Thread by @akarlin0

Russia's Nationalist Turn: How Putin Created the Russian National State unz.com/akarlin/russia…

I consider this the capstone to my "Russia watching" career since the "Russian Spring" of 2014. 9,200 words, so here's the summary. /1

In 2017, I defined the aims of modern Russian nationalism as follows: unz.com/akarlin/russia…

1. Cessation of political prosecutions for "hate speech" under Article 282.
2. End to mass immigration.
3. The regathering of the Russian lands.

All three have been committed to. /2

1. Decriminalization of Article 282 in 2018 means no more prosecutions for criticizing federal subsidies to the Caucasus; you now have to try really hard to fall afoul of these laws. Freedom of speech now de facto at V4 levels; above W. Europe & US. unz.com/akarlin/countr… /3

2. Immigration has become tilted towards an ethno-particularist direction that privileges Russians from Ukraine, Belarus & Kazakhstan, with Putin himself remarking that "we need migrants, but preferably well-educated Slavs of a fertile age." /4

3. In his seminal 2021 article On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians, Putin explicitly described Ukrainians, Belorussians, and Russians as one people, and the LDNR have adopted foundational documents that explicitly describe themselves as Russian national states. /5

All of this marks a sea change from the situation just a few years ago, when Russian nationalist intellectuals were getting prosecuted on hate charges for questioning federal subsidies to the Caucasus & Ukrainian dissidents were getting deported to face Maidanist "justice." /6

The capstone to this "Nationalist Turn", which I believe will come to define 2020s Putinism as the earlier "Conservative Turn" defined its 2010s, was the Constitutional amendment which implicitly defined ethnic Russians as the "state-forming people of the Russian Federation." /7

Not only was this an implicit rejection of sovok "multi-national" ideology - why should Russia, 81% Russian and 85% Slav, burden itself so? - but its allusion to Russia's 1,000 years of statehood implicitly asserted continuity with the Russian Empire. unz.com/akarlin/russia… /8

But the "Nationalist Turn" isn't just expressed in laws and papers, but is filtering its way down into the culture. Monuments go up to Tsarist statemen and White Guard heroes. Liberals whine about school texts describing Lenin as a German agent. proekt.media/narrative/obsc… /9

In the country, churches and other historical objects are being restored or rebuilt (1930s Soviet demolitions) at a blistering pace. In Tver, nationalist-in-all-but-name governors organize contests aesthetically redolent of "Fitter Families." acer120.livejournal.com/175345.html /10

In the capitals, nationalists are free to meet up in special bookshops and coffee houses to hear lectures on topics from the literacy campaigns of Imperial Russia to HBD and dysgenics, without fear of state-backed Antifa thugs. unz.com/akarlin/listva… /11

It is a country where the Victory Cult has become a de facto secular religion, embodied in the semi-paganistic, military-run Cathedral of the Armed Forces, with its WH40K "fortress-monastery" aesthetics, constant choral chants, war tombs, and militaristic mosaics. /12

Has it gone into overdrive? Perhaps. But after the US decided to make a religion out of #BLM with Saint Floyd as its messenger, I have committed to never counter-signaling the Victory Cult again. /13

Ironically, even as the Rusian state adopted Russian political nationalism, Russian nationalists self-annihilated, either falling within the Kremlin orbit as loyalists, or getting violent ejected into deep space, where Chaos and all manner of heresies lurk. /14

The WNs and Neo-Nazis have pledged allegiance to the Ukraine project. Skinheads have died out as a class, marked by Tesak's death last year. unz.com/akarlin/obitua… Others humiliated themselves by aligning themselves with Naalnyists and resurgent Communists. /15

Ironically, even as they stealth adopted nationalism, Kremlin propagandists have insistently smeared Navalny as one, especially to lefty Western audiences. Ironically, this is an assessment with which virtually no *actual* Russian nationalists agree.

https://twitter.com/akarlin88/status/1350838592512339968

/16

Is Nationalist Turn sustainable? Putin allegedly told nationalist intellectual @holmogorov that he's also one & the thinker he's quoted more than any other is Ivan Ilyin, a leading White national-conservative. brill.com/view/journals/… But you don't have to trust Putin's words. /17

Thing is, Russian youth tilting both more liberal *and* nationalist. As such, the Nationalist Turn can be viewed as *front-running the zoomers* - that is, the kremlins Orbanizing themselves, before an actual Orban emerges to challenges to challenge them. Smart! /18

Meanwhile, just as with the much ballyhooed Conservative Turn - which in reality was far more moderate than has been hysterically alleged in the West - the kremlins have, at least to date, been careful not make the Nationalist Turn hostage to rightoid ideologues. /19

Violent & unstable Neo-Nazis/WNs have been reformed, imprisoned, or exiled to 🇺🇦. Dugin has long been sidelined. Racialist misogynists on Telegram are free to harass Woke Capital, but not individuals. Anti-vaxxer conspiracy theorists are condemned by Russian Orthodox Church. /20

Nationalism shouldn't be confused with rightoid ideology (most of which is profoundly globalist), I am happy that the kremlins have accomplished this while transforming themselves into the Katechon that safeguards Russians from the millenarian mania that is Great Awokening. /21

Ever since February 1917, Russians have been forced (mostly by foreigners) to expend their demographic vitality and economic potential in service of globalist causes: Self-determination of nations, the international proletariat, the international community. /22

As Putin said, the Bolsheviks "Russian people as inexhaustible material for their social experiments."

The result is that Russia today has 150M people instead of the 500M it "should have" had. unz.com/akarlin/500-mi… And about one OOM less GDP. /23

While much work remains to be done, at least the ideological-spiritual foundations, secured under the shield of "Atomic Orthodoxy", have been laid for Russia to work on repairing the damage inflicted on it by Bolsheviks, German Nazis, and liberal globalists during 20C. /24

No, Russia cannot effectively "compete" in the superpower stakes this century on the back of 150M (max 200M if +UKR/BEL) upper middle income population, thanks to the accumulated damage from the past century. Needs to wait for Biosingularity and/or the next century for that. /25

Even so, I'm "whitepilled" as never before. Russia has sufficient internal economies of scale to maintain political sovereignty and run a largely self-contained technological civilization, complete with own IT ecosystem & space program… /26

… while maintaining an open stance on human genetic editing for an ostensibly “conservative” country, to the plaudits of biohackers (and despair of Western neo-Lysenkoists) alike. biohackinfo.com/news-russian-p… Important! - unz.com/akarlin/china-… /27

So far as I'm concerned, Putin has built the *perfect state*. Russia is a national state, the equal of any other in Eastern Europe, & more sustainable by dint of its geopolitical sovereignty; its double-headed eagle at once looking to the Tsarist past and its Cosmist future. /28