Russian Liberal Conservatism

Abstract

Whereas for many countries in 19th-century Europe nationalism and liberalism emerged as part of the same movement, only later to reveal themselves as different tendencies, in Russia these two trends were rarely associated. Russian nationalism of the late 19th century was associated with Russification policies designed to consolidate the hold of the state on the outer reaches of the Russian empire. And Russian conservatism, where it was not nationalistic, was also unsympathetic to liberal causes. Late 19th-century Russian liberalism was suspicious of the power of the Russian state, and with the emergence of the Kadet Party in 1905, found expression as the moderate wing of the revolutionary movement. More recently, during the years just prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union, nationalism and liberalism came together in opposition to the power of the Soviet state, but from 1992 onwards have often proved uncomfortable bedfellows. National or conservative liberalism has not flourished in Russia either in the pre-revolutionary years or the 1990s, both of them times of rapid political and social change. However, in spite of this, it would be wrong to conclude that Russia does not have such a tradition. The purpose of this chapter is to draw attention to another related stream of middle-ground Russian political thought: Russian ‘liberal conservatism’.