the new russian nationalismadvocates for the reconstruction of the USSR. Today imperial
nationalism is becoming not only a political fellow- traveller of
the authorities, but also its ally. Imperial nationalists greeted
Russia’s annexation of Crimea with great enthusiasm, and all
disagreements with the authorities were set aside. With this ideo-
logical rapprochement with the authorities, the specifics of impe-
rial nationalism and its attractiveness for potential adherents are
disappearing, which may lead to the nationalist movement losing
members. It is now possible for many of them to realise their
political ambitions under the current authorities, without having
to call themselves nationalists – as noted, a term with extremely
negative connotations in Soviet times. Since the Russian press,
with unprecedented vigour, began to cover the regime change in
Ukraine as a ‘nationalist’ and ‘fascist’ revolution, negative percep-
tions of the term ‘nationalism’ have only grown.
However, the nationalist elite will not allow Russian national-
ism to disappear completely, or be dissolved into the general mass
of those who support a great state and the revival of the USSR.
The leaders of the extremely thin national democratic stream of
Russian nationalism understand well the fundamental difference
between nationalism and imperial ideology and politics. These
leaders are unlikely to abandon their principled positions utterly,
even in conditions where a significant portion of this movement’s
representatives supported the authorities over the ‘Crimean ques-
tion’. Nationalists of this category are not set to play fellow-
traveller with the authorities for long. A socio- economic crisis
is ripening in Russia, for domestic reasons as well as due to
the country’s increasing international isolation. All this has
already begun to give rise to a new political polarisation, which
will only increase. In these conditions, greater pressure from
the authorities on all autonomous ideological groups, includ-
ing the national democrat organisations, is an entirely plausible
scenario. Furthermore, the opposition of the latter is predestined
by the inevitable growth in demand for slogans like ‘defence of
Russians in Russia’. The Russian authorities have more than once
announced their right to protect Russians beyond the country’s
borders, but the position of Russians in many of the Federation’s
republics is clearly no better than it was in the former Ukrainian