Another age of synthesis, part I

Harmonization politics vs. Pointless right-wing agitation

I must confess, I’ve never been much of a current-events-monger. It is not that I don’t discuss them or that I don’t see them as valuable for the purposes of outlining a principle or idea, but I implicitly dislike the thought of becoming some glorified news presenter.

That being said, as implied above, sometimes current events are great for teaching lessons and exploring less-discussed phenomena. This is one of those moments. Today’s topic will involve the the war in Ukraine and present state of Russia, though it will not be devoted to them exclusively.

Before we proceed, it is important to note just how much the dissident Right and adjacent factions were divided by the war. Many of the softer, some would say “fake dissident”, voices, were quick to jump right out of the Trucker protest bandwagon and rejoin those they decried as “agents of the deep state” only a moment ago in advocating for Ukrainian “self-determination”. They were certainly not alone though, within the core of the dissident Right, the old Nationalist - non-nationalist divide sprung up again.

Without going into details over a topic that deserves its own post, I will say that, contrary to mainstream propaganda, this sphere of politics has wide-ranging views on the matter of nationalism, even if there is a broad acceptance of innate tribalism and a fostering of national identities. An exhaustive, though not definitive, list would include: neo-colonialists/”imperialists”, who believe their people have right to rule over others as the “greater race”, nationalists/ethno-pluralists, who want the world to have a multiplicity of nations and peoples without much intermixing, a multicultural/racial religious faction, where specific religious teachings lead to the acceptance of anyone who is a co-religionist regardless of race/ethnicity, and, last but not least, supporters of the old Imperial Ideal, as explained by Evola et al, where a sovereign and elite class legitimately rule over multiple nations, cultures and races, granting each a degree of cultural, religious and political autonomy within their national lands (the faction of yours truly - I am laying my cards on the table, in the interest of fairness). This divide, among other factors, is crucial to understand because it led people to scramble for justifications in support of one or the other nation, which was, in most cases, completely foreign to them.

We must now speak of the aforementioned “other factors”, which tended to include Western apprehensions over the cultural, political and religious “alien-ness” of Russia (often expressed in the form of a hysterical “Asiatic despotism” thesis, ignoring, of course, that same alien-ness in Ukraine), or a manifestation of certain religious disputes from ages past, such as Catholic blame on Russia for Orthodoxy or Bolshevism. At the same time, there were also such absurdities as picking a side based on birth, divorce and abortion statistics, but I will not dwell too much on that in fear of jeopardizing my sanity.

This brings us to the argument which caught my attention the most and directly led to this article, it goes something like: “Putin has not disavowed the Soviet Union, in fact he has praised it! he was a former KGB agent and the Moscow patriarch was a communist puppet too!, they want to revive that tyrannical construct!”.

Before we proceed, let’s not forget a certain globalist-influenced Pope or (as much as it pains me to say) Turko-American-influenced Ecumenical Patriarch, I am not interested in debating these claims, all I will say is “people who live in glass houses should not throw stones”. Now that we got the Moscow Patriarch out of the way, let’s go back to Putin and, more broadly, Russia itself.

Now, what is the source for the above claims? is it a matter of confusion or of something else? To answer these questions satisfactorily we must first try to understand how Russians see the Soviet Union.

If you were to poll citizens of Russia about their views on the Soviet union, one of the few times you would find a majority supporting it would be if you asked specifically on the matter of economic policy. State planning may be something an admittedly slim majority of Russians support, but it is by no means unique to the Soviet era, if anything it a Russian tradition, even for the right.

While one will find a significant majority of Russians calling the USSR the “best era” of the country or considering it positive for Russia, the number of people who want a restoration of the Soviet Union is less that 1-in-3. That is a significant percentage, but nowhere near a majority. Furthermore, if you asked for their view on religion, even among those who had to endure the stringently atheist education system of the Soviets, you would find that the core of Russian society remains fully devoted to their religious faith, specifically Orthodox Christianity (and, for certain minority populations, Islam).

What do these findings reveal to us? In practice, it seems that Russians respect the Soviet Union more for its imperialistic success and hegemonic dominance over its geopolitical space, or for the sense of economic stability it provided, instead of some supposed agreement with the ideology of Marxism-Leninism/Socialism/Stalinism. This is easily demonstrable by the percentage of Russians who still support and vote for the old Communist party or any alternative communist factions, which ends up between 12 and 20% (1-in-8 to 1-in-5 voters certainly, but lets not forget the remaining 7-in-8 or 4-in-5).

Westerners, especially those who were raised in prοpositional nations like the US, find this ideological irreverence somewhat difficult to understand, but for the majority of people in the world, even today, ideologies and parties mean something completely different than what we think of them in the western world.

The prevalent ideology of these lands is a form of all-pervasive nationalism, intimately connected with a “defense of cultural and religious tradition” against the backdrop of “westernized degeneracy”. A complete irreverence, in a manner similar to a medieval peasant, who was passionate for his village, religion and culture, but would shrug his shoulders if you explained to him the policies undertaken by the king, unless they were about raising his taxes, or they endangered the above. In such countries, parties are either tribal affiliations or patron-client networks, not carriers of moderate political ideologies and principles. This is what exists in Russia, to varying and complicated degrees of course, as some Russians have adopted the Westernized view of parties and politics.

Having gotten that out of the way too, we must now delve into my field of expertise: history or, more specifically for the purposes of this article, historiography.

Historiography and Politics of Harmonization

Historiography is the field of history which concerns itself with how history was, and continues to be, written (and, by extension, taught). It is particularly important to understand that there fundamentally is no “objective history”, this is neither some post-modernist trick nor a cynical opinion, it is a recognition that no man can write more than they know or completely exit his own perspective, unless by some Divine intervention (which would be another thing to prove). What historians ought to do, and are supposed to hold as “code of ethics”, is try to gather and explore as large and diverse a variety of perspectives as possible during their research. This does not mean merely different political and ideological views, but can also involve observing the perspective of different religions, denominations, cultures, languages and even classes or unique personalities, etc.

The obvious limitation is, as implied above, the impossibility of ever gathering all perspectives. But, even if it was possible, can we really say that some majoritarian summation of all human experiences or explanations would be the definitive “truth” of an event? would it really be so far-fetched to say that there may be aspects of it which ALL humans may have accidentally ignored?

Such concerns over the relative subjectivity of historiography become even more detrimental when it comes to how history is taught by a state and its institutions. Historians often express disappointment or frustration with the way history is taught in schools, citing issues where history is “beautified” or atrocities committed by the country in question are papered over while atrocities done to it are exaggerated. That we live in nation-states does us no favors either, since that demands the active cultivation of a “national mythos” which cannot be in too much dispute, especially not by the intellectual class, who have a responsibility as “opinion-shapers”. This continues to influence national histories, even if globalization and certain modern ideologies somewhat compromise it on occasion.

This issue is further compounded when recent history has produced ideological divides that continue to be propped up. Just look at how much fears of “Francoism” and 1930s socialist talking points dominated the discussion of the recent Spanish election, if you are seeking proof of the issue. Under such divides, it is entirely possible for there to be developed two very distinct “ideological histories” about the same set of events, one for the broadly leftist perspective and the other for the rightist one. While historians of either stripe can never be so brazen as to tell a completely ideologized story, they can still avoid nuance in crucial parts of their research or give greater weight to some events and not others, which leads to such divergent and rival histories.

Now, I can think of two possible questions that may spring up: 1) what does this all have to do with Russia or the Russian view of the Soviet Union? and 2) what are these “harmonization politics” you mentioned on the title? It is time to answer both of these questions with no more delays.

In my opinion as a historian, the Russians are trying to do something absolutely ingenious here and certain right-wing reactions or protestations against it are stupidly short-sighted. In their attempt to culturally and politically portray the Soviet Union as just another “strong mother Russia”, the Russians are de-ideologizing and simultaneously historicizing the Soviet Union, allowing it to be smoothly integrated into the country’s history and national mythos, without it causing a strong pull toward Communism or the aforementioned schism into “ideological histories”. According to the polls, it is certainly working, with a 68% majority saying they would not wish for its restoration, with 58% of Russian people wanting the country to chart its own, unique, path and 10% wanting to follow a “European path”.

The Russian example is of particular importance for us because it presents an opportunity few could have ever dreamed of in the past 200 years: the complete overcoming and casting away of Communism, as a system which is irrelevant to the present, turning it into a historical anachronism, on par with advocating for a “late Roman slave economy” on this day and age. Imagine how many fervent anti-communists would have hoped, begged and prayed to have had such an opportunity presented on a silver platter.

What the right-wingers who oppose these moves fail to consider, for whatever reason, is that continuing to appeal to “Communism” as your main enemy actually “resurrects” it as a viable political path. I will not speculate on motives here, but there is certainly an undercurrent of right-wingers who, either because their families were anti-communist and have inherited that legacy political stance, or through a flawed understanding of the enemies we face today, have come to rely on “Communism” as their enemy, defining themselves and showing their “virtue” through anti-communism. I would strongly warn against such a thing, because it is fundamentally a form of late 20th century LARPing, where we somehow pretend that we are still in the 1960s and there is a Communist bloc we must fight. Besides the often-discussed danger of defining oneself in a completely negative sense, as an “anti-”, this serves leftists well because it makes their theories appear legitimate and relevant to contemporary society.

A similar example of such “harmonization politics” can be found in the case of Greece, where memory of the civil war, between communists and a coalition of capitalists-liberals-monarchists, gave way to the celebration of a “joint resistance” of both left and right, against the Italian and German occupation in World War II. This was allowed by the magnanimous collective silence over the civil war that followed the Liberal-Monarchist victory and then the conscious policies of “national reconciliation” pursued by the social democratic PASOK government of the 1980s. There are still leftists who are upset over the celebration of alleged “nazi collaborators” and “monarcho-fascists”¹, just as there are rightists annoyed at the lack of recognition of the leftist plans for “national partitioning” and their “crimes against innocents”. Yet, without necessarily denying the concerns of either side, Greek society has moved on to the understanding that this was an unfortunate “brother war” that transcended ideologies and should not be repeated.

I will concede that such a thing cannot happen in all countries. For example, it was tried and failed in Spain, after the restoration of democracy, since the leftists continue to want blood and vengeance over their repression under Franco. But, even then, if the opportunity to do this is presented to us in certain countries, why on Earth should we not seize it?

This is a topic for another post, but Zoomers and young Millennials already demonstrate a severe lack of reverence² toward the “sacred cows” of what Academic Agent calls the “Boomer Truth Regime”. That is, the old beliefs of Boomers, Gen Xers and old Millennials about the paramount value of things like equality, a hedonistic conception of freedom, anti-fascism (conceptualized here as any form of right-wing thought that isn’t simply “we love corporations”), the Holocaust being the absolute worst event in human existence etc. With these people coming of age and entering important positions in society and administration, it would be the perfect time for a properly Nietzschean “overcoming” of all such antiquated sacred cows and for the creation of a completely new order of values and historical narratives.

Some may term that last part “revisionism”, but “narrative” is not always a dirty word in history. New narratives are the inevitable outcome of shifts in recollection of events that occur with the change of societies. Nobody saw the rewriting of Nazi-influenced German history into a more Liberal or Marxist-influenced version as “revisionism”, because they implicitly agreed with the ideological biases that Liberalism/Marxism would bring to that new history. This was not a matter of a more “free and objective” history, but of a different set of priorities for its writing. Going back to my point about the inherent subjectivity of history, this is something that must be accepted as a constant reality. States need history that is relevant to their present while keeping the fidelity of conditions and thought in the past intact. It is not an easy or ideal task for a historian to harmonize the two, but it is necessary nonetheless.

To conclude this admittedly long piece, Russia finds itself in the unique position of being one of the few countries that could truly transcend the “legacy world” we’ve inherited from the developments of the (late) 19th and 20th centuries. It can carve a path forward that includes new political, historical, and spiritual value systems, obviously influenced by what has come before, but still separated and relevant the coming of a new age. Instead of reflexively hiding our heads in the proverbial “late 20th century modernist sand”, let us act now to shape this oncoming future and to encourage its flowering.

1. Quoted: "The GCW [Greek Civil War] was not only a bitter internal struggle between two ideologically irreconcilable Greek camps—derogatively labeled “monarcho-fascists” and “bandits”—each envisaging and proposing diametrically opposed programs for the rehabilitation and future of their war-devastated country.”

2. For more information, You can watch this fascinating exploration: