It is refreshing when an author articulates his book's main argument as clearly and succinctly as George Gilbert does on the first page of this fine study: “This work seeks to challenge current interpretations of Russia's right-wing movement by demonstrating why they are best understood as radicals, seeking to bring about their particular vision of a modern nationalist polity, rather than conservatives opposed to any weakening of the tsarist autocracy” (xi).
Gilbert focuses on the following organizations: the Russian Assembly, the Russian Monarchist Party, the Union of Russian Men, the Union of the Russian People, and the Union of the Archangel Mikhail. The great advantage of this new study is the research Gilbert includes from the collections for each of these organizations at the Russian State Archive, the Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts, the Russian State Library, the State Public Historical Library, and the Slavonic Library at the National Library of Finland, in addition to archives in the US and UK. A map of the Pale of Settlement and a “List of major individuals and groups” at the beginning of the book make this volume both rich and reader friendly as a resource.
By recasting the groups under consideration as advocates of dynamic new forces, Gilbert argues that the emergence of a “new right” under Tsar Nicholas II challenged the status quo while arguing simultaneously that it aimed to defend tradition. “The overall argument of the book, therefore,” writes Gilbert, “is to establish that the right-wing movement in late imperial Russia was a force evolving separately from the autocracy, and frequently in conflict with it” (xv).
In the absence of a monolithic ideology or structure as well as formal links, the Russian rightist movement lacked coherence and focused on social radicalism, rather than party formation or parliamentary activity. Gilbert regularly brings up membership figures, which are helpful, although the author himself admits that they are difficult to verify. The apex of the right-wing movement seems to have been 1907 when the combined membership reached around 400,000 (9).
It is a great advantage of this study that Gilbert explores Russian nationalism in its European context: “Like in other European states, there was a strong connection in the Russian Empire between nationalism and culture” (28). For example, the pessimistic attitude of many nationalist leaders in Russia echoed the concerns of members of Action Française, such as Charles Maurras, “that the fin-de-siècle period was a time of degeneracy and decay, which had been caused by a wide variety of subversives in society (in his view, mainly Jews and freemasons), who threatened traditional, and, moreover, national precepts” (36). Although Gilbert does not make the explicit connection, this concern is very similar to those of today's conservative movements whose popularity is rapidly rising in Europe and the US, which makes this book valuable reading beyond Russian studies and academia in general.
The popularity of right-wing organizations in Russia exploded after 1905. But their membership, although extensive, was illiterate in its majority and less active than the liberal movement that embraced political paths of action. Gilbert is pointing to something that has important implications for contemporary Russia where many liberals have embraced a non-constructive path of opposition, while rightist parties, by joining the systemic opposition, have projected more influence on the government than their non-systemic liberal critics.
Right-wing parties had “cross-estate appeal” (54). In its policies, the right opposed the autocracy's plans to break up the peasant commune and “wager on the strong” (62). Its anti-capitalist sentiments became increasingly prominent as it appealed “to the working class” and its rights, but all this was directed against capitalism as a western phenomenon (63). The Russian right pursued “economic hierarchy rather than the ideal of common ownership” and “called for the bridging of the divide between the elites and the masses” under the banner of popular monarchism (64). Rightist groups vacillated between fearing and venerating the Russian people. Some members encouraged violence. But the leader of the Russian Monarchist Party, Vladimir Gringmut, condemned it as typical of leftist organizations, especially “Kadets and socialists” (79).
The far-reaching value of Gilbert's book is to remind us all—especially the younger generation of Russia experts brought up during the 1990s—that conservative and nationalist movements are integral components of civil society. We ignore them at the risk of blinding ourselves to very important social and political trends.
