The Cause of 'State-Civilization': Multiplying Modernities and Reshaping Politics in Contemporary Russia

• In Event: Time Warp: The Metamorphosis of Modernity Projects in the (Post-)Soviet Space

Abstract

While the conservative and repressive politics of the current Russian regime is often understood as a return to Soviet ideological tropes, this paper argues that there are significant divergences from the past that are essential for understanding today's political dynamics. The analysis juxtaposes the post-Soviet and Soviet ideological projects by discussing the different visions and objectives of state development. The paper argues that the differences in approaches to universalism, emancipatory horizon, programs of socio-economic transformation, visions of the future (also in relation to the past), and ideas of the state produced distinctive political forms, which shaped models of citizens' political participation, relations with the state, and possibilities for critique. While contemporary Russia has moved away from the endeavor of building communism/socialism, and instead toward "state civilization," the latter project reinscribes the Soviet period as part of the continuous Russian state, rendered as a self-sufficient (trans)historical subject. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork data, the paper explores how these visions emerge in citizens' perceptions and inform their political behavior and engagement with the Russian state. This includes compliance with the radicalization and aggressiveness of its politics that culminated in the full-scale war against Ukraine. Finally, the paper discusses how these dynamics can be understood in relation to the notion of “multiple modernities” (Eisenstadt 2000) and its political implications in Russia and other regional political contexts.

Author

• Volha Biziukova, Brown U