The Concept of the State in Russia

               The Hegelian conception of the state is lately the nourishing substance of the Russian ideologist Wladyslaw Surkow, born in 1965. In 1999 he left his activities in a private company to join the Kremlin’s Governing Council, at a time when Wladimir Putin’s importance was beginning to rise. He needed to bring together officials and citizens on the basis of a political ideology other than that of communism. In this sense, Surkow is its maximum guru, who opposes political repression, looking for a way for Putin’s regime to achieve an attractive and modern face. To this end, he goes to the cult of his person with strong patriotic and Christian ingredients. He seeks to combine these three ingredients: the greatness of an imperial monarchy under the dominant hegemony of a post-totalitarian socialist state of a democratic character.

               In these elements, which are expected to act synergistically with each other, what Surkow seeks is the consolidation of a federated Russian nation, cohesive around the millennial Russian culture. On this point, as on many others, Surkov is inspired by William McNeil’s’ masterpiece, ‘The Rise of the Western World’, first published in 1963. In this book, Surkow is fascinated by the fact that the rise of the West has been possible thanks to his ability to take advantage of many useful elements from other cultures, integrating them under the common denominator of the Judeo-Christian principles in a vast territory where sciences, information and ideas have always had free circulation.

               Russia has always been for Russians the Holy Russia, which refers to the union of Church and State in the theocratic style, as a result of a petrification of the relations of both institutions in the manner of the tenth century. Another source of pride in Russia is its history, so full of battles that have extended the Empire to the Pacific Ocean, its military strength and its immense natural resources. These are the ingredients of a self-consciousness that looks at the State as a transpersonal reality, as something that transcends and surpasses each person and where the whole is far superior to its parts, as something that has the right to demand the maximum sacrifices, because it is considered a direct expression of God Himself.  To such an extent is the State above all else that it even imposes the greatness of Russia on the teaching of history, even if this requires adapting the truth of the facts to this end. It is very striking how much all this has in common with Hitler’s Third Reich, with Mao Tse Tung’s concept of the state in China or with the historical truth that has been tampered with in all totalitarian regimes. All these are manifestations of a Hegelian state conception, which gives the state a quasi-divine status, as the ultimate instance of truth.

The State according to Hegel

               For Hegel, citizens are in and from the State, which grants them certain rights and, above all, duties, the fulfilment of which is the honor of the citizen. The Hegelian State does not have to serve them, but quite the opposite: citizens have to serve the State even with their lives. In other words, the State transcends its subjects and its laws cannot be objected to such an extent that it has a legitimate right to murder or torture, to lie and deceive, as long as the famous ‘reason of State’ advises it to do so. It is the practical objectification of rationalist materialism, where moral principles that precede and are above the State, such as human rights, are not recognized, which necessarily leads to the most brutal legal positivism.

               Every state in this world tends to behave in the Hegelian way, even millennia before Hegel’s birth. Let us think, for example, of empires such as Egypt, China and Rome: the king or Caesar attributed to themselves divine characters, going so far as to demand worship and total submission. In Rome, this was the reason for the persecution of Christians for almost three centuries. But even today, the State assumes the right to allow abortion or to ignore the truth of things when it authorizes homosexual marriages or the choice of sex, or when it imposes an ideology on everyone. Another symptom of Hegelianism is legal positivism, when it does not recognize principles and moral norms that are above the law as its source of inspiration, or when it wants to do everything itself, not respecting the principle of subsidiarity according to which a wide margin should be left to citizen initiative in all that does not necessarily have to be managed by the state, as is the case with education, social work, medical care, the system of retirement funds, etc.

               Thus, for example, in the celebrations of the centenary of the Russian Revolution of 1917, the extermination and cleansing of tens of millions of citizens has been set aside as much as possible, in order to exalt the triumphal deeds and the victory over Germany. And here Napoleon serves as a model, who in France is considered a hero, despite his actions having cost the lives of millions of Europeans. And it is in this line of imitation that Putin situates the invasion of the Crimea and the attack on Ukraine. From this perspective, it is understandable that vast sectors of Russian citizens are even rehabilitating the figure of Stalin as a great hero.

State messianism

               Not a few members of the Russian ecclesiastical hierarchy, like the majority of Russians, attribute to the Russian empire a function of defense against the antichrist, relying on the second letter to the Thessalonians, where it is said that there is something that stops the manifestation of the antichrist. This same point inspired the ideologist Carl Schmitt in the formulation of the ideology of the Nazi state, which was also considered to be the instrument of divine providence to save the world: in the Nazi ‘Gott mit uns’ (God is at our side) the attacking cries of the Teutonic Valkyries resound, so masterfully musicalized by Wagner and so aptly staged in ‘Star Wars’.

               In the ultra-nationalist Russian philosopher Alexander Dugin also takes up this same theme, writing that the Russian people were chosen by God for the salvation of the world, in an eschatological providential sense. Wladimir Solowjow, in his book “A Brief Report on the Antichrist”, is also situated in this line of thought. He is one of the greatest exponents of the Russian political-religious philosophy, which through the school has left a deep mark on the thought of the Russian people.

               What would have happened if the Church in Russia had not separated from the West in the tenth century? Probably Russian thought would have continued to merge with the development of Western thought, also in the religious sphere, and the Catholic Church, through its Magisterium, would have condemned Marxism before 1917.  It is more interesting to ask what role Russia will assume in the coming years in the world political concert in relation to China and the USA.            

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version). Sourse: swiss Neue Z.Z.