meaning in the West, and in Russia, antifascism came to mean something different.
This difference was a question of onomastics, established first through the act of giving a name. In the Soviet Union, World War II was called the Great Fatherland War, and was considered, in Soviet historiography, as part of the eternal fight to defend the fatherland. The term “Fatherland War” is a name that was already used during Napoleon’s invasion of Russia. In the late thirties, and even more so during the war, Stalin and his propagandists began to speak of Soviet history within the wider historical context of the Russian Empire. This propaganda constructed the narrative of an unending struggle against the invaders from the West: from Alexander Nevsky in the thirteenth century to the Napoleonic invasion in 1812. This glorification of feudal and aristocratic heroes would have been impossible to imagine even a few years before, but, for the purposes of mobilization, of course it wouldn’t hurt to sacrifice a few principles. Because who, if not we, the Great Russian People, could smash fascism and liberate Europe? As the war dragged on, it became not only a fight against fascism, but a war against that insistent invader, who arrived again and again to conquer our sacred Russian land.
According to this logic, the enormous human losses during the war were not due to the failures of the Soviet state, but were a martyrdom of necessity. They were a sacrifice that fits comfortably within the old story of the God-chosen Russian Nation, humbly taking on the burden of others and saving Europe from eschatological disasters, again and again.
In the context of the repression of the thirties, ethnic deportations were massive. As this trend continued during the war, the deportations were justified through accusations of Nazi collaboration. Russian ideologists love to mention collaborator units formed by Nazis during the war, composed of different Soviet ethnic groups. By creating the figure of Traitor-Nations, they are able to omit the fact that most collaborators were actually ethnic Russians, in order to legitimate colonial politics and ethnic repression.
Through this revisionism, the state has successfully created an equivalency between the Soviet subject and the antifascist. By essence, a Russian is antifascist, and thus being against Russians means being fascist. Anybody standing against Moscow for any reason now became fascist by default. In this framework, victory could only be achieved through national unity, and being Russian meant being loyal. Now any protest against central power could be easily reframed in these simplistic terms.
RUSSIAN ANTIFA AND STATE ANTIFASCISM
While it has lost some momentum, in the 2000s, the Antifa movement was a significant mobilizing force for Russian youth. While it was a very heterogeneous movement, what its members held in common was the beautiful but not always well-calibrated desire to smash Nazis. The more this movement focused on the practical aspects of attacking the Right, the less it could propose any kind of significant theoretical framework to analyze fascism. What is worse is that its members often just ended up naming “fascist” anything they didn’t like. This was the case for the gangs of youth coming from the Caucasus. These gangs not only challenged their hegemony in the streets, but also showed “a lack of will to integrate” and accept the power of Russian culture in the “historically” Russian cities. “Black racism” or “Caucasian fascism” became widespread terms within the Antifa milieu. A significant part of the milieu even had no problem calling themselves “patriots” and Nazis “spoiled Russians” who forgot their roots. As one of the most popular songs of the milieu proudly proclaimed: “I am the real Russian / You are just a Nazi whore.”4
Consequently, these milieus could not produce any alternative vision of history that could pose a challenge to that of the state. They just repeated mindless mantras about the strange character of fascists and Nazis in the “country that defeated fascism,” and bragged about having a grandfather who went to war.
Elaborating other narratives and representations, they believed, could undermine their reach and separate them from the “common people.” They tried as much as possible to look and act ordinary. They wanted to distance themselves from any form of marginality. Some even assumed an avant-garde role among the “healthy” part of Russian society. Given the commonplace of this populist strategy, it isn’t surprising that some of them began to sympathize with imperialist ideas, or even went to fight for the “Russian World” in Donbass.
THE RUSSIAN SPRING VS. MAIDAN
The 2014 Winter Uprising in Ukraine was deep and long. When former president Viktor Yanukovych ran away, the vast majority of those who took part in the movement were ready to stay in the streets to expand the Revolution of Dignity (the official Ukrainian name of the events).
Vladimir Putin’s regime was in a delicate position. It had been dealing with a weak economy since 2012, and was still weakened by the protest cycle of 2011–2012. A protest movement so close to Russia’s borders, and a successful one at that, wasn’t a welcome event, but the regime had managed to create an internal unity and delegitimize every uprising and resistance. The Maidan events were not yet over when Russia annexed Crimea, creating a de facto war where there was a “popular” uprising and sending a message to neighbors that uprisings could weaken their country and make it easy prey for annexation.
The annexation of Crimea was met with a spectacular wave of nationalist euphoria. Since the independence of Ukraine in 1991, Crimea had been first on the list of territories to reclaim for Russian nationalists. After 2014, Krymnash, meaning “Crimea is ours,” became both a meme and foundation for a new imperial consensus.
Two other important terms also appeared at that moment, although they are now all but forgotten: “Russian Spring” and “Russian World.” Russian Spring was a direct reference to the Arab Spring, which Russian ideologists had declared, with the utmost seriousness, was nothing more than a special CIA operation against legitimate leadership in the Arab world. But the Russian Spring should have been the authentic uprising of the Russian People, willing to reunite under their leader and state as a part of the Russian World. As this potentially refers to any place and land historically related to Russia or with a significant Russian-speaking population, the scope of the so-called Russian World has always been unclear.
As with every populist idea, the Russian World was presented as something natural and self-evident—it was completely natural for Russian speakers to want to be annexed by the Fatherland. Through this discursive operation, it was not a question of the Russian Empire (re)conquering territories, but of the Russian people liberating themselves from the alienating rule of the West and coming back to the homeland. Apparently it was just like World War II, when the Red Army did not conquer new territories in Europe and Asia, but liberated these people from the yoke of fascism.
Through this lens, the annexation of Crimea simply became a “reunion,” a manifestation of the unanimous will of the Crimean people to return to their homeland. Those who were not part of that consensus—like the native Crimean Tatars, for instance, who were well organized and protested the annexation—were simply ignored or seen as traitors. After the annexation, all the leftists, activists, and anarchists had to escape. Those who remained ended up in jail, or either just disappeared after a raid. Every public political activity became impossible. It’s Russia, after all, and Russia means war.
THE PEOPLE’S ANTIFASCIST UPRISING
Different tactics were used to give the occupation of Crimea and Donbass the appearance of popular movements. In Crimea, where Russia has large military bases, it was easy to fill the peninsula with soldiers in a few days. These forces rapidly took over the most important infrastructural points, such as the parliament and the airport, after which they adopted an “observer” role to appear as a “peacekeeping” force to ensure that the “people’s uprising” went smoothly, and that Russian-speaking
