“For Russia’s sake,everything is permitted.” The Russian radical right and legitimation of violence,1900–1940

Abstract

The radical right in late-imperial Russia arose at the beginning of the 20th century as a reaction to social and economic transformation in society. The far-right professed the conservative state ideology “Orthodoxy, Autocracy, Nationality”; it was against parliamentarianism, liberalism, and socialism. “Although rooted in conservative thought, the far right was radical in its populism, antisemitism and quest for mass appeal. During the 1905 Revolution, various far-right parties emerged (e.g., the Union of the Russian People). These parties sought to defend the existing order and resorted to violence, which they legitimized as self-defense against revolutionaries. After the revolution of 1917, a significant part of the extreme right went into exile and continued the struggle against the Bolshevik regime. This time, violence was legitimized as righteous revenge against the usurpers of the Russian homeland. In the article, I deal with how the extreme right legitimized political violence. I point to the continuity in the use of violence, which was also related to the continuity of antisemitism. At the same time, however, I draw attention to shifts in the legitimization of violence.