The Crisis of National Identity and ‘Sovereign-Democracy’ in Russia

Abstract

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, one of the most serious problems for today's Russia is how to establish stability and identity as a nation.There are two reasons this problem is especially serious in Russia. First, because of historical, social psychological and other reasons, Russian society has trouble creating autonomous public order. The present writer calls this aspect of Russian society a ‘sand-society’, which means a society where stable order and a market economy are difficult to establish without some measure of authoritarianism. The high rate of support for President Putin reflects, not stability, but a public fear of instability. Second, Russia, in spite of the social characteristics mentioned above, is trying to keep up the appearance of an advanced G8 nation with a civil society based on the rule of law and democratic values. It was in order to cope with this dilemma and to justify his government that Vladislav Surkov set forth his ‘Sovereign-Democracy’ theory of Neo-Slavophilism.There is a strong distrust towards the Western world behind this theory, which insists on Russian individuality and is inimical to interventions or ‘exportation of democracy’ by the West, as in the cases of the collapse of governments in Georgia and Ukraine. This theory above all justifies the great power of the Russian State, emphasizes Russian individuality or peculiarity and affirms people's demands for order, stability, and especially a strong leader.This theory is based on the ideas of Ivan Il'in, who was a Russianist religious thinker condemned for being a reactionary and deported from Soviet Union in 1922. Il'in describes Russian culture as synthetic, intuitive, and organic, while characterizing Western culture as analytic, materialistic, and logical. Surkov's theory retains the basic tenets of Slavophilism, which set Plato above Aristotle and was closely related to German Romanticism and mysticism, while making no deeper interpretation of its roots.Surkov points out three features of Russian political culture—‘centralization’, ‘idealization’, and‘personification’.‘Centralization’ means that strong centralized power guarantees stability.‘Idealization’ means that the Russians feel uncomfortable without an ideal or a mission such as ‘the Third Rome’ or ‘the Third International’. ‘Personification’ means that, in Russia, a person (leader) is considered more important than institutions.The problem of establishing identity in Russia is the problem of stabilizing a ‘sand-society’. Considering these three features in relation to this problem, there are two requirements for stabilizing the ‘sand-society’. One is a ‘mold’ or a ‘framework’ to give sand a form, and the other is ‘cement’ to fix it. Of the three features in Surkov's ‘sovereign-democracy’ theory, ‘centralization’, and ‘personification’ are the ‘mold’ or ‘framework’, while ‘idealization’, and ‘personification’ make up the ‘cement’. Against this Neo-Slavophilism or ‘sovereign-democracy’, so-called modern, Westernizers, democrats, reformists and social democrats-are criticizing Surkov. Curiously, therefore, the controversy between Slavophiles and Westernizers that occurred 150 years ago is now repeating itself. One Russian political scientist describes this phenomenon as a deja vu and says it means that the problems dating back to the middle of the 19th century have not yet been solved.