#15 - JRL 8058
Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004
From: Andreas Umland <andreumland@yahoo.com>
Subject: References to "fascism" by Gessen and Cohen in JRL nos. 8045, 8053, 8054, 8055

With interest, I have been reading Masha Gessen's and Stephen Cohen's debate on Gessen's usage of "fascism" with reference to the ideology of the Motherland bloc. Cohen's remark that somebody who applies "fascism" to Motherland has missed the history of the 20th century is justified to the degree that Rogozin & Co. are, certainly, not driven by as genocidal an ideology as the Nazis'. Also, Motherland seems to be not a genuinely revolutionary movement.

Still, Cohen's scathing comment on Gessen is in so far off the mark as the meaning of "fascism" is disputed in both, the West and Russia. For instance, as accomplished scholars as Prof. A. James Gregor (UC Berkeley) or Dr. Veljko Vujacic (Oberlin College) have linked the ideology of Gennadii Ziuganov to certain varieties of inter-war fascism (see V. Vujacic, 'Gennadiy Zyuganov and the "Third Road",' Post-Soviet Affairs 12 (2), 1994, pp. 118-154; A.J. Gregor, 'Fascism and the New Russian Nationalism,' Communist and Post-Communist Studies 31 (1), 1998, pp. 1-15). Ziuganov who was close to becoming the president of Russia in 1996 is, perhaps, in certain regards, less radical than Rogozin. From this perspective, it would not be inappropriate at all to call Motherland "fascist" - a classification, to be sure, I would not make.

What, from a political point of view, makes Gessen's misclassification even less inappropriate is, however, that Rogozin & Co. - though, arguably, not being fascists themselves - would make perfect coalition partners for genuine fascists.

Both, Gessen and Cohen, seem to have not noted my comment concerning Gessen's first references to Motherland in her initial article in JRL #8045. In JRL #8049, sec. 11 "On Motherland’s State Duma Deputy Sergei Baburin," I noted that Baburin, one of Russia's most experienced parlamentarians and member of Motherland, had, in 2001-2002 close, links to a successor organization of "Russkoe Natsional'noe Edinstvo" which - I guess, even Cohen would agree - is fascist. In fact, it is neo-Nazi. If Baburin's ultranationalism is pathological enough to let him link himself to former adherents of symbols under which millions of ethnic Russians were killed, wounded etc. in 1941-5, then, I am afraid, we cannot be sure that Motherland's other members would refrain from linking themselves with real fascists in the future too. In a worst case scenario, such a speculation would in so far not be meaningless as, in the inter-war period, fascism always needed a non-fascist (usually conservative ultranationalist) ally to come to power. If one believed in the usefulness of the Weimar Germany/post-Soviet Russia comparison, Motherland would thus appear as a factor that could, indeed, become relevant for an assessment of Russian fascism.

The first secondary source to turn to, with regard to the empirical side of the problem, is, of course, Stephen Shenfield’s exhaustive book “Russian Fascism” (M.E. Sharpe 2001). Concerning the differences in the conceptualization of “fascism” in Russia and the West, I have tried to systematically treat them in: ‘Sovremennye poniatiia fashizma v Rossii i na Zapade,’ Neprikosnovennyi zapas, no. 5 (31), 2003, pp. 116-122. This article is available on the WWW at: http://www.nz-online.ru/index.phtml?aid=20010634.