2023), Russian Nationalism and the Russian-Ukrainian War (Routledge, 2022), The Sources of Russia’s Great Power Politics (E-IR, 2018; with Paul D’Anieri), Ukraine: Democratization, Corruption and the New Russian Imperialism (Praeger, 2015), Aspects of the Orange Revolution VI: Post-Communist Democratic Revolutions in Comparative Perspective (ibidem-Verlag, 2014), Aspects of the Orange Revolution I: Democratization and Elections in Post-Communist Ukraine (ibidem7

Verlag, 2014; with Paul D’Anieri), Theoretical and Comparative Perspectives on Nationalism (ibidem-Verlag, 2007), and Ukraine: Perestroika to Independence (Macmillan, 1994, 2000). Alexander J. Motyl is Professor of Political Science at Rutgers University-Newark. He served as associate director of the Harriman Institute at Columbia University in 1992-1998 and of the Division of Global Affairs at Rutgers in 1999-2008. His books include National Questions: Theoretical Reflections on Nations and Nationalism in Eastern Europe (ibidem-Verlag, 2022), Ukraine vs. Russia: Revolution, Democracy, and War (Westphalia Press, 2017), Imperial Ends: The Decline, Collapse, and Revival of Empires (Columbia University Press, 2001), Revolutions, Nations, Empires: Conceptual Limits and Theoretical Possibilities (Columbia University Press, 1999), Dilemmas of Independence: Ukraine after Totalitarianism (Council on Foreign Relations Press, 1993), Sovietology, Rationality, Nationality: Coming to Grips with Nationalism in the USSR (Columbia University Press, 1990), Will the Non-Russians Rebel? State, Ethnicity, and Stability in the USSR (Cornell University Press, 1987), and The Turn to the Right: The Ideological Origins and Development of Ukrainian Nationalism, 1919-1929 (East European Monographs, 1980). David Satter has worked for the Chicago Tribune, as Moscow correspondent of the Financial Times, and as special correspondent on Soviet affairs for the Wall Street Journal. He was a research fellow at the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace at Stanford, CA, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington, DC, and Jamestown Foundation in Williamsburg, VA, and visiting scholar at Johns Hopkins University’s Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Washington, DC, as well as at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is the author of Never Speak to Strangers and Other Writing from Russia and the Soviet Union (ibidem-Verlag, 2020), The Less You Know, The Better You Sleep: Russia's Road to Terror and Dictatorship under Yeltsin and Putin (Yale University Press, 2016), It Was a Long Time Ago and It Never Happened Anyway: Russia and the Communist Past (Yale University Press, 2007), Darkness at Dawn: The Rise of the Russian Criminal State (Yale 8

University Press, 2003), and Age of Delirium: The Decline and Fall of the Soviet Union (Yale University Press, 2001), Andreas Umland is an Analyst at the Stockholm Centre for Eastern European Studies in the Swedish Institute of International Affairs (UI), and Associate Professor of Political Science at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. He is editor of the book series ‘Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society’ and ‘Ukrainian Voices’ published by ibidem-Verlag as well as of the collected volumes Ukraine's Decentralization (ibidem-Verlag, 2024; with Valentyna Romanova), Brücken bauen: Analysen und Betrachtungen zwischen Ost und West (ibidem-Verlag, 2012; with John Andreas Fuchs und Jürgen Zarusky), The Idea of Russia’s “Special Path” I-II (special issues of Russian Politics and Law; M.E. Sharpe, 2012; with Dmitry Gorenburg and Emil Pain) Aspects of the Orange Revolution III-V (ibidem-Verlag, 2007; with Ingmar Bredies and Valentyn Yakushyk), Fascism Past and Present, West and East (ibidem-Verlag, 2006; with Roger D. Griffin and Werner Loh), Geistes- und sozialwissenschaftliche Hochschullehre in Osteuropa I-IV (Peter Lang, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009; with Thomas Keith and Matthias Bürgel), and The Implementation of the European Convention on Human Rights in Russia (ibidem-Verlag, 2004). Michał Wawrzonek is Professor at the Ignatianum University in Cracow. He is the author/co-author of four monographs: Memory, Politics and Legacy of Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky (Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Ignatianum, 2023), Orthodoxy Versus PostCommunism? Belarus, Serbia, Ukraine and the Russkii Mir (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2016; with Nelly Bekus and Mirella Korzeniewska-Wiszniewska), Religion and Politics in Ukraine: The Orthodox and Greek Catholic Churches as Elements of Ukraine’s Political System (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2014), and Екуменічна діяльність митрополита Андрея Шептицького в Україні та Росії (The Ecumenical Activity of Metropolitan Sheptytsky in Ukraine and Russia) (Basiliani, 2006).

Contents Contributors ........................................................................................... 5 Preface by the Series Editor Andreas Umland .................................................................................... 13 Foreword David Satter ........................................................................................... 17 Introduction. Russia’s Twenty-First Century Fascism Ian Garner and Taras Kuzio ................................................................... 21 Putin’s Russia as a Fascist Political System. Deconstructing and Reconstructing a Contentious Concept Alexander J. Motyl ................................................................................. 49 How Fascist Is Putinism? Three Uses of the Concept of Generic Fascism for Understanding Russia’s War Against Ukraine Andreas Umland .................................................................................... 79 Narrative Reversal and the Aggression Against Ukraine. Testing and Understanding Russia’s Fascisation Joanna Getka and Jolanta Darczewska ................................................. 115 The Russian Orthodox Church and Orthodox Imperism Michał Wawrzonek............................................................................... 149 Military and Propaganda Narratives Justifying Russia’s ‘Holy War’ Against Ukraine Andreas Heinemann-Grüder................................................................ 179 The Making of a Homo Putinicus. Fascist ‘Patriotic Education’ in Putin’s Russia Maria Domańska .................................................................................. 203

From School Benches to Frontline Trenches. The Fascist Paradigm of Russia’s Youth Indoctrination and Militarisation in Occupied Ukraine, 2022-2025 Jaroslava Barbieri ................................................................................. 241 Mass Destruction and Ukrainian Erasure. The Fascist Rebirth of ‘Great Russia’ in Mariupol Taras Kuzio and Ian Garner ................................................................. 271 Conclusion. Fascism with Adjectives? Paul D’Anieri ....................................................................................... 295

Preface by the Series Editor Andreas Umland The book series ‘Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society’ (SPPS) was started by ibidem-Verlag in 2004 and included among its first essay collections the volume Fascism Past and Present, West and East (Griffin, Loh and Umland 2006). This 510-page book contained an extensive, interactive and international scholarly debate of Roger D. Griffin’s definition of generic fascism—a concept also frequently mentioned and partly discussed by the editors of and contributors to the present SPPS volume. The 2006 SPPS book included, as appendices to the main part on Griffin’s notion of fascism, a smaller and also contentious spin-off discussion, on the political role and fascist ideology of Aleksandr Dugin, an afterword, with special reference to Russian affairs, by the late Walter Laqueur, as well as the English translation of a manifesto of early post-Soviet Russian fascism—Dugin’s 1997 essay ‘Fascism—borderless and red.’ The latter three parts were added to the more general debate about fascism and provided some content that justified an inclusion of Fascism Past and Present, West and East (Griffin, Loh and Umland 2006) into a book series on Soviet and post-Soviet affairs. Nevertheless, the decision to publish this volume in SPPS and the choice of the Nazi-like flag of Russia’s National-Bolshevik Party, founded in 1993 and banned in 2005, as the picture for the 2006 book’s front cover may have been seen, at that time, by some comparativists as inapt. The volume’s inclusion into SPPS linked a distinctly comparative, theoretical, and conceptual debate to one specific country in one historical period (i.e., to early post-Soviet Russia). Moreover, the initial debate within the broader field of comparative fascist studies had been initiated already in 2002, i.e., before the foundation of SPPS. At the time, Werner Loh invited Griffin to submit a leading article as the basis for a forum discussion on the theory of fascism and its relevance to contemporary democracy. Loh further contacted a wide range of German- and English-

ANDREAS UMLAND

speaking experts to participate in the controversy that was eventually published within the book Fascism Past and Present, West and East (Griffin, Loh and Umland 2006). In 2003-2004, Loh prepared the ensuing interventions for publication and circulated the replies over the course of two rounds of criticism and response. In 2004-2005, Loh accompanied three rounds of the secondary debate on Dugin between the late A. James Gregor and me. These had spun off from the initial controversy over Griffin (Gregor 2004, 2005; Umland 2004, 2005). The entire discussion was initially published, in several stages, within three issues of volumes 15 and 16 of the University of Passau journal Erwägen Wissen Ethik (EWE, Deliberation Knowledge Ethics) that had been previously known as Ethik und Sozialwissenschaften: Streitforum für Erwägungskultur (Ethics and Social Sciences: A Forum of Debate for a Deliberative Culture) and existed in 1990-2015. Twenty years ago, the decision to republish EWE’s 2004-2005 debate as a collected SPPS volume—with additional short texts by Laqueur, Dugin and myself—under the title Fascism Past and Present, West and East (Griffin, Loh and Umland 2006) was not only taken for greater convenience to readers interested in a fascinating controversy around Griffin’s important concept of fascism. It was, in 2005, also based on a speculative assumption that both, the term fascism and person of Dugin, would remain topics whose academic and public salience may not decline and could even grow further in Russia. The present SPPS volume and many other publications on Russian imperial nationalism, especially since February 2022, illustrate that this 20-year-old suspicion was unfortunately justified. Since 2005, ibidem-Verlag’s book series SPPS has published a large informal subseries of monographs and collected volumes on East European nationalism in general and Russian nationalist ideas as well as right-wing groups, in particular. Among them were—in chronological order—arguably seminal monographs, in Russian language, on the neo-Nazi party Russian National Unity (Likhachev and Pribylovskii 2005), in English language, on early post-Soviet Russian antisemitism (Likhachev 2006), in German language, on Dugin’s ideas and theories (Höllwerth 2007) as well as on postwar Soviet-Russian nationalism (Mitrochin 2014), and, in English

PREFACE BY THE SERIES EDITOR

language, on the fascist writer Aleksandr Prokhanov (Griffiths 2022). Among other books, Marlene Laruelle published in 2007, in Russian language, one of the first larger collected volumes on modern Russian nationalism (Lariuel’ 2007). Finally, several contributors to the present collection have published important English-language books related in one way or another to topics discussed in the present volume in SPPS (Kuzio 2007a, 2007b, 2023; Motyl 2022; Heinemann-Grüder 2024). I was thus happy to accept Ian Garner’s and Taras Kuzio’s volume for publication in SPPS although, as becomes clear in Chapter 2, I do not always follow Garner’s and Kuzio’s re-conceptualization of fascism, and application of the term to today Russian affairs (see their Introduction & Chapter 8). Yet, like regarding the 2006 controversial discussion of Griffin’s concept in Fascism Past and Present, West and East (Griffin, Loh and Umland 2006), such differences in interpretation—while sometimes causing frustration—can be cognitively stimulating and are thus worth documenting. In some ways, this SPPS volumes continues the EWE/SPPS debate from 20 years ago. It should not and hopefully will not be the last such collection of essays.

References Gregor, A.J. (2004). Response to Dr. Andreas Umland. Erwägen Wissen Ethik, 15(4), 594–595. Gregor, A.J. (2005). Once Again on Fascism, Classification, and Aleksandr Dugin. Erwägen Wissen Ethik, 16(4), 570-572. Griffin, R., Loh, W., & Umland, A. (Eds.). (2006). Fascism Past and Present, West and East: An International Debate on Concepts and Cases in the Comparative Study of the Extreme Right. Stuttgart: ibidem-Verlag. Griffiths, E. (2022). Aleksandr Prokhanov and Post-Soviet Esotericism. Stuttgart: ibidem-Verlag. Heinemann-Grüder, A. (Ed.) (2024). Who Are the Fighters? Irregular Armed Groups in the Russian-Ukrainian War since 2014. Stuttgart: ibidem-Verlag. Höllwerth, A. (2007). Das sakrale eurasische Imperium des Aleksandr Dugin: Eine Diskursanalyse zum postsowjetischen russischen Rechtsextremismus. Stuttgart: ibidem-Verlag.

ANDREAS UMLAND

Kuzio, T. (2007a). Ukraine—Crimea—Russia: Triangle of Conflict. Stuttgart: ibidem-Verlag. Kuzio, T. (2007b). Theoretical and Comparative Perspectives on Nationalism: New Directions in Cross-Cultural and Post-Communist Studies. Stuttgart: ibidem-Verlag. Kuzio, T. (Ed.) (2023). Russian Disinformation and Western Scholarship: Bias and Prejudice in Journalistic, Expert, and Academic Analyses of East European, Russian and Eurasian Affairs. Stuttgart: ibidem-Verlag. Lariuel’ [Laruelle], M. (Ed.). (2007). Sovremennye interpretatsii russkogo natsionalizma. Stuttgart: ibidem-Verlag. Likhachev, V. (2006). Political Anti-Semitism in Post-Soviet Russia: Actors and Ideas in 1991-2003. Stuttgart: ibidem-Verlag. Likhachev, V., & Pribylovskii, V. (Eds.). (2005). Russkoe Natsional’noe Edinstvo 1990-2000 (2 vols.). Stuttgart: ibidem-Verlag. Mitrochin, N. (2014). Die ‘Russische Partei:’ Die Bewegung der russischen Nationalisten in der UdSSR 1953-1985. Stuttgart: ibidem-Verlag. Motyl, A. (2022). National Questions: Theoretical Reflections on Nations and Nationalism in Eastern Europe. Stuttgart: ibidem-Verlag. Umland, A. (2004). Some Addenda on the Relevance of Extremely RightWing Ideas in Putin’s New Russia. Erwägen Wissen Ethik, 15(4), 591– 593. Umland, A. (2005). Classification, Julius Evola and the Nature of Dugin’s Ideology. Erwägen Wissen Ethik, 16(4), 566–569.

Russia and Modern Facism: New Perspectives on the Kremlin’s War Against Ukraine