Today, Russian society faces the most urgent problem—to find a way of development identical to its civilizational foundations. In this regard, the task also of the scientific community is to provide Russian society with a choice of such a path and a multitude of theoretical models of representation of civil society in the government.
The strategy previously proposed to Russia by so called modern liberal reformers as a no-alternative strategy for the development of society has long been questioned in scientific circles because, firstly,
this strategy is ineffective (including in the economic process), for Russia; secondly, it conflicts with the “civilizational matrix” of Russia, and this conflict is the basis of this strategy for the destruction of the very foundations of Russian civilization and culture. As N.S.Trubetskoy wrote, “Backwardness is the fatal law of nations that embark on the path of Europeanization” (Trubetskoy, 1995, p. 94).
It is necessary to mention that the so-called “objective patterns,” in accordance with which the Western concepts of historical development offer us certain ways of proceeding, often cease to be such in Russian civilizational conditions, where the role of personal (subjective) factors in politics is very high. At one time, the Eurasians suggested that the Russian issue is probably a spiritual-cultural issue, not a political one (in the sense of the primacy of the culture of personalities over politics, not the complete absence of politics).
And in this regard referring to political theories of Eurasianism it is very relevant: “Recently, the country has been observing a very symptomatic phenomenon: all the world is talking about Eurasia and the
Eurasian way” (Pashchenko, 2000, p. 443).
It is important to note that, when it comes to this theory, in most cases, the first thing that is emphasized is the perception of Russia by Eurasians as a field of contact between Europe and Asia, as a special entity, possessing both Western and Eastern culture (with a predominance of the latter), the
key to understanding which lies in the geographic, geophysical, and geographical factors, the particularities of location. All this is one of the most important and, as it seemed, indisputable points of the Eurasian concept.
However, in this article we would like to dwell on another side of the concept, no less thoroughly developed by the Eurasians, namely, on the problem of the correct, and therefore indispensable, state structure of Russia.
Many authors have cited and emphasized that one of the characteristic features of Eurasian culture is the lack of a defined political process program. Thus, for example, when analyzing the Eurasian theory, the famous historian Alexander Alexandrovich Kisevetter accuses its authors of a theoretical project, not supported by any practical plan: “The Eurasians have not yet laid down their political program anywhere. They only assert that the political system of Eurasia should be based on Asian rather than European principles.” Resuming his study of Eurasianism, he declares that “organized by contradictions, it presents itself as a very light, like a thought-fantasy, posture” (Kisevetter, 1925, pp. 64-65).
However, it appears that this criticism has no real basis. Therefore, after reviewing the Eurasians concept, we cannot agree that Eurasianism is only a theoretical concept,
It is a construct, and its adherents have not developed any political program. A distinctive feature of the Eurasianism is the fact that, having created a coherent system of the leading powers and authorities around itself, it does present us with a complete system of both the theoretical basis of the concept and the practical program of action based on it. Therefore, in this article it is important to consider the views of the theorists of Eurasianism on the problem of the state system in Russia, as well as the advantages and disadvantages of political parties and party systems in Russia and Western countries.
According to the Eurasianists, there are two variants of party organizations in Western democracies. First, they are “platform parties,” i.e., parties whose main binding factor is one or more issues of a practical nature, such as, for example, the agrarian issue. We can see a clear example of such party
organizations in the Anglo-American countries (e.g., the main parties of the United Kingdom). Their main task is to participate in the political struggle of the country, i.e., “politics as such” is important to them. Secondly, these are “purely ideological” parties, which are based on a defined socio-political doctrine; and for them, unlike the former, politics is important only as one of the means of implementing the tasks defined by the ideological basis (e.g., socialist parties). The current situation, according to Eurasianist ideologists, is characterized by the fact that every party is influenced by a defined ideological system, and, having as one of their foundations some ideal of society (and sometimes of the whole humanity), they try to change, to refashion the already existing social-political system. These parties profess a “public religion.” Its basic tenet is the belief that the main task set for every human being, which everyone must fulfill during his or her life, is the realization of society in accordance with a fixed ideal. This “religious” concept is a distinctive feature of Western countries.
Another notable feature of Western political parties, which is gradually appearing in the political reality of Russia, according to the Eurasianists, is the fact that it is quite rare that the intentions of a particular stratum of society or social group coincide with the specific activities of a party that claims to be the representative of this stratum, this group in the political arena, which is reflected both in the name of the party and described in its programmatic provisions. This leads, in the end, to the fact that the party becomes a revolving door for a unity designed to protect and defend the real interests of the divided layers of the society.
In this case, it is not only the political party, but also the social groups that become political players who uses one or another of the provisions of his program to achieve certain political goals. These party “ailments” are becoming more and more common in the political life of Western states: “It is
believed that the political party is the organizer of the interests of the people (or rather, its parts—the class) and realizes their relationship with the authorities, allowing them to influence them. In reality, the
relationship between the government and the people and the party is not realized… Its ideology and program are developed in it from above, not from below. They can only fulfill the desires of the people if the party itself is in organic connection with them. After all, the socialist party is not at all an invention of the class self-consciousness of the proletariat, but an intellectual fiction” (Karsavin, 1927, p. 153).
Every day, the number of parties and political programs grows, and it is not only difficult, but sometimes even impossible, for the average person to participate in them: “In a democratic state, the “nation” is reduced to a voting and de-organized population, whose rights are literally nullified by the fact that it actually only votes for the deputies proposed and little known to it” (Pashchenko, 2000, p. 41)]. In this
situation, the native leaders try to get the necessary votes of the deputies in the shortest possible time, by all possible means. Thus, the essence of this process remains unchanged in both the majoritarian, pronominal, and mixed electoral systems. Thus, the Eurasianists come to the conclusion that “in
political processes, people are very limited and from the political process control of the country is practically eliminated” (Karsavin, 1998, p. 43).
As a result of all of the above, Eurasianists conclude that in the democracies of the West the unfaithful relationship between the rulers and the people is declarative and sometimes accidental. Western democracies try to combine two opposing tendencies: the possibility of establishing formal equality,
which removes many of society’s problems, and the particular injustice of social inequality and the struggle against it. In the Eurasianist concept, the state represents a project of “out-of-class government,” where everyone recognizes his or her intimate relationship with the superior stratum and
feels that he or she is the creator of the political history of his or her country. Thus, the Eurasianists oppose the Western “power of deputies” with their project of a “consistently guided and supported democracies,” the realization of which will be possible with the presence of authorized
representatives of the citizens of the state.
In many of their writings, Eurasianists have dwelt extensively on the characterization of Western forms of democracy. In particular, the opinion on this issue is original and interesting. L.P. Karsavin, who argued that modern Western society can be called an oligarchic society, where the older generation tries to rule the country through its substitute, the real political actor—the political party. In this
case, the political party organizes its members and, under the guise of their unified will, enforces its own positions and wills.
Lack of communication between the people and the rulers is a major threat to the existence of the state. This danger is especially serious if the forms of statehood are not the creation of a national culture or the gradual assimilation of other people’s experience, but simple borrowing: there is a very high probability that the given “transplanted” form will not survive in a new place and will be rejected by the nation. Therefore, in the opinion of the Eurasianists, it would be better not to be fooled by Western projects, which can never be reconstituted for Russia and will only cause misunderstanding of the
people and lead to a complete confusion between the rulers and the ruled.
The disconnection of the country’s leaders from their own nation, the separation of their own and the nation’s interests, according to the Eurasianists, were the causes of the events that occurred in Russia in 1917, and continue to have a profound impact on the political situation around the world. As a way out of this situation, the Eurasianists cite the need to establish a new state system, which will be brought into line with the interests and needs of the citizens. Thus, the state for the Eurasianists is “demotic,” i.e., it is created in accordance with, and based on the will of, the people, and “…If the concept
of the sovereignty of the nation were not so shabby and had not lost all internal meaning and all external meaning, then we would be ready to say that we establish our state on the sovereignty of the nation… organized and organic” (Alekseev, 1993, p. 174-175). The nation in such a state is a cultural unity formed by the state itself. In this capacity, a nation cannot fully realize political actions and fully participate in the governance of the country, which leads to the necessity of delegating its powers. Governors in Western societies are either ahistorical or democritical; and while in the ahistorical system, membership of the ruling minority is determined by the nature of one’s origin, In the democracian stage, according to the Eurasianist view, the “cumulus” of the conscientious citizens of the state is the
superior one, which in fact is not always able to express the opinion of the whole nation. This is why democracies, like aristocracy, will initially face disintegration and decline, and then inevitable ruin:
“…Democracies are in a constant oscillation between the danger of strong, but despotic, power and the danger of not despotic weakness” (Karsavin, 1998, p. 44). This is because of the fact that in both the democratic and aristocratic state, society is fragmented and does not possess a common central idea, the dominant idea. The Eurasianists, on the other hand, assert that the state must necessarily have such an idea, which they are quite particularly committed to implementing in the political life of Russia-Eurasia and which all democracies in the West are seeking. It is “the guiding idea of the state as a whole, its basic purpose, its goal. In this sense, we can call the intended state an ideo- cracy or, in other
words, a state of stabilized public opinion” (Alekseev, 1993, pp. 176-177). A single ideological system is inextricably and uniquely linked to a strong unified state, and the existence of one or the other is not really possible. The presence of a unified state ideology becomes especially urgent for such a vast state as Russia, where a multitude of nations and unified social groups cannot form a unified whole without such a unifying nation. Such a peculiarity of Russia-Eurasia makes the condition of possible survival the presence of a strong state possessing a powerful unifying idea: “The state in such a large and multinational cultural whole as Eurasia-Russia can be either only strong or not strong at all” (Karsavin, 1998, p. 38). In this case, the Eurasianists especially emphasized that in Russia-Eurasia there is no primacy of one culture over the other, domination of one over the other, because it is a single whole in which all the elements are equal. The organization of such a complex and multicomponent structure should be understood as a “ruling selection.” This concept can be found first of all in the third issue of the Eurasian Chronicle, published in Prague in 1926. It establishes an organized and fused layer of citizens of the state, which organizes the political life of the country. Throughout Russia’s history, there has been a subordinate layer of leadership that took on appropriate forms in accordance with certain historical conditions (e.g., the prince’s retinue in ancient Russia, or the servant class in the times of Muscovite Russia, etc.), which proves the appearance of an organization in the present period of time.
The superior layer, or as it has sometimes been called by the authors of the concept of Eurasianism, the “leading layer,” the “superior layer,” is not an absolute description, but is available to all strata of society, and it is provided on the basis of a worldview, personal suitability, and work and services already done. Here, “the state business itself brings out the most active and capable” (Karsavin, 1993, p. 220).
It is important to note that while the leadership group resembles a political party, it is primarily distinguished from it in a natural way, the interests of each citizen individually and of the whole. Currently, in many states, primarily democracies, the governing class is not a single entity, but is divided into several sectors, the relations between which can hardly be called civil. This leads to the fact that one or another political process arises, and problems that confront the state can be solved by one sector the ruling stratum by suppressing or not suppressing the will of other sectors. This is inadmissible because it ignores the choice of an individual who has given his or her vote to a constituency whose
opinion is not taken into account in the decision-making process.
The primary layer is an entity that is organically embedded in the state, is distinct from its citizens, and, being in constant interaction with the people, is able to adequately understand their intentions and will, and to understand the interests of the people and to be guided by them in their activities. But it is also a good idea to give the governing body control functions. Its main function is to create order in society, based on “an inner conviction of truth,” on the value and inauthenticity of every part of
society, and not on the “compulsory leveling of its ideological wealth.” The leader of the society is the best thing that exists in this society, is the bearer of its ideals, “the ideological representative of the culture to which this society belongs” (Pashchenko, 2000, p. 421).
In the same way as the mass form the ruling layer, they themselves form the government, which therefore also has a corresponding organization. In this way, government can begin to fulfill its basic functions as a unified, organizational entity, rather than an artificially created or borrowed one. It is also important to note that in order to improve the efficiency of work, its composition should be stepped up. In this way, the organized government determines the full interaction of its members, based on the opinion of each of them. The “growth” of the government and the leading stratum leads to the fact that the relationship with it, and the nativity with the people, does not cease, and their pe manent separation occurs. This makes it possible, if not to eliminate, then at least to reduce the likelihood that government “acts” will be subjective and one-sided. And “by expressing its peace and realizing its will,
the government thereby expresses and realizes the national peace and will… The ruler becomes the bearer of the worldview and the national will; and outside of it, this worldview remains an evident system of hardly even definable tendencies; this will is unconscious” (Karsavin, 1993, p. 204-205).
But, also, in the government itself, in order to achieve complete certainty and concreteness in the performance of its non-public functions, as well as to understand its responsibility to its people, the individual-personal realm must dominate, whose position is a guarantee of the integrity and consistency of its activity. It follows that the correct form of organization of the state is “its sole leadership.” In such a situation, everyone with a managerial function is directly involved in a live state affair and has no desire, and most importantly, no opportunity, to delve into postulating fruitless philosophical projects, which are the basis for many political party programs.
Thus, it is possible to identify the necessary prerequisites for the normal existence and functioning of the state according to Eurasian theory:
1) The existence of a fundamental subject of statehood, which is the superior layer;
2) The organization of the whole society under the “leadership” of the superior layer, which determines the form of its existence and activity;
3) The “rise” of the government from the upper stratum;
4) The constant efforts of both the government and the ruling party to strengthen relations with the citizens of the state.
In the current situation, the state must abandon its policy of “mute passivity” and define and openly state the principle on which real national representation will be based. In this way, the true bearers of the organizational functions of the state will be identified and the nation will be able to identify the real leaders of its own free will: “We want, in other words, to replace the artificial and anarchistic representation of individuals and parties with an organizational representation of values, ideas and
thoughts. This is why we do not need a political party let alone do we need a Western-style democracy. We do not want a party to inject the leader with his imaginary interests—we strive to ensure that the leader himself understands these interests and identifies people who are truly capable of expressing the will of the nation as a certain organizational whole” (Karsavin, 1993, p. 210).
It is well understood that their state project, like any ideal model, may never be fully realized, since some degree of dissimilarity between the governed and the governed will still be present in reality; thus the Eurasianists argued that it is useful and necessary to strive constantly towards this ideal, which can certainly have a fruitful effect on the state as a whole and on the relationship between the rulers and the ruled.
To summarize all of the above, it can be concluded that the Eurasianists have put forward a new concept of state governance, where the main role is played by the organization of society by the ruling father, who is the totality of the most self-denying and vigorous embodiment of the idea of the ruler in life.
The idea itself, according to the Eurasianists, “should be such that, firstly, it is worth sacrificing one’s life for, and, secondly, that the sacrifice is valued by all citizens as a morally valuable deed” (Trubetskoy, 1999, p. 519). The Eurasians say that the state is secondary to culture, is a form of its development, and therefore should not constrain its own development in any way, but as the bearer of the will of the people, should direct it in accordance with the dominant idea, which “establishes the basic principles
and guidelines of culture and puts them in relation to the ongoing cultural moment, being, in this way, the indispensable base, on which the specific state work is based, and which itself should and can serve as a basis for individual postures.” (Karsavin, 1998, p. 38).
Thus, it is culture, as understood by the Eurasianists, that is the basis of politics, and it is the key to it. The cultural unity of the Russian nation is unequivocally and uniquely linked to a single strong state.
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Featured: The Road in the Rye (Дорога во ржи), by Grigoriy Myasoyedov; painted in 1881.
