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Kazem-Bek and the Young Russians' Revolution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

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Extract

Historians of Stalinism have noted that Stalin received praise from unlikely sources in the Russian emigration. A pertinent case in point is the enthusiastic commendation by Aleksandr L'vovich Kazem-Bek (1902-77), a self-styled neomonarchist, and his émigré party called the Mladorossy (Young Russians). The subject of this article is the career of this would-be Führer of the émigré radical Right. My objective, however, is not only to describe a significant historical aspect of the emigration but also to bring to light a case where Stalinism won converts from a movement of hypertrophied and openly fascist Russian nationalists. Recent scholarly attention to the history of the emigration, long a neglected chapter in histories of post-1917 Russia, has inspired this exploration into the politics of the emigre radical Right and its special appeal to the émigré “sons,” the bitterly disillusioned second generation in exile.

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Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 39 , Issue 2 , June 1980 , pp. 255 - 268
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1980

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References

I wish to acknowledge the assistance of Alexandra Kazem-Bek, the wife of Aleksandr L'vovich, who provided information on the career of her late husband and the background to his family. Gleb Struve and Marvin Lyons also assisted my work in locating materials that were difficult to find and supplied information on Kazem-Bek which was not available in the published materials. Mikhail Agursky, Richard Stites, and Robert Williams made helpful suggestions for revising the article and clarifying many of the ambiguous points in the career of Kazem-Bek.

1. For example, see Medvedev, Roy A., Let History Judge, trans. Taylor, Colleen (New York, 1973), p. 357–58.Google Scholar

2. The post-1917 Russian emigration has yet to find its historian. However, a useful introduction to the subject is the recent study by P., Kovalevskii, Zarubezhnaia Rossiia (Paris, 1971)Google Scholar, which provides a comprehensive reference guide to the emigration. The best study of émigré literary history remains Gleb, Struve, Russkaia literatura v izgnanii (New York, 1956)Google Scholar, which Professor Struve plans to revise and publish in an English translation in the near future. More recently, an excellent collection of articles on émigré literature has appeared: N., Poltoratskii, ed., Russkaia literatura v emigratsii (Pittsburgh, 1972)Google Scholar. My dissertation, Nicholas Hayes, “The Intelligentsia-in-Exile” (Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, 1976), studies Sovremennye aapiski, the foremost émigré journal of the 1920s and 1930s, and the cultural life of the émigré community in Paris. The role of the émigrés in Germany is the subject of two recent works: Volkmann, Hans-Erich, Die russische Emigration in Deutschland, 1919-1929 (Wűrzburg, 1966)Google Scholar and Williams, Robert C., Culture in Exile: Russian Emigrés in Germany, 1881-1941 (Ithaca, N.Y., 1972)Google Scholar. Although the history of Kazem-Bek and the Mladorossy is discussed in Hayes, “The Intelligentsia-in-Exile,” chapter 5, there are no published studies of the party and its leader. However, Stephan, John J., The Russian Fascists: Tragedy and Farce in Exile, 1925- 1945 (New York, 1978)Google Scholar, studies two other émigré fascists, Konstantin Vladimirovich Rodzaevskii and Anastase Andreevich Vonsiatskii. The best survey of émigré political history is Tilgham, Koons, L'histoire des doctrines politiques de l'émigration russe, 1919-1939 (Paris, 1951).Google Scholar

3. Kazem-Bek, Aleksandr, Rossiia, mladorossy, i emigratsiia (Paris, 1935), p. 16.Google Scholar This volume is a collection of Kazem-Bek's speeches and writings from Mladorosskaia iskra.

4. On the history of the smenovckhovstvo, see Williams, Culture in Exile, pp. 263-75; and Ivan, Trifonov, “Iz istorii bor'by Kommunisticheskoi partii protiv smenovekhovstva,” Istoriia S.S.S.R., 1959, no. 3, pp. 64–83.Google Scholar On the history of the Eurasian movement, see Nicholas, Riasanovsky, “The Emergence of Eurasianism,” California Slavic Studies, vol. 1 (1967), pp. 58–69.Google Scholar

5. Professor Mikhail Agursky, for example, has drawn some rather provocative conclusions (which go beyond the conclusions of this article) regarding the ideology of “national bolshevism” and its possible link to ideological trends in Soviet politics (see his “Soviet Legitimacy Crisis and Its International Implications,” paper presented at the Strategic and Foreign Policy Studies Conference on “What Is Communism ?,” held at the University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, April 7-8, 1977). I am grateful to Professor Agursky for providing me with a copy of his paper. The radical Right in Weimar Germany also showed a peculiar fascination with the ideology of “national bolshevism.” For a controversial interpretation of the ties between the German radical Right and “national bolshevism,” see Schuddekopf, Otto-Ernst, Linke Leute von Rechts (Stuttgart, 1960), p. 98–106.Google Scholar

6. See, for example, Medvedev, Roy A., On Socialist Democracy, trans. Kadt, Ellen de (New York, 1977), pp. 89–90 Google Scholar; and Andrei, Amalrik, Will the Soviet Union Survive Until 1984? (New York, 1970), p. 38–39.Google Scholar

7. On the Reichenhall Congress, see Williams, Culture in Exile, pp. 17-19. The resolutions of the Congress were reprinted in “S” ezd monarkhistov,” Poslednie novosti, July 22, 1921.

8. The entire March 30, 1922, issue of Rid’ was devoted to the events surrounding Nabokov's murder. The assassins, Peter Shabelskii-Bork and Sergei Taboritskii, attempted to assassinate Paul Miliukov during a lecture by the Kadet leader. Nabokov was fatally wounded when he attempted to disarm the assailant. The two belonged to a right-wing terrorist group organized by a Colonel Fedor Vinberg in Munich. Vinberg's group (consisting of only four members) identified itself as the “Crusade” and briefly published a newspaper called Luck sveta (The Ray of Light) in 1922. Although Vinberg, Shabelskii- Bork, and Taboritskii were placed under arrest by the German police for conspiracy to murder Miliukov, they were released for lack of evidence. Taboritskii later became the Nazis’ director of Russian émigré affairs.

9. “Souchastniki,” Poslednie novosti, June 3, 1922.

10. Quoted in Varshavskii, V. S., Nezamechennoe pokolenie (New York, 1956), p. 53–54.Google Scholar

11. Ibid., pp. 54-55.

12. Ibid., p. 55.

13. Ibid., pp. 57-58.

14. For the background to the Kazem-Bek family, see the entry by Veselovskii, N. in Russkii biograficheskii slovar, ed. Polovtsov, A. A., vol. 8 (St. Petersburg, 1897), pp. 381–83 Google Scholar.

15. Varshavskii, Nezamechennoe pokolenie, p. 24.

16. Ibid.

17. A. Alferov, quoted in ibid., p. 25.

18. K molodoi Rossii: Sbornik mladorossov (Paris, 1928). The collection contains twelve essays contributed by Kazem-Bek, Kirill Elita-Vil'chkovskii, Nikolai Arsen'ev, Iurii Arsen'ev, and an anonymous author.

19. Smena vekh: Sbornik statei (Prague, 1921).

20. Iskhod k vostoku: Predchuvstviia i svershcniia. Ulvershdcnie evrasiitsev (Sofia, 1921).

21. “1917-1928,” K molodoi Rossii, p. 5.

22. Ibid.

23. Ibid., p. 6.

24. Aleksandr Kazem-Bek, “Pervye itogi,” in ibid., pp. 7-8.

25. Ibid., pp. 11-12.

26. Ibid., p. 8.

27. Ibid., p. 12.

28. Ibid.

29. Ibid., p. 9.

30. Ibid., pp. 19-22.

31. Ibid., pp. 14-15.

32. Ibid., pp. 15-16; emphasis in original.

33. Ibid., p. 16.

34. For an example, see the editorial in Vozrozhdenie, June 18, 1925.

35. I. Arsen'ev, “O fashizme,” K molodoi Rossii, p. 130.

36. Aleksandr Kazem-Bek, “Neo-monarkhizm (ocherk pervyi),” K molodoi Rossii, p. 81.

37. Ibid., p. 91.

38. Kazem-Bek, “Pervye itogi,” p. 13.

39. Ibid., p. 22.

40. Karsavin, L, “Mladorossy,” Evrasiiskaia khronika, 6 (1926): 13–17.Google Scholar

41. See Fedor Stepun's review of K molodoi Rossii in Sovremennye zapiski, no. 37 (1928), p. 58.

42. Pavel Miliukov, “Mladorossy—kirillovtsy,” Poslednie novosti, December 13, 1928.

43. N. S. Timashchev, “Programma mladorossov,” Vozrozhdenie, May 12, 1931; “Mladorossy o bor'be” (editorial), Vozrozhdenie, June 5, 1931.

44. “Mladorossy,” Poslednie novosti, July 23, 1930.

45. Mladorosskaia iskra (Paris, 1931-35). The Hoover Institution has a collection of the newspapers.

46. “Piatiletka pobezhdaet kommunizm,” Mladorosskaia iskra, August 1, 1931, pp. 2-3.

47. Aleksandr Kazem-Bek, “General'naia liniia Soiuza mladorossov,” Mladorosskaia iskra, January 15, 1932, p. 3.

48. Aleksandr Kazem-Bek, “Natsional'naia revoliutsiia davit na Stalina,” Mladorosskaia iskra, August 15, 1931, p. 1.

49. Kazem-Bek, Rossiia, mladorossy, i cmigratsiia, p. 16.

50. Kazem-Bek, “Natsional'naia revoliutsiia,” p. 1.

51. Kazem-Bek, Rossiia, mladorossy, i cmigratsiia, p. 17.

52. Aleksandr Kazem-Bek, “Mladorosskaia iskra,” Mladorosskaia iskra, August 1, 1931, P. 1.

53. Kazem-Bek, “General'naia liniia Soiuza mladorossov,” pp. 2-3.

54. Ibid.

55. “Mladorossy v Sovetskom Soiuze,” Mladorosskaia iskra, September 15, 1931, p. 1.

56. Kazem-Bek, Rossiia, mladorossy, i emigratsiia, p. 17.

57. Ibid., pp. 16-17.

58. “K sotsial'noi monarkhii,” Mladorosskaia iskra, August 15, 1931, p. 1; and “Tsar' i sovety,” ibid., August 5, 1934, p. 1.

59. Kazem-Bek, Rossiia, mladorossy, i emigratsiia, p. 33.

60. Ibid., p. 66.

61. S. V. Dmitrievskii, “Ne anti-semitizm, po russkom,” Mladorosskaia iskra, October 1, 1933, p. 2.

62. Kazem-Bek, Rossiia, mladorossv, i emigratsiia, p. 57.

63. Ibid.

64. Aleksandr Kazem-Bek, “1936,” Bodrosf, October 11, 1936, pp. 1-2; October 18, 1936, pp. 1-2; October 25, 1936, pp. 1-2. Bodrosf (Paris, 1934-40) replaced Mladorosskaia iskra in 1934 as the party newspaper. Issues of Bodrosf are available in the Hoover Institution.

65. Aleksandr Kazem-Bek, “Na smert’ marshala,” Bodrosf, July 4, 1937, p. 1.

66. “Avantiura Kazem-Bek,” Poslednie novosti, August 25, 1937.

67. Aleksandr Kazem-Bek, “Nemtsy i my,” Bodrost', February 5, 1939, p. 1.

68. Aleksandr Kazem-Bek, “Russkaia pravda,” Bodrost', September 10, 1939, p. 1.

69. Kazem-Bek's telegram was reprinted in Bodrost', September 10, 1939, p. 1.

70. Kazem-Bek, Rossiia, mladorossy, i emigratsiia, pp. 77-78.

71. Aleksandr Kazem-Bek, “O smene pokolenii (otkrytoe pis'mo Petru Berngardovichu Strove),” Mladorosskaia iskra, March 1, 1932, pp. 2-3.

72. Beginning in 1957, Kazem-Bek contributed articles on church affairs, Orthodox churches abroad, and church history. His articles were generally unprovocative. However, he did write an article commemorating Patriarch Tikhon's centenary which enabled Kazem- Bek to praise in the Soviet press the prelate who had been a hero in the pages of the early émigré press (see Kazem-Bek, Aleksandr, “Sviateishii Patriarkh Tikhon,” Zhurnal Moskovoi patriarkhii, 1965, no. 4, pp. 16–25).Google Scholar Kazem-Bek died in March 1977 (see his obituary in Novoe russkoe slovo, March 9, 1977).

73. Kazem-Bek, Rossiia, mladorossy, i emigratsiia, p. 67.