CC BY
27
DO1 10.18522/2500-3224-2022-2-77-93 УДК 94(47)
EXPLAINING THE STANCES
OF THE INTERWAR EURASIANS TOWARDS
BOLSHEVISM
Bäcker Roman
Nicolaus Copernicus University, Torun, Poland [email protected] Rak Joanna
Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan, Poland [email protected]
Abstract. The Eurasians appreciated the Bolshevik Revolution mainly because it revealed primal instincts, traditional imaginations, and cosmic forces of nature that could dominate a vast area of Eurasia. Thus, the Bolsheviks were treated as unwitting creators of the Eurasian Empire. The elimination of the Romano-Germanic world's cultural influences on Eurasia and the creation of a new type of party, i.e., militarized, hierarchical, and homogeneous, were approved as well. According to the Eurasians, the Bolsheviks more or less consciously laid the foundations of Eurasia, considered a separate continent simultaneously constituting a geographic, cultural, multi-ethnic, civilizational, and increasingly political unity. Only one item is missing. It is the ruling of the Eurasian-Russian Empire through the conscious, ideological, and professing Eurasian ideas ruling class. Accordingly, only then will the story complete, and only then will it be possible to create a holistic Eurasian empire. These types of dreams and illusions about the lay salvation called apokatastasis are part of the totalitarian political gnosis.
Keywords: Eurasianism, Bolsheviks, ideocratic regime, Soviet Union, Russian interwar emigrants.
Цитирование: Беккер Р., Рак Дж. Позиции межвоенных евразийцев по отношению к большевизму // Новое прошлое / The New Past. 2022. № 2. С. 77-93. DOI 10.18522/2500-3224-2022-2-77-93 / Bäcker R., Rak J. Explaining the Stances of the Interwar Eurasians towards Bolshevism, in Novoe Proshloe / The New Past. 2022. No. 2. Pp. 77-93. DOI 10.18522/2500-3224-2022-2-77-93.
© Беккер Р., Рак Дж., 2022
ПОЗИЦИИ МЕЖВОЕННЫХ ЕВРАЗИЙЦЕВ ПО ОТНОШЕНИЮ К БОЛЬШЕВИЗМУ
Беккер Роман
Университет Николая Коперника, Торунь, Польша [email protected] Рак Джоанна
Университет Адама Мицкевича, Познань, Польша [email protected]
Аннотация. Евразийцы оценили большевистскую революцию главным образом потому, что она раскрыла первобытные инстинкты, традиционное воображение и космические силы природы, которые могли господствовать на огромной территории Евразии. Таким образом, к большевикам они относились как к невольным создателям Евразийской империи. Ими одобрялось также устранение большевиками культурных влияний романо-германского мира на Евразию и создание партии нового типа - милитаризованной, иерархической и однородной. По мнению евразийцев, большевики более или менее сознательно заложили основы Евразии, рассматриваемой как отдельный континент, одновременно составляющий географическое, культурное, многонациональное, цивилизационное и в большей степени политическое единство. По мнению евразийцев, не хватало только одного: управления Евразийско-Российской империей через сознательный, идеологический и исповедующий евразийские идеи господствующий класс. Соответственно, по их мнению, только тогда история завершится, и только тогда можно будет создать целостную евразийскую империю. Эти типы мечтаний и иллюзий о мирском спасении, называемые апокатастасисом, являются частью тоталитарного политического гнозиса.
Ключевые слова: евразийство, большевики, идеократический режим, Советский Союз, русские межвоенные эмигранты.
1. INTRODUCTION
Eurasianism was created by the linguist Prince Nikolai Trubiecky, philosopher and theologian Father Gieorgij Ftorowski, pianist and musicologist Count Piotr Suwczinski and geographer Piotr Sawicki [for more details see, e.g., Bäcker, 2000; Russia between East and West..., 2007; Between Europe and Asia..., 2015; Lagutina, 2020; Makarov, Repnikov, 2008; Glebov, 2010].
The founders of Eurasianism were outstanding intellectuals forced by the armed seizure of power by the Bolsheviks to leave their homeland. Without exception, they were patriots and deeply religious followers of the Orthodox Church. In addition, they often represented contra-acculturative attitudes by describing themselves as opponents of the Western world. It is no coincidence that their most important program manifest was called "Исход к Востоку". This title can be translated as "Exodus to the East".
The Bolsheviks were not patriots. Even the Bolshevik elite cannot be classified as intellectuals, not to mention the membership social masses [Kotakowski, 1981]. Marxism, derived from the margins of Hegelism, the vulgarized version of which was used by the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) (in Russian: Всесоюзная коммунистическая партия (большевиков); ВКП(б); Romanized version: Vsesoyuznaya kommunisticheskaya partiya (bol'shevikov); VKP(b)), undoubtedly belongs to the canon of Western European thought. The Bolsheviks and the Bolshevik-inspired social masses were Orthodox, extremely anti-clerical, and anti-religious.
Those observations inspire the following research question: to what extent Eurasianism was a communist strand of political thought? It is essential to understand the intellectual relationships between Eurasianism and Bolshevism. The above contrasts and antinomies directly lead to the conclusion that Eurasianism must have been an anti-communist trend. However, this thesis is worth checking more carefully on four levels. The first is the Eurasian attitude towards Marxism, and the second is the Eurasian assessment of the events of 1917. The third and fourth levels concern the attitude to the Bolshevik state in the 1920s (mainly during the New Economic Policy) and then during the period of forced collectivization and industrialization.
For this purpose, it is necessary to apply a qualitative method of document analysis and thematic analysis. The corpus of sources consists of the most crucial program documents of the Eurasian movement. It includes political texts ranging from the collection of articles by the authors of this strand published in 1921 to the latest ideological programs from the 1930s. The analytical tool is the set of the following questions: what was the Eurasian attitude to Marxism? How did the Eurasians evaluate the events of 1917? What was their attitude to the Bolshevik state in the 1920s, especially during the New Economic Policy? How did their attitude to the Bolsheviks change? What were its significant characteristics during the period of forced collectivization and industrialization? The subject matter of those questions determines themes whose analysis and evaluation are crucial to address the research question.
The remainder of the article is divided into six parts. The first one introduces a theoretical framework for the analysis. It consists of the four ideal types of revitalistic attitudes: nativist, vitalist, autonegative, and contra-acculturative manners of political thinking about own and foreign cultures. The following four sections of the paper are embedded in the theoretical framework and closely related to the analytical levels determined by the research tool. First, the paper focuses on the Eurasians' attitude towards Marxism. It uncovers similarities and differences in Eurasian and Marxist structures and the content of political thought. Then, the attention goes on to the Eurasians' assessment of the 1917 Russian Revolution. This section reveals the components of anti-Occidentalism in the Eurasians' attitudes towards the course of political and social revolution as well as its expected results. The following two sections concern the Eurasians' stances towards the Bolshevik state. They trace the dynamics of changes in disseminated views from the 1920s to the late 1930s and shed light on the consistency in the opinions expressed by the Eurasians over time. The paper finishes with the conclusions regarding the characteristics of Eurasianism. This final section uncovers common and divergent elements in the perception of the political reality of the Eurasians and the Bolsheviks.
2. THE THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK: REVITALISTIC ATTITUDES TOWARDS NATIVE AND FOREIGN CULTURES
The theoretical framework of revitalistic attitudes constitutes a useful research tool to identifying and differentiating between cultural attitudes. They allow researchers to capture the similarities and differences in political thinking that relates to cultural threads [Rak, 2015a, p. 55]. The theoretical framework draws upon the assumption that in a situation of a cultural contact, the representatives of any culture manifest their views on the contact. In this way, they relate to their own (native) and foreign cultures with which they are in contact [Rak, 2015b, p. 123]. Those cultural attitudes are called revitalistic, which is a clear reference to revitalization movements defined as a "deliberate, organized, conscious effort by members of a society to construct a more satisfying culture" [Wallace, 1956, p. 265].
The types of revitalistic attitudes are scattered throughout the literature on the subject. However, they can be sorted out by proposing two dyads of ideal types. The first dyad includes two antinomic, extreme ideal types of cultural attitudes towards one's own culture. These types are distinguished on the basis of the criterion of the degree of positive and negative valorization of one's own culture. This dyad embraces both nativist [Linton, 1943] and autonegative attitudes [Nowicka, 1972]. While the former is an expression of extreme approval of one's own culture, the latter is a sign of extreme negation. The second dyad consists of two antinomic, extreme ideal types of cultural attitudes towards a foreign culture. These types are distinguished on the basis of the criterion of the degree of positive and negative valorization of a foreign culture. This dyad includes both vitalist [Smith, 1954] and contra-acculturative [Herskovits, 1948] attitudes.
While the former expresses extreme approval of a foreign culture, the latter expresses extreme aversion towards it.
Accordingly, the process of taking a stance on the one's own culture and producing its particular image entails the valorization of indigenous components, i.e., attaching them either positive or negative values. The following, Ralph Linton's definition of a nativist movement depicts the attitude of approval: "Any conscious, organized attempt on the part of society's members to revive or perpetuate selected aspects of its culture" [Linton, 1943, p. 231]. This theoretical category focuses on the type of attitude towards a native culture which is displayed by those who fully approve their own culture and acknowledge their past. Its antinomic type is the autonegative cultural attitude in Ewa Nowicka's meaning. Autonegative attitudes are determined by any conscious and organized attempt of eliminating certain components of a native culture, so the attitude negates the indigenous culture. It rests on "a rejection of selected elements of the native culture" [Nowicka, 1972, p. 21]. All expressions of political thinking that refer to a native culture can be located between the extreme ideal types of nativist and autonegative attitudes in the specific distances to them depending on the approval of the native culture intensity extent [Rak, 2015b, p. 125].
The stances on a foreign culture range from vitalist to contra-acculturative views. These types are the extreme ideal types of the continuum between the full approval of foreign culture and full negation of foreign culture. As Marian Smith indicates, vitalist attitudes of approval are peculiar to vitalist movements defined as "Any conscious, organized attempt on the part of a society's members to incorporate in its culture selected aspects of another culture in contact with it" [Smith, 1954, p. 122]. Smith's definition puts emphasis on the acceptance of the alien culture and the disdainful stance towards the indigenous culture which is combined with the attempts to replace some of its critical components drawn from the dominant or foreign culture by those whose political thinking is studied [Smith, 1954, p. 122]. Melville Jean Herskovits formulated the antinomic ideal type of vitalism, which is a contra-acculturative cultural attitude. According to Herskovits, the latter "is essentially out of contacts involving dominance of one people over another that contra-acculturative movements arise - those movements wherein a people come to stress the values in aboriginal ways of life, and to move aggressively, either actually or in fantasy, toward the restoration of those ways, even in the face of obvious evidence of their importance to throw off the power that restricts them" [Herskovits, 1948, p. 531]. Noteworthy, contra-acculturation stems from the explicit need to revitalize a native culture. This need is a result of the contact with a dominant culture which impedes and limits a native culture. All manifestations of revitalistic thought that concern a foreign culture may be located between the extreme ideal types of vitalism and contra-acculturation, and in the distances outlined to them depending on the approval of the foreign culture intensity extent [Rak, 2015b, p. 125].
In sum, the dyads of the ideal types apply to scrutinize political thinking. Configurations of identified cultural attitudes and their different levels of intensity can be treated as the indicators of cultural orientations and predictors of behavior towards "we" and "the
others." However, it should be remembered that the release of the aversive potential takes place at critical moments of cultural contact, especially in situations of an existential threat.
3. THE EURASIANS' ATTITUDE TOWARDS MARXISM
At the level of general statements, one can quite often meet with a general, contra-acculturative condemnation not only of the entire culture, called "Romano-Germanic" by the Eurasians but also its specific form, i.e., communism created by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels [see: Savitsky, 1931, p. 38). Nevertheless, it is not a complete refutation of their substantial assumptions.
We disagree with Otto Boss [Boss, 1961, p. 18], who maintained that the Eurasians felt solidarity with the proletariat. Instead, we argue that the Eurasians did not use this term and did not treat this social group as an internationalist force of social change. Importantly, they wrote about workers who are part of an organically treated society within a single state structure. Furthermore, as they emphasized, international political organizations cannot solve critical social problems. According to the Eurasians, such issues can only be solved by recognizing the principle of a personality permeated by the idea of God [Yevraziystvo i kommunizm, p. 24].
The differences between Marxists and the Eurasians were not just in this key category. Regardless of the coexistence of some concepts, such as those belonging to the common intellectual heritage of the entire French-speaking 19th-century and later Europe, we deal with completely different structures of political thinking.
However, it does not mean that there are no common features. Both Marxism and Eurasianism were structuralist, holistic and, above all, monistic. Although these two ways of thinking took the form of ideologies, they were and are worldviews, as a matter of fact. Both Marxism and Eurasianism had their own historiosophical conceptions. In addition, the creators and the followers of Marxism and Eurasianism treated their views as scientific [Boss, 1961, p. 20; Paradowski, 1996].
The Eurasians appreciated in Marxism the utopian desire to create a supra-class state and the implementation of the principle of social justice by such a state. Nonetheless, according to the Eurasians, Marxists gave the wrong answers and failed to determine an efficient means to perform their political project. In contrast to Marxists' view, as the Eurasians suggested, the desired political change required the introduction of the principles of ideocracy (i.e., the rule of ideas in the state) and state-private property, because only such a structure can ensure the implementation of the principle of social justice [Oreshkin, 2017]. According to the Eurasians, these were the fundamental conditions to achieve goals set by Marxists. Note should be taken that it is not logical to criticize Marxists for not following Eurasian views, but it undoubtedly highlights the differences in their approaches to state-building actions.
Both Marxists, and at least some Eurasians, embraced a vision of history divided into three completely separate epochs. However, the tripartite idea of the world was characteristic of many strands of political thinking. It is clearly visible, for example, in the concept of the Third Rome [see, e.g.: Mayhew, 2021; Nazarov, 2004; Resnyansky, 2019]. The emergence of a tripartite vision of history is one of the signs, although it is not a criterion of significance, of the existence of political gnosis, including its totalitarian variant [Voegelin, 1987; Bäcker, 2011]. It begs the question of whether, and if yes, to what extent, we can classify these two ways of thinking as totalitarian political gnosis. The answer to this question must draw upon a dynamic perspective and take into account the differentiation of both strands. Accordingly, while Marxism in the Leninist version, as has been proved [Besançon, 2014], belongs entirely to totalitarian political gnosis, in the case of Eurasianism, one can only speak of the possibility of its partial qualification. At the same time, it is also necessary to note that this process grew significantly in the 1930s [Shlapentokh, 1997; Bäcker, 2000, p. 215-230].
To sum up, Eurasianism has almost nothing to do with Marxism when it comes to comparing the semantic resources used by these two strands of political thinking. However, the convergences of thought structures are so remarkable that they can be classified as more or less the same types of political thinking.
4. THE EURASIANS' ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE BOLSHEVIK REVOLUTION
Eurasian intellectuals did not deal with the technology of gaining power by armed Bolshevik troops in St. Petersburg on November 7, 1917 (according to the new calendar). Much more interesting for them was the search for the essence of the enormous social changes taking place during the several years of gaining power over vast areas of the former Russian empire and the awareness of the tsar's former subjects.
One of the most significant attempts to explain the mechanisms of power relations was an article by Lev Karsawin released in 1927 and entitled "Phenomenology of Revolution" [Karsavin, 2010]. Karsawin distinguished four stages of the revolution. The first is the annihilation of the ruling class, and the second is anarchy, i.e., the disappearance of old institutions and the lack of or residual existence of new ones. The third is the period of the rule of fanatics, egocentrics, brutal people, and people impatiently desirous of privileges. It is a time of the drastic division of people into rulers and ruled. The fourth and final stage is the creation of a dictatorial party capable of building state institutions and the spread of mass conformism and cynicism [Zamaraeva, 2018]. It is impossible to treat these comments as of theoretical nature. Rather, they were a relatively simple generalization of direct and indirect observations Karsawin made during the ten years of social changes taking place in the Bolshevik state.
However, Karsawin's highly critical evaluation of the political situation did not mean a desire to return to the status quo ante. From the times of Peter the Great, pre-revolutionary Russia was subject to the Romano-Germanic culture and thus could not be assessed
positively by the Eurasians. Therefore, the Bolshevik revolution, regardless of its course, cannot be evaluated entirely negatively in terms of its results. These interim findings and conclusions uncover the intricacies of the Eurasians' attitudes towards the 1917 Russian Revolution.
Let us delve analytically deeper into the intricacies. According to the Eurasians, the revolution consisted of two specific strands. Whereas the first one was communist and originating from the condemned Romano-Germanic world, the second was popular, typical of the appreciated native world, i.e., the Eurasian one. At the same time, communist internationalism was only a mask covering real intentions, while the reality was to create a strong state and break with the Romano-Germanic world. The Russian demos became the owner of this country [Alekseev, 2003, p. 347]. It should also be noted that the demos is not understood as an empowered political nation. Instead, it is considered a human element that instinctively fights against foreign people and forces. Several paradoxes emerge in this way of thinking. One of them was a negative assessment of the fight against religion while glorifying the spontaneous actions of Eurasian peoples. However, a significant part of those violent actions was directed against Orthodox churches and clergy [see, e.g.: Kenworthy, 2018; Maszkiewicz, 1995; Grajewski, 1991].
Last but not least, treating the Bolshevik revolution as a reaction to the rule of "foreigners" and a chance for a revival of the national element was not typical only of Eurasians. The literary group of Scythians, Smienovichov (Nikolaj Ustrialov) and literary poputchikov (Boris Pilniak, Vsievolod Ivanov, Leonid Leonov, and futurists) fall into the same pattern of political views.
In sum, adoration for the social masses, element, and strength, condemnation of rationalism, Western European civilization, and the advantage of "soulless" procedures, such as the rule of law, over emotions were the characteristic features of this quite broad intellectual movement. They constitute a unique type of political thinking called anti-Occidentalism.
5. THE EURASIAN ASSESSMENT OF THE SOVIET STATE IN THE 1 920s
The Eurasians assessed the Bolshevik state on two levels. The first was the official program documents adopted by the activists of the Eurasian Organization. Announcing their views to the world was somewhat of a propaganda nature and aimed at program-building and universalizing the vision of the social world. In addition to the almanac "Исход к Востоку," it is necessary to mention the resolutions of the 1927- and 1932-party congresses. The texts published in magazines and collective works published by the Eurasians, which aspired to have a scientific status in the social sciences at the time, were different. Therefore, the second level constituted those "essays" in today's meaning.
Due to the apparent breakthrough associated with compulsory collectivization and the beginning of the process of forced industrialization, it is necessary to clearly distinguish two
epochs in the history of interwar Bolshevik Russia, which can be conventionally divided into the 1920s and 1930s. In this sense, the twenties end with the liquidation of the New Economic Policy.
A short article by Piotr Sawicki from 1925 explaining the core program assumptions of the Eurasian movement is generally a repetition of the assessment of the 1917 revolution. It also contains a fairly extensive fragment devoted to the fight against religion. Sawicki uses the concept of "organized torment", taking it from Konstanty Leontiev. According to Sawicki, the system of state atheization destroyed the sense of community, destroyed human dignity, and created a terrible, blasphemous, and animal reality. The universal reign of hatred results in torturing and oppressing all, and this must lead to the oppression of those who torture others [Savitsky, 1995, p. 92]. However, it does not mean that Sawicki predicted the purges of the 1930s prophetically. Like many other authors (e.g., Lev Trotsky) writing about the events of 1917, he used the scheme of the French Revolution to evaluate the Bolshevik rule. Hence, in this case, Sawicki did not make a prophecy but a banal statement about a revolution devouring its own children. If Sawicki had used the method of extrapolation and concluded on the basis of, for example, the scale of terror during the years of the civil war, he would probably have come to more frightening and, in line with reality, conclusions.
The assessment of the Bolshevik state is much more elaborate in the first Eurasian party program of 1927. According to the Eurasians, the rule of one organized, cohesive, and the highly disciplined group is adequate to the situation and conditions of the existence of Russia-Eurasia. Culturally foreign and usually hostile states surround this area; it has no natural borders, and above all, it is forced to fight the incredibly extreme difficulties of economic life. These challenges result from the climate and great distances. Therefore, it is necessary to manage such a state by a single, hierarchical, and cohesive political party [Yevraziystvo..., 1927, p. 4].
Such views are quite typical of the justifications of dictatorial rule. Nevertheless, they are not of a substantive nature. It is enough to compare, e.g., Russia with Canada, to notice only one difference between these countries. It is the hostility of the neighbors. Obviously, it is possible for democratic governments to exist in a country entirely surrounded by enemies, and the best example here is Israel. Meanwhile, the authors of this manifesto did not even mention one fundamental difference determining the type of political regime. It is the subjectivity or lack of subjectivity of a political nation.
However, the Eurasians were not apologists for the Bolshevik regime. They believed that the communist party should fulfill the needs of the widest social masses and take into account their aspirations. They called the system implementing these tasks demotic. Nevertheless, the communists did not build such a system. According to the Eurasians, this was due to two reasons, i.e., atheism and the construction of an artificial system of the economy [Yevraziystvo..., 1927, p. 4]. The Eurasians criticized both the state taking over the function of a monopoly employer and the lack of social assistance for the poorest social strata. The hybrid of capitalism and communism combined the worst features
of both systems. It was also impossible to the Eurasians to accept the Bolshevik rule due to the reference to Western Marxism and the incorporation of the elements of a foreign culture [Yevraziystvo..., 1927, p. 4-5].
In this argument, the lack of moral judgments is symptomatic. The Eurasians did not use moral judgments even against the cruelest manifestations of Bolshevik terror. It does not matter for them, not only because they used the categories of large social groups in their thinking patterns. Much more important was understanding the Bolshevik rule as a basis for building a Eurasian demotic system.
Such a way of thinking was undoubtedly completely utopian, probably not for program reasons. The economic transformation or the acceptance of the Russian Orthodox Church could have gone in different directions and with greater intensity than in the 1930s or during World War II. Nonetheless, a fundamental condition emerged, i.e., the replacement of the Bolshevik elite with the Eurasian one. This type of elite replacement is not possible under the conditions of a slow, evolutionary, and peaceful transformation of an undemocratic regime.
Note should be taken that wishful thinking not based on the analysis of elementary facts is quite typical and not only for the groups of political emigration. However, its inclusion in Eurasian political thought was important to its overall structure.
A significant question is the attitude of Eurasians to the cultural modernization carried out by the Bolsheviks during both the war communism and the New Economic Policy. Sergei Glebov (2010) analyzed this issue was extensively and reliably. However, it is worth paying attention to the basic question, which is as follows: To what extent were the new ideas of Eurasians in common with the Bolsheviks?
The answer is multifaceted:
Art - futurism: in the early 1920s, futurism was accepted by Peter Savitsky and criticized as anti-religious by Nicolai Trubeckij.
A linguistic breakthrough, e.g., blurring the boundary between science and ideology, just as the new language of politics was common. It was due to the fact that both ideological trends belonged to totalitarian political gnosis, and not to diffusion.
While Eurasianism was an intellectually sophisticated way of thinking in the interwar period, Leninist Bolshevism, and to an even greater extent its Stalinist version, was rather simplistic.
The Orthodox Eurasians treated the moral revolution in the early 1920s as a product of the West.
6. THE EURASIAN ASSESSMENT OF STALINISM IN THE 1 930s
The first congress of the Eurasian Organization took place in 1931, i.e., after the rapid collectivization and during the first five-year economic plan. The latter assumed the construction of many factories, steel mills, and roads, including water channels, to be the basis of heavy industry, including the armaments industry.
The Eurasian project did not criticize the industrialization program. Instead, its creators considered the latter essential and needed because its performance allowed them to become independent from the Romano-Germanic world. The material results of Stalinist construction are assessed positively, as industrialization strengthens Russia-Eurasia.
The project considered the following moral and ideological values important: enormous enthusiasm, treating them as a joint work, opening the way to cooperation, and thus transforming slaves into partners and creators of the general-union construction industry. According to the Eurasians, only in this way, it is possible to give meaning and purpose to everyday mechanical work [Yevraziystvo., 1932, p. 17].
In addition, according to the Eurasians, economic planning ended the period of chaos and introduced an elementary order. It is also necessary to add that at that time, during the great world financial crisis, it was a common view all over the world.
However, it did not, mean indiscriminately praising Soviet industrialization. The Eurasians clearly pointed to the differences of a teleological nature. In the 1932 Program, these differences were very clearly articulated. For communists, industrialization is an objective in itself, ending history, and creating a material paradise without religion. Meanwhile, Eurasians strive to create a labor state based on the religious principle, and thus serving higher spiritual values.
For communism, full socialization is an unquestionable dogma. In turn, for Eurasians, the economic system must be subordinated to the principle of involving all workers in creative construction combined with the economic self-determination of people.
Eurasians, therefore, support a planned economy, but with a moderate share of private initiative. The goal is a dialectical synthesis of the socialist and capitalist economy [Yevraziystvo., 1932, p. 18-19].
In the same program, the Eurasians traditionally denied Marxism. Equally traditionally, they indicated the existence in the Soviet state of only formal care for social issues. The belief that the Soviet state was implementing the principle of national self-determination on the Eurasian rather than ethnic level was also still visible by the force of facts. These views were connected with the somewhat naive conviction that some Bolsheviks would turn to Eurasian slogans and thus become promoters of the only right transformation of the system into the Eurasian one [Yevraziystvo., 1932, c. 4-6; cf. Hauner, 2013, p. 200].
The 1932 Eurasian program is generally much the same as the five years earlier document. However, the later program contains even more vivid utopian elements of
Eurasian derivations concerning mainly the positively assessed sides of the Bolshevik political regime. It was them that enabled the operation "Trust" to be successfully carried out by the Soviet political police authorities over the next few years [Makarov, 2008].
In the 1930s, there were also numerous texts written by the Eurasians that had a scientific-essayistic rather than propaganda-program character. These include, first of all, articles written by Nikolai Alekseev. Even before Ernest Fraenkel, who wrote a book on a double legal order in 1941 [Fraenkl, 2018], Alekseev wrote about a "written" and "unwritten" constitution, not established but in force in a given country. This distinction was later defined as the antinomy between the rule of law and the prerogative state.
In the Soviet state, the essence of the non-constituted constitution was a partiocratic regime with unlimited and de facto power by the Bolsheviks. More precisely, it was a selfish and egoistic dictatorship of the declassed intelligentsia, degenerating into the absolute rule of the worst kind of bureaucracy [Alekseev, 2018, p. 345]. The only solution for Russia was to dominate the Eurasian empire of a proper, genuinely ideological, and representative ruling class. The Eurasians considered ideocracy an ideal system and thus the service of ideas by the rulers. Such dreams belong to the utopia of secular salvation, apokatastasis. The latter is one of the three, next to the objective enemy and the imagined subject, essential criteria for distinguishing totalitarian political gnosis from other types of political thinking.
The analyzes of Gieorgij Vernadski on Bolshevism are also worth mentioning. In an unpublished article entitled "The Paradoxes of Bolshevism," its author describes the transition of Bolshevism from internationalism to nationalism, from belief in a classless society to the politics of maintaining class differences, and from dogmatic materialism to new idealism. It can be assumed that Vernadski treats this type of transformation as moving towards the Eurasian ideal of the social world [Halperin, 1985, p. 177-178].
7. CONCLUSIONS
The vast majority of Russian emigration representatives completely denied Bolshevism and the regime created by the party of Lenin and then Stalin. Meanwhile, for the Eurasians, it was not an enemy structure, condemned, and alien to the Russian tradition. At the same time, it did not mean their complete acceptance of the Soviet Union, much less a desire to return to the homeland. The instinct for self-preservation was stronger not only than views but also than nostalgia.
The Eurasians appreciated the Bolshevik Revolution mainly because it revealed primal instincts, traditional imaginations, and cosmic forces of nature that could dominate a vast area of Eurasia. Thus, the Bolsheviks were treated as unwitting creators of the Eurasian Empire. The elimination of the cultural influences of the Romano-Germanic world and the creation of a new type of party, militarized, hierarchical, and homogeneous, was equally positive.
According to the Eurasians, the Bolsheviks more or less consciously laid the foundations of Eurasia, treated as a separate continent simultaneously constituting a geographic, cultural, multi-ethnic, civilizational, and increasingly political unity. Only one item is missing. It is the ruling of the Eurasian-Russian empire through the conscious, ideological, and professing Eurasian ideas ruling class. Accordingly, only then will the story complete, and only then will it be possible to create a holistic Eurasian empire. These types of dreams and illusions about the lay salvation called apokatastasis are part of the totalitarian political gnosis.
REFERENCES
Alekseev N.N. Russkiy narod i gosudarstvo [Russian people and state]. Moscow: Agraf, 2018. 635 p. (in Russian).
Glebov S. Yevraziystvo mezhdu imperiyey i modernom: istoriya v dokumentakh [Eurasianism between empire and modernity: history in documents]. Moscow: New publishing house, 2010. 630 p. (in Russian).
Yevraziystvo i kommunizm [Eurasianism and communism]. [B. m.]: [b. i.], [19--]. 31 p. (in Russian).
Yevraziystvo (formulirovka 1927 g.) [Eurasianism (1927 formulation)]. [B. m.]: [b. i.], 1927 (in Russian).
Yevraziystvo Deklaratsiya formulirovka tezisy [Eurasianism Declaration wording theses]. [B. m.]: [b. i.], 1932 (in Russian).
Zamaraeva E.I. L.P. Karsavin: russkaya revolyutsiya v kontekste yevraziyskogo proyekta [L.P. Karsavin: Russian revolution in the context of the Eurasian project], in Solov'yevskiye issledovaniya. 2018. No. 2(58). Pp. 50-58 (in Russian).
Iskhod k Vostoku: Predchuvstviya i sversheniya: Utverzhdeniye yevraziytsev [Exodus to the East: Premonitions and Accomplishments: Approval of the Eurasians]. Sofia: Russian-Bulgarian book publishing, 1921. 125 p. (in Russian).
Karsavin L.P. Izbrannoye [Favorites]. Moscow: Russian Political Encyclopedia Publishing House, 2010. 920 p. (in Russian).
Makarov V.G., Repnikov A.V. Kak vozniklo yevraziystvo [How Eurasianism arose], in Russia XXI. 2008. No 5. Pp. 98-127 (in Russian).
Nazarov M.V. Vozhdyu Tret'yego Rima: kpoznaniyu russkoy idei v apokalipsicheskoye vremya [Leader of the Third Rome: to the knowledge of the Russian idea in the apocalyptic time]. Moscow: Russian idea, 2004. 975 p. (in Russian).
Oreshkin D.B. Yevraziystvo. Ideokratiya. Mir naiznanku [Eurasianism. Ideocracy. The world inside out], in Yevraziystvo i mir. 2017. No. 1. Pp. 15-39 (in Russian).
Resnyansky S.I. "Moskva-Tretiy Rim" kak arkhetip russkogo pravoslavnogo samosoznaniya ["Moscow-Third Rome" as an archetype of Russian Orthodox identity],
in Vestnik Moskovskogo gosudarstvennogo oblastnogo universiteta. Seriya: Istoriya i politicheskiye nauki. 2019. No. 3. Pp. 41-49 (in Russian).
Savitsky P.N. VBor'be za yevraziystvo [In the Struggle for Eurasianism]. Paris: [b.i.], 1931. 54 p. (in Russian).
Savitsky P.N. Yevraziystvo [Eurasianism], in Mir Rossii - Yevraziya: antologiya [The World of Russia - Eurasia: an anthology]. Compiled by L.I. Novikova, I.N. Sizemskaya, Moscow: Higher School, 1995. 398 p. (in Russian).
Between Europe and Asia: The origins, theories, and legacies of Russian Eurasianism. Ed. by Bassin M., Glebov S. and Laruelle M. University of Pittsburgh Press, 2015. 280 p.
Bäcker R. Miçdzywojenny eurazjatyzm: od itelektualnej kontrakulturacji do totalitaryzmu? Lodz: Wydawnictwo Ibidem, 2000. 260 s.
Bäcker R. Nietradycyjna teoria polityki. Torun: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Mikotaja Kopernika, 2011. 225 s.
Besançon A. Les origines intellectuelles du léninisme. Calmann-Lévy, 2014. 291 p. Boss O. Die Lehre der Eurasier: ein Beitrag zur russischen Ideengeschichte des 20. Jahrhunderts. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz Verlag, 1961. 130 p.
Fraenkel E., Meierhenrich J. The dual state: A contribution to the theory of dictatorship. Oxford University Press, 2018. 337 p.
Grajewski A. Rosja i krzyz: z dziejow Kosciofa Prawosfawnego w ZSRR. Katowice: Gosc Niedzielny, 1991. 111 s.
Halperin Ch.J. Russia and the Steppe: George Vernadsky and Eurasianism, in Forschungen zur osteuropäischen Geschichte. 1985. No. 36. Pp. 55-194.
Hauner M. What is Asia to Us? (Routledge Revivals): Russia's Asian Heartland Yesterday and Today. Routledge, 2013. 280 p.
Herskovits J.M. Man and His Works. The Science of Cultural Anthropology. Alfred A. Knopf, 1948. 678 p.
Kenworthy S.M. Rethinking the Russian Orthodox Church and the Bolshevik Revolution, in Revolutionary Russia. 2018. No. 31(1). Pp. 1-23.
Kolakowski L. Main currents of Marxism: its rise, growth, and dissolution. Vol. 3 The Breakdown. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981. 548 p.
Lagutina M. A Concept of Eurasia: from Classical Eurasianism to Pragmatic Eurasianism, in Regional Integration and Future Cooperation Initiatives in the Eurasian Economic Union. IGI Global, 2020. Pp. 1-15.
Linton R. Nativistic Movements, in American Anthropologist. 1943. No. 45(2). Pp. 230240.
Makarov V.G. Pax Rossica: The History of the Eurasianist Movement and the Fate of the Eurasianists, in Russian Studies in Philosophy. 2008. No. 47(1). Pp. 40-63. Maszkiewicz M. Mistyka i rewolucja: Aleksander Wwiedenski i jego koncepcja roli cerkwi w panstwie komunistycznym. Krakow: Nomos, 1995. 174 s.
Mayhew N. Moscow: The Third Rome, in Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Literature. 2021. Nowicka E. Bunt i ucieczka. Zderzenie kultur i ruchy spofeczne. Panstwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1972. 286 p.
Paradowski R. Idea Rosji-Eurazji i naukowy nacjonalizm Lwa Gumilowa: proba rekonstrukcji ideologii eurazjatyzmu. Waraszawa: Szkoia Gtowna Handlowa, 1996. 413 s.
Rak J. A typology of cultural attitudes as a device describing political thought of the populations influenced by globalization, in Anthropological Notebooks. 2015a. No. 21(2). Pp. 55-70.
Rak J. Toward a new typology of revitalistic attitudes, in Filosofija. Sociologija. 2015b. No. 26(2). Pp. 122-128.
Shlapentokh D.V. Eurasianism: Past and present, in Communist and Post-Communist Studies. 1997. No. 30(2). Pp. 129-151.
Russia between East and West: scholarly debates on Eurasianism. Vol. 102. Ed. by Shlapentokh D. Brill, 2007. 198 p.
Smith M.W. Shamanism in the Shaker Religion of Northwest America, in Man. 1954. No. 54(8). Pp. 119-122.
Voegelin E. The new science of politics: An introduction. University of Chicago Press, 1987. 193 p.
Wallace A. Revitalization Movements, in American Anthropologist. 1956. No. 58(2). Pp. 264-281.
ИСТОЧНИКИ И ЛИТЕРАТУРА
Алексеев Н.Н. Русский народ и государство. Москва: Аграф, 2018. 635 с. Глебов С. Евразийство между империей и модерном: история в документах. Москва: Новое издательство, 2010. 630 с. Евразийство и коммунизм. [Б. м.]: [б. и.], [19--]. 31 с. Евразийство (формулировка 1927 г.). [Б. м.]: [б. и.],1927. Евразийство Декларация формулировка тезисы. [Б. м.]: [б. и.], 1932. Замараева Е.И. Л.П. Карсавин: русская революция в контексте евразийского проекта // Соловьевские исследования. 2018. № 2(58). С. 50-58.
Исход к Востоку: Предчувствия и свершения: Утверждение евразийцев. София: Рос.-болг. книгоизд-во, 1921. 125 c.
Карсавин Л.П. Избранное. Москва: Изд-во Российская политическая энциклопедия, 2010. 920 с.
Макаров В.Г., Репников А.В. Как возникло евразийство // Россия XXI. 2008. № 5. С. 98-127.
Назаров М.В. Вождю Третьего Рима: к познанию русской идеи в апокалипсическое время. Москва: Русская идея, 2004. 975 с.
Орешкин Д.Б. Евразийство. Идеократия. Мир наизнанку // Евразийство и мир. 2017. № 1. С. 15-39.
Реснянский С.И. «Москва-Третий Рим» как архетип русского православного самосознания // Вестник Московского государственного областного университета. Серия: История и политические науки. 2019. № 3. С. 41-49. Савицкий П.Н. В Борьбе за евразийство. Париж: [б.и.], 1931. 54 с. Савицкий П.Н. Евразийство // Мир России - Евразия: антология. Составители Л.И. Новикова, И.Н. Сиземская, Москва : Высшая школа, 1995. 398 с. Between Europe and Asia: The origins, theories, and legacies of Russian Eurasianism. Ed. by Bassin M., Glebov S. and Laruelle M. University of Pittsburgh Press, 2015. 280 p. Bäcker R. Miçdzywojenny eurazjatyzm: od itelektualnej kontrakulturacji do totalitaryzmu? Lodz: Wydawnictwo Ibidem, 2000. 260 s.
Bäcker R. Nietradycyjna teoria polityki. Torun: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Mikotaja Kopernika, 2011. 225 s.
Besançon A. Les origines intellectuelles du léninisme. Calmann-Lévy, 2014. 291 p. Boss O. Die Lehre der Eurasier: ein Beitrag zur russischen Ideengeschichte des 20. Jahrhunderts. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz Verlag, 1961. 130 p.
Fraenkel E., Meierhenrich J. The dual state: A contribution to the theory of dictatorship. Oxford University Press, 2018. 337 p.
Grajewski A. Rosja i krzyz: z dziejöw Kosciofa Prawosfawnego w ZSRR. Katowice: Gosc Niedzielny, 1991. 111 s.
Halperin Ch.J. Russia and the Steppe: George Vernadsky and Eurasianism, in Forschungen zur osteuropäischen Geschichte. 1985. No. 36. Pp. 55-194. Hauner M. What is Asia to Us? (Routledge Revivals): Russia's Asian Heartland Yesterday and Today. Routledge, 2013. 280 p.
Herskovits J.M. Man and His Works. The Science of Cultural Anthropology. Alfred A. Knopf, 1948. 678 p.
Kenworthy S.M. Rethinking the Russian Orthodox Church and the Bolshevik Revolution, in Revolutionary Russia. 2018. No. 31(1). Pp. 1-23.
Kolakowski L. Main currents of Marxism: its rise, growth, and dissolution. Vol. 3 The Breakdown. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981. 548 p.
Lagutina M. A Concept of Eurasia: from Classical Eurasianism to Pragmatic Eurasianism, in Regional Integration and Future Cooperation Initiatives in the Eurasian Economic Union. IGI Global, 2020. Pp. 1-15.
Linton R. Nativistic Movements, in American Anthropologist. 1943. No. 45(2). Pp. 230240.
Makarov V.G. Pax Rossica: The History of the Eurasianist Movement and the Fate of the Eurasianists, in Russian Studies in Philosophy. 2008. No. 47(1). Pp. 40-63.
Maszkiewicz M. Mistyka i rewolucja: Aleksander Wwiedenski i jego koncepcja roli cerkwi w panstwie komunistycznym. Krakow: Nomos, 1995. 174 s.
Mayhew N. Moscow: The Third Rome, in Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Literature. 2021.
Nowicka E. Bunt i ucieczka. Zderzenie kultur i ruchy spofeczne. Panstwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1972. 286 p.
Paradowski R. Idea Rosji-Eurazji i naukowy nacjonalizm Lwa Gumilowa: proba rekonstrukcji ideologii eurazjatyzmu. Waraszawa: Szkota Gtowna Handlowa, 1996. 413 s. Rak J. A typology of cultural attitudes as a device describing political thought of the populations influenced by globalization, in Anthropological Notebooks. 2015a. No. 21(2). Pp. 55-70.
Rak J. Toward a new typology of revitalistic attitudes, in Filosofija. Sociologija. 2015b. No. 26(2). Pp. 122-128.
Shlapentokh D.V. Eurasianism: Past and present, in Communist and Post-Communist Studies. 1997. No. 30(2). Pp. 129-151.
Russia between East and West: scholarly debates on Eurasianism. Vol. 102. Ed. by Shlapentokh D. Brill, 2007. 198 p.
Smith M.W. Shamanism in the Shaker Religion of Northwest America, in Man. 1954. No. 54(8). Pp. 119-122.
Voegelin E. The new science of politics: An introduction. University of Chicago Press, 1987. 193 p.
Wallace A. Revitalization Movements, in American Anthropologist. 1956. No. 58(2). Pp. 264-281.
Статья принята к публикации 15.02.2022
