the ethnification of russian nationalismThe Bolshevik regime that took over in 1917 professed an
anti- nationalist ideology: internationalist communism. Writing
in 1986, Hugh Seton- Watson (1986: 28) held that ‘the Soviet
leadership, from 1917 to the present day, has not been inspired
by Russian nationalism’. Frederick Barghoorn (1980: 57–8),
however, insisted that for Stalin a ‘new Soviet Russian ethno-
centrism’ was central to his ‘socialist patriotism’ while Brezhnev
was ‘a Russifier and exponent of neo- Stalinist Russian ethnocen-
trism’ (see also Barghoorn 1956). The truth should be sought
somewhere in- between Seton- Watson and Barghoorn’s one- sided
claims. The least we can say is that Stalin deliberately appealed to
Russian national sentiments during and after the Second World
War to bolster support for the regime (Brandenberger 2002).
Brezhnev for his part accorded some leeway to Russophile ideas,
within the party apparatus as well as among the cultural intel-
ligentsia (Yanov 1978; Brudny 2000; Mitrokhin 2003). Scholars
have identified various strands and currents within the spectrum
of state- tolerated Russian nationalisms at the time. Some nation-
alisms veered towards aggressive statism, replete with vehement
anti- Westernism and rather transparent anti- Semitism, while
others, like the ‘village prose writers’, were far more concerned
with the preservation of Russian cultural values. One thing they
had in common: they took the continued existence of a Soviet
unitary state for granted.
The same was true of Russian nationalism as it developed in
émigré circles in the interwar period. The two parallel move-
ments of National Bolshevism and Eurasianism were often
at loggerheads, but on many crucial issues they advocated
similar brands of nationalism. Both were strongly committed
to the preservation of the unitary Russian state within the old
borders. The main difference between them was that while the
National Bolshevists trusted the Bolshevik regime to do this
(Agurskii 2003), the Eurasianists developed their own ideol-
ogy for a post- Bolshevik, unified Russia. This ideology was
to build on values common to all residents of this state – but
also on Russian Orthodoxy as the sole state religion. While
Eurasianists paid considerable attention to cultural matters, the
concerns of the state were nevertheless paramount for them.