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How Russia became far right?

Over 100 years ago, Russia became core of USSR and the pioneer of international struggle for workers' liberation, poverty lifting, enlightenment, scientific progress and propagation of socialism and communism.

Now -- in my humble and maybe biased by liberal propaganda view -- Russia is one of the most reactionary, conservative, backward-looking, clerical country. Please excuse me posting some liberal, imperialist shit here, but seems that Kremlin officially admits going far-right: https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/kremlin-finally-puts-together-ideology

Speaking locally, there seems to be evidence that Polish far-right party PiS (Law and Justice) is backed by Kremlin as well as the extremely influential priest, Tadeusz Rydzyk, founder and director of the ultra-catholic, conservative Radio Maryja station has/had ties with Polish and Russian security services before the end of People's Republic of Poland and USSR (sic!). I have some generally available videos, but in Polish, sadly.

Could you tell me how far this is true? If so, what purpose had the late communist states and today's Russia in spreading far-right propaganda? WTF went wrong?

51 comments

  • I'm going to disagree here. While there are right wing elements in Russia and there is a lot of nationalist sentiment, it's also a fact that communism is still very popular. Polls consistently show that most people see USSR in a positive light, and many people consider the Soviet system to be generally correct. KPRF has a lot of support which appears to be growing. It might not be perfect, but it's certainly not a far right party.

    For example, here's a recent poll from Russia:

    75% of Russians have expressed increasingly positive opinions about the Soviet Union over the years. Only a small portion of those surveyed said they had negative associations with the Soviet Union. The economic deficit, long lines and coupons were named by 4% of respondents each, while the Iron Curtain, economic stagnation and political repressions were named by 1% each, the Levada Center said.

    And here's another poll showing that most people think the Soviet economic system was more correct

    Russia is also increasingly falling into China's orbit and it doesn't escape people in Russia that going back to a socialist system would result in similar benefits that people in China are currently enjoying.

    • Considering that, do you think it’s possible for Russia to have successful reforms into social democracy or socialism? I don’t see a revolution on the table.

      • I think the system is too stable with Putin at the head, and his personal conservatism trickles down into all of the country's institutions.

        Maybe when he dies there will be an opening for someone or some group with another vision for the country. Nobody who gets thrown around as a potential successor to him now has anywhere near the political capital he has, and would have to perfectly navigate a transition to a post-Putin political system in order to remain on top, something which might be made impossible by conditions outside of their control.

      • It's hard to say to be honest. I don't think there's any revolutionary potential either right now. However, I do think that reforms that bring Russia ever closer to Chinese model are indeed likely. In fact, we've already seen some of this happen out of necessity after the start of the war. There's a lot more state control over business now, and state owned enterprise is playing an increasingly central role in the economy.

        Also worth noting that a full on counter revolution wasn't required for transition to capitalism. So, perhaps we will see a similar shift back towards an explicitly socialist system. There is going to be a power vacuum after Putin is gone, and that will be an opportunity for change. I don't think we'll be seeing any drastic changes until that time.

      • KPRF expects a center-left shift in Putin's politics as Putin has said that capitalism is dead. But so far he hasn't spoken of an alternative. https://tass.com/economy/1352463

        "Everyone says that the existing model of capitalism, which the basis of social structure in the overwhelming majority of countries, has run its course," the head of state said, speaking on Thursday at a meeting of the Valdai International Club.

        According to him, this model can no longer offer a way out of the "snarl of increasingly tangled contradictions."

        "Everywhere, even in the richest countries and regions, the uneven distribution of material wealth leads to aggravating inequality," the head of state added.

        SR ("21st-century socialist" party, 3rd largest party in the Duma) believe that Putin is the only "socialist" in Russia's leadership (because thanks to him their social laws and initiatives have been accepted) and they support him electorally to reduce the influence of United Russia which also backs him. At the same time, they are also looking to unite with KPRF.

        https://www.rbc.ru/politics/25/12/2017/5a40bc719a79470d6296e296?from=newsfeed

    • That is all true, and it is somewhat uplifting. However, there is a long way for Russia to be a communist country, also many people can be just nostalgic about their youth, as well as many people may remember USSR as the late one, where many of ideals of the original Bolsheviks were compromised. Some of them just miss «the strong nation», not the Bolsheviks' ideals of creating a just workers' society and propagating it to the whole World. Without clear and not-too-pragmatic socialist leadership, they see a shadow of a shadow. I think KPRF is exactly in this flavour -- the flavour of late USSR. But with no serious alternatives, their popularity gives me joy as well.

      • For sure, there is a long way back to communism, and the path is not at all clear right now. KPRF definitely leaves a lot to be desired, but I do think keeping the idea alive is important. In the end, if Russia manages to find its way back to the light then whatever form communism takes in Russia will be rooted in the current conditions and contradictions. USSR mostly acts as an ideal to inspire people, and as long as this ideal is popular then there is hope.

  • The USSR became further economically liberal as time went on, and the Gorbachev reforms accelerated it - introducing the market economy collapsed the state and caused the breakup of the USSR.

    Socialism seemed discredited, even though it was the abandonment of it, in favor of what the bureaucracy thought would be more efficient - better for the nation. The same kind of nationalism became the hegemonic narrative in the country since.

    Yeltsin was known for a mixture of lassiez Faire market economics which caused a collapse of living standards, skyrocketing crime and of course the entrenchment of a new bourgeois class. Mixed with general incompetence on both a personal and political level, he was despised.

    Nationalists went by the assumption that the solution to the woes of the country was the lack of a strong leader to make everything alright. Putin filled the role perfectly.

    His politics and supporters from both proletariat and bourgeoisie are nationalistic, and sees Russia and it's businesses as in direct competition with the west (indeed, not unfounded due to their interference in the USSR and 90s Russia and the way capitalism works) - spreading far-right ideology to countries aligned with the west is how Russia aims to gain support and a sphere of influence in a competition of blocs. Unlike the USSR's support of communist parties - there was fertile ground for growth of fascist groupings in the west, also caused by political developments in the USA.

    • spreading far-right ideology to countries aligned with the west is how Russia aims to gain support and a sphere of influence in a competition of blocs

      In my view this is a shameful and destructive strategy, completely opposite to ideals of communism, who should rather enlighten people, than make their minds darker. Not to mention that breeds xenophobia, nationalism, fascism, etc. hand to hand with U$ imperialism. Some may call my view childish and utopian, but for me the truth is essential. I'm not sure about China, but seems that the biggest countries become nationalist, what I perceive as a great danger. There is no moral leader, as one hundred ago biggest minds, scientists and politicians in the East and in the West supported USRR and took example. We are living in dark times again.

      The USSR became further economically liberal as time went on, and the Gorbachev reforms accelerated it - introducing the market economy collapsed the state and caused the breakup of the USSR.

      I see it similarly, but when -- you think -- it started? Brezhnev? As long as Khrushchev? It may be seen that China also went toward market economy, but -- in the metric of GDP -- with a great success. So what went wrong with USSR? Is it that it was more laissez-faire than the controlled Chinese economy? I am aware that I essentially ask another question than in the topic, but explaining what went wrong really concerns me.

      • In my view this is a shameful and destructive strategy, completely opposite to ideals of communism

        Russia isn't communist, nor does it claim to be.

        It's also not about morality, or GDP - it's about the goals a government sets itself. Do they want to proceed to a stateless, classless society, or are they simply concerned with good government and to make the country be stronger than the competition, be it through sword or construction?

        It's hard to say where the winds are blowing in the CPC - United Russia, however, just wants a strong Russia.

        As for the USSR's market turn, it's hard to say. Most people here would probably say Khrushcev due to the rejection of the necessity of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the policy of peaceful coexistence (in spite of the grand announcement of communism by 1980). Other communists would blame Stalin for say, having a more nationalistic policy than Lenin and his pragmatism in foreign policy matters. Of course, as the rot continued it became easier to see obvious liberals. The USSR probably started rejecting a planned economy in the Brezhnev era, with the Kosygin reforms. Of course, the question is - did the CPSU pursue communism then? Some undoubtedly did, while others were merely nationalistic technocrats.

  • One thing is certainly not true, namely the allegation that PiS is "backed by the Kremlin". Up until the last election Poland was governed by the PiS party and from the very beginning of the conflict in Ukraine they were one of the biggest supporters of Ukraine in Europe. Without Poland acting as a weapons delivery hub to Ukraine, NATO could never have sustained their Nazi proxy army. PiS pursued an extremely anti-Russia policy, which is not surprising as some of its highest ranking members are personally deeply russophobic.

    So you cannot make this blanket statement that Russia backs the European far right, in fact some of the far right parties in eastern Europe are very anti-Russia. Now maybe the situation is reversed in western Europe but so far we have only seen one of them come to power, namely in Italy, and it turned out they were just as pro-NATO and anti-Russia as the liberals.

    The situation with Russia is a lot more complicated than the liberal western media makes it seem. There is only one word which fully encapsulates the mess that is today's Russia and that is: contractions. There are a lot of contradictions in Russia's culture, its economic system, its government, etc. It has very pronounced reactionary elements, which you have mentioned and which other comrades have explained quite well, but it also has remnants of the old Soviet culture and system.

    Because just as Marx said socialist societies would be imprinted for a while with characteristics of the old bourgeois society, so a bourgeois society that is built on the destruction of socialism will retain some imprints. The peculiar thing in Russia's case as opposed to other eastern European former socialist states which have liberalized more thoroughly, in Russia restoration of the bourgeois system was never fully completed, and in my opinion cannot be completed under present circumstances even though the liberals (including Putin) who have ruled Russia since the 1990s have tried very hard to do so.

    Russia is stuck for now in a sort of limbo of an unfinished counter-revolution, partly because of the internal dynamics of Russian society itself and partly due to the renewed hostility of the West toward Russia since around 2008 which has frozen the liberalization process.

    • Russia is stuck for now in a sort of limbo of an unfinished counter-revolution, partly because of the internal dynamics of Russian society itself and partly due to the renewed hostility of the West toward Russia since around 2008 which has frozen the liberalization process.

      It looks like this, I am just afraid that when the times will go hard, then Russia will turn fully into nationalism, chauvinism, etc.

      One thing is certainly not true, namely the allegation that PiS is “backed by the Kremlin”. Up until the last election Poland was governed by the PiS party and from the very beginning of the conflict in Ukraine they were one of the biggest supporters of Ukraine in Europe. highest ranking members are personally deeply russophobic.

      Superficially, it seems like this. But I am somewhat suspicious. The government of PiS seemed extremely russophobic (what spy says he likes the country of the employer?) but still they imported enormous amount of fuels from Russia, e.g.: https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/news/polish-senator-russian-coal-still-flowing-into-poland/ Undoubtedly, the support for Ukraine was enormous, but at some point abruptly stopped. Maybe they were pushed by US at some point to support or they wanted to balance between these two powers, like Orban. When they sold Lotos, a big oil company, they bought petrol stations in Hungary, and the stations were literally Lukoil, and they use Russian oil to be sold there. They are also other circumstantial evidences of ties between Russia and PiS: https://www.veridica.ro/en/acf/the-russian-connection-in-poland

      Like you said, all this matter is nuanced, and additionally obscured by propaganda from all sides. I just feel confused, so oversimplifications are possible.

      • The government of PiS seemed extremely russophobic (what spy says he likes the country of the employer?) but still they imported enormous amount of fuels from Russia

        The same could be said of any Euro country, the only difference being that unlike the Germans and other "better" Europeans who fully toed the anti-Russia line (and then knowingly bought their Russian fuels through middlemen like India) Poland acted with some sense of reality and business sense, because they weren't fully economically suicidal.

        The whole "Russia is to blame for all right-wing politics in the west" nonsense is absolutely, 100% tired and at least 99% stinking horseshit if you ask me. Whatever contribution Russia has given is just a drop of water the ocean compared to the already historically massive, well-funded, and deeply engaged right-wing political movements of the US and other Anglophone nations, of western and southern Europe, and of eastern Europe (much of whose right-wing parties are vehemently Russophobic in ways nearing the derangement of Ukraine). And similarly, it is but a drop of water in the ocean compared to the US' meddling to promote these ideologies, both in recent years, and for many decades prior, and even well before the Soviets collapsed.

        Does Russia have fun pouring a little fuel on the fire in the west? Probably (mainly in the recent decade if so), but the impact is miniscule compared to what already existed, and compared to the extensive and interconnected support, by various different western countries, NGOs, and corporations (many of them even liberals- for instance, Victor Orban is literally one of the graduates of a Soros scholarship), to cook up the most repugnant chuds. That hardly makes them an "international exporter of fascism" or anything (I'd argue they're the opposite by and large, though that is more due to circumstance than anything else) and- while I don't quite condone it, I can hardly blame them for doing so, for shits and giggles if nothing else- one lone Russian amidst a sea of western participants at the NRA, or mingling with the GOP, PiS, AFD, or what-have-you, and you have liberal tantrums and accusations aplenty, hell, even if Russia did nothing, the accusation of "Russian interference" (and Chinese) would be paraded around as part of the western "liberal/so-called-left's" series of increasingly deranged reichstag fires.

  • i thought the piss party was as anti russia as you can get

    • Yup, though that level of russophobia is representative for most of Polish political mainstream and quite average considering all public spaces (which is, especially internet, full of literal nazi rhetorics agains Russians).

      Any allegiations of PiS being supported by Russia are most likely just Polish versions of russiagate, it's a country where politicians of all parties are accusing eachother with straight faces of being "communists", "socialists", "Kremlin agents" and so on, while all of them really being Washington marionettes.

    • Outwardly, but that is primarily rhetoric. They are closely economically aligned. They’re not allies by any measure, but the party want to maintain economic and resource connections with Russia, as opposed to other liberal parties.

  • To add to the other really good comments, to me the drift to far right is the result of shock therapy policies of the 90s.

  • Edit: Patriotic education is supported by the communist party, self-hating Russians are too common. Textbooks made by George Soros for years have been teaching kids to hate the country. Students burn their passports, 1/3 students want to leave the country. Putin only change this in 2023 when abandoned by the west. Russian, and Soviet history will no longer be villainised. Russia is nothing like the Western portrayal of it, Z flags and Russian jingoism are far far more common in Serbia than in Russia. Compare Djokovic's fans to the anti-war Medvedev, Rublev etc.

    As Meduza has previously reported, this course was invented by the Russian authorities after the beginning of the full-scale war to explain to students “where Russia is going.” Meduza sources close to the Kremlin have pointed out that this “ideological” course is essentially a direct equivalent of the “scientific communism” taught in Soviet-era universities.

    Russia being far right:

    Zhirinovsky was the leader of the most right wing faction in the Russian duma and the 2nd political party in the Soviet Union (Liberal Democratic Party of the Soviet Union) before he died in 2022 and I would only describe him as centre-right, he supported the August coup by Soviet hardliners against Gorbachev. The real right-wing, Russian monarchists, were against this.

    Putin has transformed the country from what it was in 1999, taking back a lot of power.

    The communist party is the largest one in the world that's not in power. Representing 10-20% of the population, they've only become stronger as the country recognizes China's success.

    Lots of far-right parties/groups are banned, not just nazi ones, imperial ones too.

    On LGBT he said that they should be able to represent themselves. This is the opposite of what a far-right person would have said. He said this when asked by a Serb weather being LGBT is mandatory for winning western competitions.

    But I’ll tell you something unexpected. They too – these topics and these people – have the right to win, show and tell, because this is also part of society. This is also what people live by. It’s bad if they just win all sorts of competitions, that’s of no use.

    I believe if China can deal with Israel, then Russia should be allowed to find whatever allies they want. PIS isn't committing genocide.

    • This says that it is not so bad -- but still Russia cannot be called a communist country nor going in that direction. With using conservative rhetorics, references to tradition, history and religion, it -- at least officially -- presents itself as a far right country. Look at their coat of arms -- it even looks like a tsarist one. Many -- if not most -- of European conservatives think of Russia as of «the last bastion of Christianity and European civilization». Far right scums like Le Pen was very supportive for Putin. You know there is much more. For me all such things looks plainly reactionary.

      Russia should be allowed to find whatever allies they want

      Russia is not only allowed, but it has means to enforce it. I am rather concerned that ideologically, morally and mentally Russia is far, far inferior to the early USSR. And this trend affects other countries of the Eastern Block. I live in Poland, which is divided by liberals and ultra-catholic far-rights, most probably backed by Kremlin. The country is literally divided -- I can not talk with my father, since he belongs to PiS supporters and acts like a member of a sect. This is not a country I want to live in.

    • A comment to the edited part:

      Meduza sources close to the Kremlin have pointed out that this “ideological” course is essentially a direct equivalent of the “scientific communism” taught in Soviet-era universities.

      Official ideological line may be very different to the actually followed. About the Soviet history: yes, it's fight against nazism should be proclaimed and praised, as well as great social and scientific achievements of the whole USSR and allied countries. But when patriotism turns into nationalism, it should be despised. «The working men have no country.» True socialists -- while enforced to act within some existing country -- know that the goal is to lift all national, racial, sexual and other barriers and put the idea of the nation into a trash.

  • The generations that comprised the original Bolsheviks were some of the most "progressive" leaders in the history of Russia and made their stamp on the culture of the country being 'far left' (I don't really care for both terms). Once the country was in the hands of later generations from the 60s onwards up until the collapse, right-wing sentiments became the main opposition that as the economic situation got worse that culminated in what we saw in the 90s. Now the right is the ruling class of Russia, with the left in the opposition.

    • I have the same impression comrade and I deeply regret this drift to the right. It destroyed one of the noblest endeavours in human history (the USSR), but maybe far more damage has been done by slandering and depreciating the idea of communism and by giving the fuel to liberal and right-wing propaganda. Short-term, pragmatic benefits of the right drift ended with long-term disaster. This is how right-wingers and liberals think. I hope that I do not sound as an ultra, I just admire ideas of the original Bolsheviks and wish to preserve them uncompromised.

      Edit: it almost makes me cry: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwaXhTGEhIk

  • I've heard rumor of US-based conservative think tanks - particularly classics like Focus on the Family - doing a lot of monkeying around in the years up to and after dissolution. Wouldn't be the whole of the problem or even a major part of it necessarily, but them playing a role here absolutely wouldn't surprise me either. They managed to significantly entrench many of the US' worst qualities within a handful of decades.

    I've been wanting to find some hard details on their involvement, actually.

51 comments