Just four days before Germany’s September parliamentary elections, posters urging voters to support “Putin for Chancellor” reportedly started appearing near the Reichstag parliament building in Berlin. An image of one of these posters plastered on the side of a building was published online by the Stockholm-based conservative news site Free West Media. Upon closer examination of the photo, it was clear that it had been doctored, and unclear whether the posters had ever actually existed. Nevertheless, inspired by the incident, Zavtra, the most prominent extreme-right newspaper in Russia, published a fantastical work of short fiction about an underground German movement conspiring to elect Vladimir Putin as Germany’s leader.The editor-in-chief of Zavtra is Russian ultranationalist Alexander Prokhanov, who made his name as a Soviet publisher. After founding another far-right magazine in the 90s, he began collaborating with the younger Alexander Dugin, whom Prokhanov praises as “perhaps the only ideologue in Russia.” For decades, these torchbearers of the Russian extreme right have been prolific writers and publishers, and have dabbled in a mix of ultra-conservative organizations and think tanks. Their newest endeavor, a group called the Izborsky Club, is arguably the first organized and successful ultranationalist think tank in Russia, and has incorporated different far-right factions under a single umbrella.Founded in 2012 and headed by Prokhanov, the Club is a self-described “intellectual circle”—a group of 47 philosophers, criminologists, journalists, businessmen, and even Orthodox bishops dedicated to promoting revanchist notions of Russian superiority on the international stage. (The Club is named after Izborsk, the town where it was conceived.)The members’ stated objective is geopolitical—not only to forge a more “just” world order, but also to promote Russia’s key role in it. They advocate “Eurasianism,” an anti-West political movement championed by Dugin that seeks to expand Russian territory to encompass the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and parts of Asia. The resulting totalitarian, Russia-led Eurasian Empire would confront and eventually overthrow the West, as well as the democratic and liberal values it stands for. Like the Kremlin, the Club is haunted by the perceived threat of a Western sponsored “color revolution”—a term used to describe the wave of mostly non-violent civil uprisings that spread across the former Soviet Union in the early 2000s—emerging in Russia. To avoid this, the izborists believe that Russia must implement Stalin-era industrialization, convert the Eurasian Economic Union into an autarky, and merge the government with the Russian Orthodox Church.In addition to Prokhanov’s Zavtra, Dugin runs and contributes to various multilingual blogs—including Geopolitica.ru and The Fourth Political Theory—and hosts a YouTube channel. Collectively, the Club’s members have written hundreds of texts. Prokhanov alone has published more than 40 books and Dugin’s neofascist Foundations of Geopolitics, released in 1997, remains a textbook at many institutions of higher education in former Soviet countries, offering a Eurasianist take on how to elevate Russia’s status in the post-Soviet world. The izborists regularly make appearances as lecturers at conferences, pundits on talk shows, and participants in televised debates.While the Izborsky Club’s only direct line to the Kremlin is Sergei Glazyev—an adviser to President Putin who has decried the “genocidal” effects of International Monetary Fund and U.S.-driven economic reforms in post-Soviet Russia—other members have previously held government positions and enjoyed close relations with Putin. Bishop Tikhon of the Russian Orthodox Church, a Club member, is referred to as Putin’s personal confessor, and the Russian Minister of Culture, Vladimir Medinsky, was present at the Club’s inauguration.Dugin, the most famous izborist, was formerly an adviser to State Duma Speaker Gennady Seleznyov and to Sergei Naryshkin, a prominent member of the ruling United Russia party. He has also organized his own political parties, one of which was banned in 2007 on charges of extremism. But while Dugin’s access to Putin’s inner circle is often overblown in the Western press, his theories have gained traction over time. He served for five years as chairman of the Sociology of International Relations Department at Russia’s prestigious Moscow State University. Before being dismissed in 2014 after a petition with more than 10,000 signatures claimed he inappropriately politicized his lectures, Dugin managed to establish the Center for Conservative Research to disseminate his teachings. That Center went on to spawn other ultraconservative clubs and institutions, many of which now fall under the auspices of the Izborsky Club.Despite their reach, the izborists by no means enjoy popular support, and their domestic political influence is limited. They also have a bad habit of infuriating potential supporters. In 2015, Prokhanov inflamed religious officials in the southwestern region of Saratov by supplicating before an icon that depicted Stalin surrounded by Russian wartime generals and crowned by four saints and the Virgin Mary and Child. The office of the bishop labeled the action a “frank provocation” and a “gross distortion of religious and patriotic feelings,” calling for church bodies and authorities to be cautious about cooperating with the izborists and Prokhanov personally.That same year, the Club, along with other ultranationalist groups, openly criticized Putin for withdrawing support for the Novorossiya, or “New Russia” project—an imagined confederation of states in southeastern Ukraine, where armed conflict broke out in 2014. In response, the predominantly state-controlled media restricted the ability of the izborists to broadcast their ideas—which, after being conveniently aligned with authorities’ goals at the height of the conflict, were deemed too extreme. The crackdown illustrated how the Kremlin exploits and checks nationalist groups. As Donald Jensen, a former U.S. diplomat to Russia, explained, “the Kremlin tries to control them because they are a potential problem.”In June 2014, a delegation of more than two dozen members of the Izborsky Club gathered at the Livadia Palace in Crimea. The visitors, dressed in pastels and casual beige business attire, surveyed the summer retreat of the Russian tsars, trailing behind Prokhanov. Later, they would stoop to kiss Crimean soil and say a prayer on a Black Sea Fleet battleship. But before that pageantry took place, they wandered amid manicured shrubbery, imported palms, and the occasional World War II-era army tank—a reminder that Crimea was not only an imperial vacation spot, but also the location of the 1945 Yalta Conference, where Stalin, Churchill, and Roosevelt divvied up the postwar world, and, in the eyes of the izborists, severely hindered Russia’s global ambitions.Framed by the white granite palace, the izborists assembled for a picture, clasping their hands and raising their arms to the sky. They were there to claim victory. Sixty years after Khrushchev haphazardly gifted the Crimean peninsula to Ukraine, it had finally returned to its rightful owner: the Russian Federation.Pulled away from his colleagues, Nikolai Starikov, a writer and the co-chairman of the conservative, pro-Orthodox Great Fatherland Party, greeted reporters from Russian state news. He drew a continuum from the Yalta Conference to just four months earlier, when, in March 2014, a disputed referendum returned the Crimean peninsula to Russia. To the izborists, Starikov told journalists, the annexation was “the starting point of a certain development of events, not only in Russia, but in the world.”The annexation was central to Dugin’s master plan. For Russian Eurasianists, “liberating” southeastern Ukraine is the first step to getting Russia better access to the European continent. Four years before the story in Zavtra, Dugin spoke on Russian state television about conquering Europe and transforming it into a Russian protectorate. “Some countries are behind the U.S., but more and more will listen to Russia,” he said. “A new, large continental alliance is emerging as a confederation of Europe and Eurasia, [from] Lisbon to Vladivostok.”Another step is building international alliances. Pro-Kremlin political currents have existed in Germany since the post-WWI period, when some saw a Russo-German alliance as an antidote to the humiliating economic measures imposed on Germany. Today, Russian ideologues like Prokhanov and Dugin are strengthening ties with Western counterparts, such as German publisher Jürgen Elsässer. Elsässer was once an extreme leftist opposed to German reunification, but now he runs the ultraconservative Compact Magazine, which holds that there has long been a Eurasian alliance between Germany and Russia. An outspoken proponent of Russian aggression in Ukraine, Elsässer condemned the “NATO fascists” and the U.S.-backed “coup government” in Kyiv back in March 2014, and was also vocal in his support for the pro-Russian separatists in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine. Like the izborists, he makes frequent media appearances and is a prolific writer.In September, as populist waves rose and broke around the world, Germany’s far-right party, Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), entered parliament, becoming the first nationalist conservative party to do so in the country for over half a century. While the party never clearly defined its agenda, AfD captured a remarkable 13 percent of the vote, winning nearly 90 seats. Their success may have been buttressed by external support: In the run-up to the election, Kremlin-sponsored propagandistic broadcasts targeted the more than 4 million German citizens of Russian descent, playing to contentious issues—Chancellor Angela Merkel’s economically liberal agenda, her inclusive migration policy, and the subsequent rise of anti-immigrant sentiment.The connections between Elsässer and the Russian extreme right are evident on the glossy front pages of Compact, which the editor, an outspoken supporter of the AfD, publishes as the party’s “member magazine.” He interviewed Dugin in 2013, and Elsässer and his followers get special attention from Russian state media, where he serves as the voice of conservative Germans to Russian audiences. A 2014 issue of the magazine even published several of Putin’s “most important” speeches translated into German. “Putin is demonized by our media and politicians,” Elsässer told the Russian state-sponsored news organization RT (formerly Russia Today) at the Russian House of Science and Culture in Berlin during the issue launch. “We wanted to create pro-Putin arguments . . . so everyone is able to make up their own minds about it.”Ultimately, Izborsky Club members are minority voices that the Kremlin considers among many other nationalist perspectives. But in their dissemination of extremist views through media and public appearances, they move the center further right, creating a permission structure that enables the Kremlin to assimilate their ideas. Even if the Club does not overtly inform the state agenda, “when the Kremlin finds it convenient” to borrow elements of their ideology—their promotion of ethnic Russian supremacy, neo-Soviet imperialism, or the fusion of the Russian Orthodox Church with the state—“they turn on the tap,” said Mark Galeotti, a senior researcher at the Institute of International Relations, Prague, and an expert in Russian history and security. “When it becomes inconvenient, they turn it off.”Though the Kremlin refuses to openly support the Club’s beliefs, its apparent interest in assisting international populist movements, meddling with European and U.S. elections, and undermining liberal values adhere to Izborsky objectives and move them forward, even if the two camps may diverge in their ultimate goals. For instance, last year’s massive Russia-sponsored campaign to hack the U.S. presidential election and sabotage Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton aligned with both Izborsky and Kremlin aims.The Club also seems to function as a conservative threshold in Russian politics, barring the Kremlin from appealing too strongly to liberal ideas or to the West. “Putin doesn’t talk about Malorossiya [a derogatory term for Ukraine meaning “Little Russia”], but he doesn’t let Ukraine move toward the West” for fear that sacrificing Ukraine would create too much resistance from extremists, said Jensen, the former U.S. diplomat. And no matter how much the Kremlin publicly disavows the Club, it also needs them. “The state is actually quite happy with this [club],” added Galeotti, the historian who specializes in Russia. “Once you have this collection of barking far-right people . . . it makes you look centrist.”By manipulating connections that have existed for decades between the European and Russian far right, the Kremlin is attempting to improve Russia’s international reputation and simultaneously lower opinions of the U.S. and its allies. In Russia and the Western Far Right: Tango Noir, political scientist Anton Shekhovtsov describes the relationships between international far-right groups as decentralized and derived from a variety of “partly overlapping, partly convergent initiatives.” This is evident in organizations like Sergei Naryshkin’s International Parliamentary Forum, a Russia-based platform for fostering dialogue among pro-Kremlin Westerners, and Europe of Nations and Freedom, a far-right political cohort within the EU Parliament nurtured by Marine Le Pen, France’s former far-right presidential candidate, and Geert Wilders, a far-right politician from the Netherlands.But from a strategic perspective, the organization of a Russian-European far-right coalition would need to transcend distinct national identities and interests to build a coherent, transnational movement. While the far right has globalized in spite of its anti-globalist posturing, not all values are universally accepted. For example, Islamophobia, embraced by the AfD and fanned by the European migration crisis, is not framed the same way in Russia. Russian Eurasianists generally support Muslims who take an anti-American stance.While the izborists have exerted a quiet pull on Russian domestic politics, it’s difficult to see how their Russia-first ideology could initiate concrete changes beyond former Soviet borders. The nationalism built into far-right philosophies suggests that opportunities for global collaboration will only be sought insofar as they further national interests. Germans won’t elect Putin as their chancellor, as Zavtra fantasized—AfD’s manifesto declares that the party wants to uphold a “sovereign nation state for the German people.” Nonetheless, these problems remain in the distance. For now, the Club seems to be thriving. Last September, with the blessing of Governor Georgy Poltavchenko, the Izborsky Club announced it will open a new branch in St. Petersburg—its 28th regional office, including its headquarters near the Kremlin in Moscow. In Russia’s northern capital, its members will “fight for souls and minds, which . . . were implanted into the economy of consumption under the guise of democracy,” and continue their quest to delineate “the Russian world.”
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