Ask Lemmygrad

I hate that the Orthodox Church has regained much influence in the government (it is like a recurrent cancer that can't be eradicated), and is indoctrinating a new generation in backwards, ignorant anti-science, conservative nonsense. I despair for those young Russians growing up now who have not experienced Communist education, and have little hope of a new Revolution. There also seems to be a few conservative religious American families moving to Russia for the supposed "traditional values" - such as in this Substack by Friar Joe (and I can't read through all his nonsense without exploding in rage) - and he exemplifies this awful ignorance.

Stalin called it in 1926

What would happen if capital succeeded in smashing the Republic of Soviets? There would set in an era of the blackest reaction in all the capitalist and colonial countries, the working class and the oppressed peoples would be seized by the throat, the positions of international communism would be lost.

I've heard rumor of US-based conservative think tanks - particularly classics like Focus on the Family - doing a lot of monkeying around in the years up to and after dissolution. Wouldn't be the whole of the problem or even a major part of it necessarily, but them playing a role here absolutely wouldn't surprise me either. They managed to significantly entrench many of the US' worst qualities within a handful of decades.

I've been wanting to find some hard details on their involvement, actually.

The generations that comprised the original Bolsheviks were some of the most "progressive" leaders in the history of Russia and made their stamp on the culture of the country being 'far left' (I don't really care for both terms). Once the country was in the hands of later generations from the 60s onwards up until the collapse, right-wing sentiments became the main opposition that as the economic situation got worse that culminated in what we saw in the 90s. Now the right is the ruling class of Russia, with the left in the opposition.

I'm going to disagree here. While there are right wing elements in Russia and there is a lot of nationalist sentiment, it's also a fact that communism is still very popular. Polls consistently show that most people see USSR in a positive light, and many people consider the Soviet system to be generally correct. KPRF has a lot of support which appears to be growing. It might not be perfect, but it's certainly not a far right party.

For example, here's a recent poll from Russia:

75% of Russians have expressed increasingly positive opinions about the Soviet Union over the years. Only a small portion of those surveyed said they had negative associations with the Soviet Union. The economic deficit, long lines and coupons were named by 4% of respondents each, while the Iron Curtain, economic stagnation and political repressions were named by 1% each, the Levada Center said.

And here's another poll showing that most people think the Soviet economic system was more correct

Russia is also increasingly falling into China's orbit and it doesn't escape people in Russia that going back to a socialist system would result in similar benefits that people in China are currently enjoying.

i thought the piss party was as anti russia as you can get

One thing is certainly not true, namely the allegation that PiS is "backed by the Kremlin". Up until the last election Poland was governed by the PiS party and from the very beginning of the conflict in Ukraine they were one of the biggest supporters of Ukraine in Europe. Without Poland acting as a weapons delivery hub to Ukraine NATO could never have sustained their Nazi proxy army. PiS pursued an extremely anti-Russia policy, which is not surprising as some of its highest ranking members are personally deeply russophobic.

So you cannot make this blanket statement that Russia backs the European far right, in fact some of the far right parties in eastern Europe are very anti-Russia. Now maybe the situation is reversed in western Europe but so far we have only seen one of them come to power, namely in Italy, and it turned out they were just as pro-NATO and anti-Russia as the liberals.

The situation with Russia is a lot more complicated than the liberal western media makes it seem. There is only one word which fully encapsulates the mess that is today's Russia and that is: contractions. There are a lot of contradictions in Russia's culture, its economic system, its government, etc. it has very pronounced reactionary elements, which you have mentioned and which other comrades have explained quite well, but it also has remnants of the old Soviet culture and system.

Because just as Marx said socialist societies would be imprinted for a while with characteristics of the old bourgeois society, so a bourgeois society that is built on the destruction of socialism will retain some imprints. The peculiar thing in Russia's case as opposed to other eastern European former socialist states which have liberalized more thoroughly, in Russia restoration of the bourgeois system was never fully completed, and in my opinion cannot be completed under present circumstances even though the liberals (including Putin) who have ruled Russia since the 1990s have tried very hard to do so.

Russia is stuck for now in a sort of limbo of an unfinished counter-revolution, partly because of the internal dynamics of Russian society itself and partly due to the renewed hostility of the West toward Russia since around 2008 which has frozen the liberalization process.

Zhirinovsky was the leader of the most right wing faction in the Russian duma and the 2nd political party in the Soviet Union (Liberal Democratic Party of the Soviet Union) before he died in 2022 and I would only describe him as centre-right, he supported the August coup by Soviet hardliners against Gorbachev. The real right-wing, Russian monarchists, were against this.

Putin has transformed the country from what it was in 1999, taking back a lot of power.

The communist party is the largest one in the world that's not in power. Representing 10-20% of the population, they've only become stronger as the country recognizes China's success.

Lots of far-right parties/groups are banned, not just nazi ones, imperial ones too.

On LGBT he said that they should be able to represent themselves. This is the opposite of what a far-right person would have said. He said this when asked by a Serb weather being LGBT is mandatory for winning western competitions.

But I’ll tell you something unexpected. They too – these topics and these people – have the right to win, show and tell, because this is also part of society. This is also what people live by. It’s bad if they just win all sorts of competitions, that’s of no use.

I believe if China can deal with Israel, then Russia should be allowed to find whatever allies they want. PIS isn't committing genocide.

To add to the other really good comments, to me the drift to far right is the result of shock therapy policies of the 90s.

The USSR became further economically liberal as time went on, and the Gorbachev reforms accelerated it - introducing the market economy collapsed the state and caused the breakup of the USSR.

Socialism seemed discredited, even though it was the abandonment of it, in favor of what the bureaucracy thought would be more efficient - better for the nation. The same kind of nationalism became the hegemonic narrative in the country since.

Yeltsin was known for a mixture of lassiez Faire market economics which caused a collapse of living standards, skyrocketing crime and of course the entrenchment of a new bourgeois class. Mixed with general incompetence on both a personal and political level, he was despised.

Nationalists went by the assumption that the solution to the woes of the country was the lack of a strong leader to make everything alright. Putin filled the role perfectly.

His politics and supporters from both proletariat and bourgeoisie are nationalistic, and sees Russia and it's businesses as in direct competition with the west (indeed, not unfounded due to their interference in the USSR and 90s Russia and the way capitalism works) - spreading far-right ideology to countries aligned with the west is how Russia aims to gain support and a sphere of influence in a competition of blocs. Unlike the USSR's support of communist parties - there was fertile ground for growth of fascist groupings in the west, also caused by political developments in the USA.

I'm not aware how true this is for Russia, but Orthodox Christianity has been entrenched in Russia for centuries. 70 years of communism was not enough to dislodge it. This plays a major role in the way the political winds are blowing to the right, not just in Russia, but all across Eastern Europe. Orthodox Christian churches are very prone to fascist rhetoric and extremely conservative. From the medieval ages, Orthodox churches have managed to weave themselves together with national/cultural identity in their areas, to such a degree, that they are considered one and the same nowadays. In most Eastern European countries, you will find Orthodox high-ranking priests behind far right parties, conservative movements and racist/anti-immigrant actions.

There's a lot of diffusion of ideology happenning across all Orthodox churches, so I assume this due to what's going on where I leave.

Orthodoxy is also very prone to conspiracy theories, especially those coming from the right in the West. Such as Harry Potter is a real witch handbook, Pokemon are evil, hollow earth and lizardpeople conspiracies, etc. Anything that reinforces the belief that the devil is alive and actively seeking to control the world.