Commentators in Moscow and the West ever more frequently draw parallels between Vladimir Putin’s ideas and actions and those of fascist regimes in the first part of the 20th century, but few have focused on the fact that one of the Kremlin leader’s most-cherished ideas, that of the “Russian Spring,” was invented by a Russian fascist in the 1920s. The group in his view was to promote “a certain new type of totalitarian monarchy, the struggle against masonry and international capital and also a life ‘full of blood, fire, and self-sacrifice.’” In Kazem-Bek’s view, Russia should have a regime like Mussolini’s in Italy but be fully committed to the promotion of “’Russianness.’” Kazem-Bek increasingly viewed Stalin as an exemplar of the kind of leader he believed Russia should have, and he insisted that what Russia needed was a combination of Russian autocracy and Bolshevism or as he put it in one of his slogans, “a tsar and soviets” at one and the same time.
Posted on: Wed, 30 Jul 2014 16:25:15 +0000
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