To my parents, Olga and Aleksandr
polity
Copyright © Ilya Yablokov 2018
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First published in 2018 by Polity Press
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Yablokov, Ilya, author.
Title: Fortress Russia : conspiracy theories in post-Soviet Russia / Ilya Yablokov.
Description: 1 | Cambridge, UK ; Medford, MA : Polity, 2018. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017055177 (print) | LCCN 2018009984 (ebook) | ISBN 9781509522699 (Epub) | ISBN 9781509522651 (hardback) | ISBN 9781509522668 (paperback)
Subjects: LCSH: Russia (Federation)--Politics and government--1991- | Conspiracy theories--Russia (Federation) | Political culture--Russia (Federation) | Authoritarianism--Russia (Federation) | Intellectuals--Political activity--Russia (Federation) | Russia (Federation)--Foreign relations--Western countries. | Western countries--Foreign relations--Russia (Federation) | BISAC: SOCIAL SCIENCE / Sociology / General.
Classification: LCC DK510.763 (ebook) | LCC DK510.763 .Y33 2018 (print) | DDC 001.90947--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017055177
ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-2269-9
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From the moment that the idea of this book was conceived to the day the final version of the manuscript was sent to my editors, eleven years have passed. Throughout this long and eventful period there were many people who helped me design the arguments, change my views, dig deeper and think more critically. Firstly, this project would never have been realized without the advice of Viktor Muchnik, my mentor and academic guru at Tomsk State University. His suggestion of looking more closely at conspiracy theories, made over a cup of coffee, turned out to be decisive and laid the groundwork for past and future achievements. Rashid Kaplanov, Viktoria Mochalova, Semion Goldin and all of the staff at ‘Sefer’, the Moscow centre for Jewish studies, were the first to support me financially and helped me begin collecting the resources for this project. Daniel Romanovsky and Viktor Shnirel’man gave advice for my first academic steps. Oleg Khazanov at Tomsk State University, Michael Miller at Central European University, Michael Tuval at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Rani Jaeger in Stockholm showed me how academic research could actually be fun. Gevorg Avetikyan, Istvan Pal Adam, Sanja Tepavcevic, David Karas, Anastas Vangeli, Vadim Nigmatov and Yulia Likhacheva-Kuzmane were always there (mainly in Budapest) to run by me many ideas that later appeared in the book.
The key person who made the production of this book possible is Vera Tolz, who had faith in this project from the very first day we met. Vera’s knowledge and academic achievements, as well as her critical and thorough analysis of texts, have provided me with academic inspiration and a scholarly role model. Her kindness and willingness to help in every possible situation greatly contributed to the successful completion of this book. She taught me how to be a teacher and mentor, which I shall always remember. I am indebted to Peter Knight for his extraordinary help in developing the conceptual framework required to approach such a peculiar topic. As a student in Tomsk, Peter’s book on American conspiracy culture was the first that I read on the subject and indeed it was sheer luck and, of course, an absolute privilege to have him as second supervisor of my project. As a young scholar, I am also indebted to Stephen Hutchings for providing invaluable academic opportunities. Stephen’s critical comments, a deep understanding of Russian culture and readiness to share knowledge helped me look at my project in a different way and has laid the foundations for future research. Lynne Attwood was extremely helpful during the work on my project in Manchester and, at a later stage, was a key figure in turning my often unbearably academic language into a (hopefully) fascinating read. Luke March’s opinion on the PhD dissertation and the further evolution of the text have been crucial in turning what was a postgraduate thesis into a proper book.
A friendly and creative atmosphere at the School of Arts, Languages and Cultures at Manchester also contributed to the outcome of the book. Elizaveta Alentaeva, Elena Simms, Paul Richardson, Svetlana Rapin, Kenzie Burchell, Alistair Dickins, Jan Gryta, Piotrek Andrzejewski, Marina Henrikson and Ana Barazal Barreira were at every moment very supportive of my work on the book, both in the office space and at our house in Victoria Park. Of all people in Manchester I am especially indebted to Alistair, who was very kind in sharpening my skills as an entry-level writer. Manchester was also the place where I met my co-author and close friend Elisabeth Schimpfossl. Since then we have shared the happiness and sadness of our first steps in the field while working in parallel on our first books and numerous fascinating projects about Russian media. I am very lucky to have a colleague and friend from whom I learn every day.
The final part of the book has been written in Leeds where my colleagues/friends, James Harris, Natasha Bogoslavskaya, James Wilson, Pavel Gudoshnikov and Robert Hornsby, have done everything within their powers to ease the teaching workload, inspire me with new ideas and challenge me at every turn.
The young generation of scholars in Russian studies has not only provided me with feedback and useful criticism of my ideas, but also has become a source of inspiration and support in all the possible circumstances that face the young academic in Britain. Arsenii Khitrov, Olga Zeveleva, Tom Rowley, Nathan Brand, Vsevolod Samokhvalov, Jon Roosenbeek – these words are dedicated to you.
I should like to thank my colleagues and friends around the world – Vasily Gatov, Alexey Kovalev, Alexander Etkind, Peter Pomerantsev, Viktor Vakhshtayn, Marlene Laruelle, Mark Bassin, Samuel Greene, Gulnaz Sharafutdinova, Peter Rutland, Steve Norris, Alexey Miller, Peter Duncan, Andrew McKenzie-McHarg, Sergei Samoilenko, Eliot Borenstein, Joe Uscinski, Mark Fenster, Tigran Amiryan, Samuel Volfson, Anastasiya Stepanyants, Irina Baulina and Andrey Goryanov. Their words of advice have been extremely well received during the work on the book and helped me navigate through the murky waters of Russian politics, which is full of conspiracies – real and imagined.
I am grateful to John Thompson and the team at Polity Press, who were very supportive during the book production process, from the first email to the final editing.
Finally, the two people without whom this book would never have been produced are my parents, Olga and Aleksandr. The unreserved encouragement, patience, love and time they have invested in making me a better man was a key factor in my personal development. No words will ever be able to express my gratitude to them. I am sure my father would have been very proud to hold a copy of this book in his hands.
The attempted coup in August 1991, and the collapse of the Soviet Union in December of that year, produced a sense of bewilderment in Russians, from top-ranking politicians down to ordinary Russians. One explanation crops up again and again: conspiracy. Understood as a malevolent plot underlying historical and current events, the conspiracy theory has become a popular tool for interpreting the social and political realities of post-Soviet Russia. Its essential element – that there is an omnipotent secret group of people plotting to increase their own power at the expense of ordinary people – is espoused by people in all walks of Russian life.
In the post-Soviet period, the West, which is very often seen by Russians as a single entity, has emerged as an essential protagonist in conspiracy discourse. However, in 2016 and 2017 the West began engaging in its own conspiracy theories. The spirit of the Cold War and the witch-hunt for Russian agents both made a comeback. Today, the Kremlin is portrayed as the global puppet master who has successfully managed to appoint a loyal man to deal with the White House. ‘Russiagate’ and the media hype which surrounds it – that is, the Kremlin’s alleged meddling in the US elections, and its attempts to influence elections in the UK and France – revived the old fear of Russian spies. Hysteria about the Russians became a central element of the US domestic political agenda, and an almost mythologized Russia became the source of many of the troubles plaguing the American people (Beauchamp, 2017). Russian hackers were found to be behind the worst cyberattacks (Calabresi, 2017); indeed, who but Russians could cause such havoc? Foreign intelligence officers shared with journalists, albeit anonymously, the claim that Trump’s aides had contacts with Kremlin envoys (Schmidt et al., 2017), and that experienced villain Vladimir Putin was sending killers to neutralize all witnesses who could testify about Russian plots against the West (Bearak, 2017; Blake et al., 2017). Russian politicians and journalists loyal to the state have tried to convince the public that Russia’s very existence is dependent on Putin. The wave of Western conspiracy theories about Russia’s intrusion into US and European politics, in turn, made Russian politicians proud of ‘hacking the States’ (Cohen, 2017). The fears of Americans thus nurtured the feelings Russians had of being superior to their geopolitical enemy, and encouraged them to believe that they had, indeed, conspired to hack America.
Conspiracy theories have always been a fundamental element of popular culture and political thinking in America, prompting some scholars to define the country as an ‘empire of conspiracy’ (Melley, 2000). In this respect, despite their socio-economic and political differences, the USA and Russia have much in common. Russian history over the last few centuries has been filled with fears of conspiracy: Jews, Freemasons and Catholics have been considered major enemies (Davis, 1971; Bagdasarian, 1999). Furthermore, as in the USA, the messianic idea of the ‘City upon the Hill’ (Goldberg, 2001) and Moscow as the Third Rome (Duncan, 2005) provided fertile soil for suspicion and fear of others who wanted to prevent it from fulfilling its global mission. Yet, there is one major difference between these two cases. In the USA, conspiracy theories normally emerge from grassroots movements and are kept at the margins of official political discourse. In post-Soviet Russia the political and intellectual elites are major producers and disseminators of conspiracy theories. The top-down spread of these theories in Russia is reminiscent of countries in the Middle East, where the state is a ‘conspiracist narrator’ (Gray, 2010). As Gray shows, these theories provide the legitimization of political regimes and social cohesion in the face of mounting social and political challenges and the declining popularity of political leaders. What is special about the Russian case is that these ideas were initially employed to increase the popularity of the country’s leaders at a time of economic growth.
Years before the annexation of Crimea, and Russian accusations that the USA was out to destroy the Russian economy by means of economic sanctions, Mikhail Iur’ev, a businessman and member of parliament, published an article entitled ‘Fortress Russia: The Concept for the President’ (Iur’ev, 2004). He praised Russia’s radical economic and cultural isolation from the rest of the world, particularly the West; indeed, he called for complete severance of all ties with the West. He also argued that openness to the world would result in the destruction of the nation. This publication became iconic: from 2004, anti-Western conspiracy theories calling for isolation from the West began to infiltrate Russia’s public domain, and by 2017 had become an integral part of public debates, television programmes and state legislation. A careful analysis of the ideas proposed by Iur’ev in the book-length study (Leont’ev et al., 2005), reveals that this isolationist ideology contains elements both of traditional anti-Westernism in Imperial Russia, and Soviet Cold War narratives that criticized the Russias’ major rival, the USA. The crux of these ideas is the notion that ordinary Russians must unite with the authorities to deal with conspiracies on the part of the West, and that this unity will eventually turn Russia into a great world power. The Kremlin is not ready to cut all ties with the West at present. On the contrary, many Russian businessmen who keep loyalty to the Kremlin, prefer to keep their savings and invest money in assets in Europe and the USA (Maxwell, 2015; Cowdock, 2017). However, when fear of losing power begins to increase, political elites unhesitatingly attempt to turn Russia into a bastion of anti-Westernism.
Just as in the United States, conspiracy theories have long been a feature of Russian political discourse. This book will demonstrate that by the mid 2010s, the Russian political authorities, with the help of the media and public intellectuals (writers, journalists, media personalities, political scientists, spin doctors and those pseudoacademics who produce and disseminate conspiracy theories), had found a way of transforming these theories into an essential element of official political discourse that strengthened their legitimacy and helped keep society under control. In recent years we have learnt from Vladimir Putin that the Internet is an invention of the CIA and therefore part of the anti-Russian conspiracy (MacAskill, 2014); from Putin’s economic adviser, Sergei Glaz’ev, that the Russian government has been infiltrated by foreign agents that undermine its economic stability in the face of sanctions (Adrianova, 2016); and from first deputy prime minister, Arkadii Dvorkovich, that the price of oil is in decline because foreign plotters are trying to destroy oil-rich Russia (Kuvakin, 2015).
In simple terms, this study investigates the reasons why Russian politicians are so keen on conspiracy theories and explores how these ideas help Russian leaders to exercise power through anti-Western conspiratorial rhetoric. As this rhetoric is aimed primarily at the domestic audience, the book will explore how conspiracy theories become the means of achieving popular mobilization, nation-building and community cohesion.1 What role do public intellectuals play in developing and disseminating anti-Western conspiracy theories? What are the key events in Soviet and post-Soviet history that have generated the notion of anti-Western conspiracy? How do the political and intellectual elites of post-Soviet Russia use concepts which emerged in the Imperial and Soviet periods to produce and disseminate conspiracy theories? How do conspiracy theories enable political elites to reinforce their power? What is the impact of conspiracy theories on electoral campaigns? What role did anti-Western conspiracy theories play in framing the Ukraine crisis of 2014–16, and how were they used to help shape the unfolding crisis? These are some of the questions that this book tries to answer.
Because of the growing impact of conspiracy theories on Russian society today, I will focus on the post-Soviet period. The emergence of democratic and market institutions in Russia after the collapse of the USSR transformed society and opened the way for democratization. However, the rise of authoritarian trends has gradually undermined existing democratic institutions in the country, and this has led to doubts about how successful the Russian state’s transition from state socialism to democracy has been. Russia does still demonstrate many elements of a democratic state, but these have acquired a specific form, leading to a ‘hybrid regime’. Conspiracy theories play a crucial role in Russia’s turn to authoritarianism and have served as a trigger for numerous public campaigns to justify repressive legislation. Yet these ideas are also often marginalized and perceived as eccentric and paranoid and therefore their study lacks academic depth and rigour. This book aims to demarginalize conspiracy theories and approach them as an integral part of the political process. To do so, it will examine the extent to which models for studying conspiracy theories developed in Western democracies can be applied to a non-Western transitional regime.
The topic of conspiracy theories is gradually gaining popularity in the field of Russian, East European and Eurasian studies. Academics have analysed the role of conspiracy theories in fiction and memoirs (Livers, 2010; Fedor, 2011; Amirian, 2013; Borenstein, 2017), popular films and documentaries (Razuvalova, 2015), and as a form of modern folklore (Panchenko, 2015; Astapova, 2015). Conspiracy theories as a form of national and social cohesion across post-Soviet states are also getting more attention (Golunov, 2012; Laruelle, 2012; Ortmann and Heathershaw, 2012; Yablokov, 2014; Radnitz, 2016).
Among the works that have studied specifically Russian conspiracy theories is Vardan Bagdasarian’s (1999) analysis of conspiratorial literature. The author documents a large set of theories which appeared in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and concentrates on the concept of conspiracy in the intellectual thought of Imperial and Soviet Russia, only briefly describing its evolution in post-Soviet Russia. According to Bagdasarian, conspiracy theories emerged in Russian society in the mid nineteenth century, because of the Russian defeat in the Crimean War of 1853–6, and of the liberal reforms carried out by Aleksandr II in the 1860s to 1870s. They were then disseminated by various conservative groups in Russian society such as the Slavophiles and radical nationalists, who resisted these reforms. Although he offered a thorough exploration of the conspiracy concepts Bagdasarian failed to develop a clear and systematic methodology of how to approach conspiracy theories in the specifically Russian context.
The lack of a clear methodological framework also characterizes Mikhail Khlebnikov’s work on the subject (Khlebnikov, 2012). Khlebnikov traced the emergence of conspiracy theories in Russia from two sources: the movement of Judaizers (eres’ zhidovstvuiushchikh) in the late medieval period, and secret societies, most notably Freemasonry, in the eighteenth century. Taking these two groups as the progenitors of conspiracy theories in Russia, the author documented the secret societies and various conspiracy theories which existed in Russia in the past. As with Bagdasarian, the lack of a clear methodology significantly reduced Khlebnikov’s ability to investigate the roots and development of the phenomenon, as well as its social and political impact on post-Soviet Russia. Russian anthropologist Viktor Shnirel’man (2017) also focuses on conspiracy theories in his study of eschatological fears and anti-Semitic attitudes among Russian nationalists. This work does contribute to our understanding of the phenomenon within the Russian context. However, given the growing presence of conspiracy theories in mainstream political discourse, more has to be done.
A clearer conceptual framework can be designed using the US scholarship on the subject. In the USA conspiracy theories have been an object of scholarly research for almost seventy years, starting with Karl Popper’s Open Society and its Enemies (1973, vol.2). Almost a decade later, Richard Hofstadter’s concept of ‘paranoid style’, a term he coined in the 1960s, became a significant lens through which to analyse the phenomenon. Hofstadter’s approach is sometimes referred to as ‘symbolic’ due to its emphasis on the symbolic dimension of politics and its stress on the non-rational part of political logic (Rogin, 1987, pp. 272–300). Hofstadter described how conspiracy theorists perceived the world by means of a merging of the clinical term ‘paranoid’ with historical analysis. He saw the conspiracist as a paranoid person who understood everything as part of an overarching plan to rule the world and perceived himself as involved in a struggle with an infallibly rational and evil enemy; who believed that the history of humankind itself was a grand conspiracy that could be packed into one theory (Hofstadter, 1996, pp. 29–37).
This judgemental conceptualization of conspiracy theories was the dominant approach to the subject for many years. Hofstadter, who developed his ideas in the era of McCarthyism, thought the main threat of conspiracy theories lay in right-wing populism. Daniel Pipes (1997), however, under the influence of the Cold War, extended the ‘paranoid style’ to left-wing politicians, focusing on conspiracy theories which were popular among Communists. Pipes carefully set out the structural elements of conspiracy mythmaking, depicting the adherent of conspiracy thinking as someone who interprets history as a process directed exclusively towards the realization of a grand plan. Lust for power and a firm belief that nothing happens by accident but is always the result of secretive agreements on the part of powerful people become the crucial pillars of the paranoid mentality, resulting in an oversimplification which is always a part of conspiracy theories (Robins and Post, 1997).
Neither Hofstadter nor his followers offered a robust framework for dealing with conspiracy theories. Pipes, instead, suggested that everyone concerned about the popularity of conspiracy theories should join a ‘perpetual struggle’ against conspiracy thinking whenever its elements were exposed (p. 49). As some scholars have noted, judgemental suggestions about how to define a conspiracy theory render authors advancing such arguments not entirely dissimilar to the objects of their studies (Dean, 2002, pp. 63–4). The ‘symbolic’ approach is certainly helpful in detecting conspiracy theories in public narratives. However, it fails to provide the necessary tools for a balanced analysis of the causes and prerequisites for conspiracy fears in the modern world.
Another approach sees conspiracy theories as tools of political manipulation and is often described as ‘realist’ or ‘rationalist’. Scholars who adopt this position argue that ‘it is neither accurate nor useful to portray right-wing populists as a “lunatic fringe” of marginal “extremists” since they represent ordinary people, our neighbours and co-workers, whose rhetoric and actions have mundane reasons’ (Berlet and Nemiroff Lyons, 2000, pp. 3–4). This approach sees conspiracy theories as the product of small marginal groups (mostly on the Far Right) who exploit populist anti-elitist rhetoric to scapegoat certain groups. Consequently, conspiracy theories become a tool of manipulation for right-wing groups and politicians for the purposes of mobilization and the delegitimization of their opponents. Unlike ‘symbolists’ such as Hofstadter, scholars of the ‘rationalist’ approach argue that popular conspiracy fears become part of comprehensible projects that are used by the political leaders to achieve political and economic goals. Although these fears sometimes seem bizarre and exaggerated, their rationalist core points to the clearly identified interests of certain groups.
The ‘realist’ concept is relatively instrumentalist and is based on the perception of conspiracy theories as a political tool. However, the emphasis on the psychological component of beliefs in conspiracy theories gives it common ground with the ‘symbolist’ approach. Yet the evocation of psychopathology and references to anxiety among advocates of conspiracy theories (which at times is indeed manifested) are still unable to explain the popularity of conspiracy theories in modern culture. Moreover, it would be incorrect to label as paranoids many people who believe in conspiracy theories, as they often express the ideas that reflect key social issues (Harambam and Aupers, 2016). While the ‘symbolist’ approach overlooks the ‘functional’ aspect of conspiracy thinking, the ‘realist’ approach is unable to clearly locate the conspiratorial mode of thinking in various domains of political and popular culture. A common shortcoming of the concepts we have discussed is their over-stigmatization, even though both Hofstadter and Berlet point out that sometimes conspiracy theorists could be ‘on to something’, and that their beliefs might have some factual basis in real politics – that is, that there are some real conspiracies.
The extraordinary development of conspiracy theories in the USA in the 1990s in all spheres of public life demonstrated that they were not merely tools enabling deranged people to comprehend the world. Accordingly, in the late 1990s a new approach was introduced which considered the possibility that conspiracy theories could, in fact, constitute a mode of rational thinking, a portal ‘through which social phenomena were discussed’ (Bratich, 2008, p. 6). Its adherents pointed out that existing interpretations failed to explain the popularity of conspiracy theories among people with different political views, and that while they had previously been associated with particular social or political groups, they had evolved into a more widespread way of interpreting reality. No longer seen as marginal, the idea of conspiracy was now considered to be a regular feature of cultural life, even a mainstream concept, which was used by writers, filmmakers and musicians (Birchall, 2006).
The dilemma of how to analyse conspiracy mythmaking still had no clear-cut solution. To what extent could a certain story be regarded as a conspiracy theory? To what extent did conspiracy theories contain some factual elements? The real conspiracies of the past largely determine the perception of conspiracy ideas in the present, leading to public trust in conspiratorial explanations (Olmsted, 2009).
The new approach to conspiracy discourse, freed from the old dismissive attitudes, could help us to navigate our way through the complexity of modern politics and understand that conspiracy ideas have some social, even positive functions. They might serve as a legitimate tool for the interpretation of power relationships in the modern world. They could challenge the existing social and political state of affairs to transform it in a positive (or, conversely, a negative) way. They could constitute an important ‘creative response’ to social change. As Fenster (2008, p. 10) argues, conspiracy theories could serve as ‘a means to rally support’ and at the same time delegitimize opponents ‘by branding their beliefs as paranoid’. This new approach, then, is based on the recognition that conspiracy theories can become an important tool for the redistribution of power and an efficient political strategy to expose inequities within the political, economic and social order.
This inevitably leads us to a discussion of the ways in which conspiracy theories are used to persuade the centres of power to redistribute their resources. Populist rhetoric is the principal method of vocalizing conspiracy theories on a political level. Accordingly, Fenster concludes that conspiracy theory is a populist theory of power (p. 89). It possesses an important communicative function by helping to unite ‘the people’ against the imagined ‘Other’ represented by the secretive ‘power bloc’. The ability of conspiracy discourse to express popular fears and hence foster unity among ‘the people’ explains its widespread use in the populist rhetoric of authoritarian and fascist regimes. However, since theories are not confined to authoritarian regimes, particularly in the present day, Fenster defines conspiracy mythmaking as an ‘ideological misrecognition of power relations’ which may occur in any political system (pp. 84–90).
Fenster’s argument rests on the broad interpretation of populism introduced by Francisco Panizza and Ernesto Laclau, who see it as ‘a mode of identification available to any actor operating in a discursive field in which the notion of the sovereignty of the people and its inevitable corollary, the conflict between the powerful and the powerless, are core elements of its political imaginary’ (Panizza, 2005, p. 4). A key feature of this interpretation is the division of society into two antagonistic camps: ‘the people’, united on the basis of popular demand, oppose the ‘Other’, the power bloc; this represents the typical juxtaposition of ‘Us’ versus ‘Them’. In Laclau’s words, these two camps constitute ‘the power’ and ‘the underdog’. ‘The underdog’s appeal is based on popular demands and its role is to challenge the social order and gain power, thereby fulfilling popular demands’ (Laclau, 2005b, pp. 37–8). Populism also performs the function of gathering different elements of the social into a new identity (Laclau, 2005a, pp. 93–101). This reading of populism accepts that it can exist in a democratic society; it can provide a necessary challenge to the existing democratic order when the latter fails to address certain cutting-edge issues.
Populism, according to this interpretation, has an obvious connection to conspiracy theory. The invention of ‘the people’ in its various forms (depending on a given ‘demand’) very often requires a clear and persuasive image of the ‘Other’, and this can be provided by the conspiracy narrative through generation of fear of foreign or internal deception or subversion. This ‘communicative’ function of conspiracy theory plays an important role in political discourses and helps to create political identities. Such discourses also address concerns about the inequities of the social system and occasionally pose a positive challenge to the existing social order (Fenster, 2008, pp. 89–90). As we shall see, this understanding of conspiracy theory will prove useful in analysing Russian conspiracy mythmaking and its place in domestic politics.
As Ortmann and Heathershaw (2012, p. 554) noted, conspiracy theories in the post-Soviet context should be studied as a social phenomenon and a specific discursive approach. Fenster’s understanding of conspiracy theories provides a useful set of instruments with which to analyse the Russian situation. Firstly, it enables us to abandon the traditional reading of conspiracy theories as easily dismissible paranoia, and study the role of conspiracy fears in the process of nation-building and the formation of collective identities. The emergence of nation-states established a path to democracy and set conditions for populism. The populist rhetoric, in turn, enabled politicians to search for an ‘Other’ to correspond to ‘the people’ (an essential development since it is only possible to identify ‘the people’ by identifying its ‘Other’ (Panizza, 2005, p. 6).
In the case of Russian national identity, the ultimate ‘Other’ has historically been the West, often imagined as ‘a single undifferentiated entity . . . regarded either as a positive model for Russia to emulate or as a negative example to be rejected’, and this has served to define the borders of national identity and its place in world history (Tolz, 2001, p. 70). Fears of anti-Western conspiracy arise as a part of the so-called ‘ressentiment’ that was born from the recognition of the discrepancy between Russia and its ideal or opponent, the ‘West’, and which demonstrate Russia’s equality or superiority to it (Greenfield, 1992, p. 234). In the mind of a typical Russian nationalist with anti-Western views, the West appears as an ultimate and insidious ‘Other’ seeking to undermine the progress of the Russian nation.
Secondly, when used to analyse domestic politics in post-Soviet Russian society, this approach enables us to explore the creation of political identities and the struggle for power within the country. The acknowledgement that conspiracy theory is an inherent feature of the popular political discourse of most societies, even democratic ones, allows us to see the post-Soviet Russian political process as a set of specific ‘demands’ that reflect the vital issues of a transitional society. Used by various Russian political actors to explain the enormous changes in Russia post-1991 and the complexities of its economic and social relations, domestic developments, international relations and cultural processes, the language of conspiracy offers a symbolic resolution to the issue of who is responsible for the problems which have emerged in Russian society, and serves to oversimplify the nature of events (Knight, 2000, p. 32). This approach enables us to see how various actors in Russian political life have employed the rhetoric of conspiracy to strengthen their position in competing for public support in the state.
Fenster uses the theory of populism to study the division of a nation into the ‘treacherous elite’ and the ‘trustworthy people’. His methodology is applied to specific aspects of domestic politics in a democratic state, in which the divisions in society are used to frame discussion of different issues in the domestic agenda. Acknowledging the methodological value of Fenster’s study, this book also uses his methodology to study how conspiracy theory, as an element of populist politics, is applied to the fostering of national cohesion in post-Soviet Russia. It demonstrates that the use of anti-Western conspiracy theories by political elites divides the world into the West on the one hand, presented as a single entity with a powerful elite, and Russian political leaders and intellectuals on the other, who are speaking on behalf of ‘the people’.
This book analyses political discourse both in political documents, and the public speeches of politicians. It also explores the writings of public intellectuals, showing how politicians selectively use conspiracy concepts, ideas and theories which have been elaborated by those intellectuals. The sources are analysed through a close reading of the texts, against the background of the historical and political situations at the time of their publication. Attention is paid to the interpretative frames used by authors and some promoters of conspiracy theories. I use a set of tools drawn from discourse analysis to analyse my material and see how a particular type of discourse, that of the anti-Western conspiracy, attempts to construct social reality (Phillips and Hardy, 2002). Following Erving Goffman’s (1974) definition of frames, i.e. that one specific interpretation of events prevails over others, I present conspiracy theories as a specific type of social frame which identifies the origins of events as the outcome of secret plots. The application of conspiracy frames allows various social actors and social movements to define and problematize social, political and economic issues to pursue their political goals (Benford and Snow, 2000).
In my analysis of texts, I also apply Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), which provides a wide set of tools for the study of both language and the social developments reflected through it. CDA understands discourse as a form of social practice ‘which both constitutes the social world and is constituted by other social practices’ (Jørgensen and Phillips, 2002, p. 61). CDA can reveal how language is employed to exercise power and the extent to which linguistic elements can determine social reality. This approach implies that discourse possesses an ideological effect which contributes to the creation and reproduction of unequal power relations between different social groups, and shows how language contributes to the maintenance of power (Jørgensen and Phillips, 2002, p. 63).
Given that this book is primarily concerned with the use of conspiracy theories by political and intellectual elites in Russia, three groups of people in these categories are identified and analysed in terms of their salience, their impact on domestic politics and the degree to which conspiracy theories are used.
The first group consists of public intellectuals, journalists and various media personalities. In many respects, these people shape the intellectual framework of public conspiracy discourse and develop its conceptual apparatus, making it relevant to the current political agenda. They support the political actions of the authorities, justify political decisions and explain political events through journal articles, interviews and public appearances. The second group consists of politicians who are members of political parties and political movements.2 It is, though, difficult to accurately determine who is a member of this group because the Russian political arena includes so many political movements and parties, and only a minority are represented in the legislative branch of government. Being a member of parliament would not be an accurate indicator of inclusion in this group because even the so-called ‘non-systemic opposition’ has sufficiently powerful resources to enable it to disseminate conspiracy theories. All the same, the impact which members of parliament and political movements have on domestic politics cannot be compared with the political power of the executive branch of the government, which constitutes the third group. This includes the President and the Prime Minister of the Russian Federation and members of their staff. This group also includes leaders of the United Russia party whose influence and decisions are pivotal in determining the domestic political agenda.
Chapter 1 outlines the history of conspiracy theories in Russia from the end of the eighteenth century, and shows how the tradition of searching for enemies developed among political and intellectual elites of Imperial and Soviet Russia.
Chapter 2 studies the role of public intellectuals in producing and disseminating conspiracy theories in post-Soviet Russia. It investigates the collaboration of Russian intellectuals with the authorities, and how prominent public intellectuals and media personalities introduce conspiracy theories into mainstream political discourse.
Chapter 3 analyses conspiratorial narratives relating to the collapse of the USSR in 1991, and their function in domestic politics. It demonstrates how the application of conspiracy discourse to two major events – the August 1991 coup and the subsequent collapse of the Soviet state in December 1991 – became a powerful political instrument.
Chapter 4 examines the impact of conspiracy theories on the nation-building policies of the Kremlin in the 2000s. It studies the Kremlin’s attempts in the 2000s to create a Russian national identity based on the concept of sovereign democracy, a term coined by the Kremlin’s ‘grey cardinal’ Vladislav Surkov when he was Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration.
Chapter 5 focuses more specifically on the utilization of anti-Western conspiracy theories in domestic politics. Its primary focus is the Yukos affair and the three campaigns against non-governmental organizations (NGOs) which were based on the notion of a subversive ‘fifth column’ within the state. The chapter also examines the dynamics of the anti-Western conspiracy narratives and the evolution of political strategies which have been used against the Kremlin’s political opponents.
Chapter 6 investigates the domestic application of anti-Western conspiracy theories and the role of conspiratorial narratives in the electoral campaigns of 2007–8 and 2011–12. Following Fenster’s definition of conspiracy theories as a tool for redistribution of power between political actors, this chapter looks at the place of conspiracy theories in electoral campaigns.
Chapter 7 looks at the use of anti-Western conspiracy theories during the Ukraine crisis of 2014–16. It demonstrates how the corpus of conspiracy theories, which were developed throughout the post-Soviet era, has been taken up by television, and used for unprecedented public mobilization against the West.