2.5. Russian Ethnic Nationalism

As mentioned above, Russia had experienced an absolutist czarist rule and, in addition to that, had a feudal social organization, which, for relatively long period, was embedded into the social organization of the country. This, in turn, led to an emergence of nationalism, which “enjoyed an ideological monopoly and could order an individual’s to fully commit to the nation, which was above all other loyalties; such nationalism rejected the notion of voluntary affiliation and the representation of the nation as a modern political community. Instead it saw the nation as an everlasting natural entity that had slowly evolved from prehistoric times. Membership of the nation was fixed, being grounded in descent, native language, religion and customs and folklore” (Jamaat, 2006; p.5). And, indeed, before the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, Russia embraced this model of nationalism, which revolved around such ideas as ethnic affiliation to the “Russian” folk, superiority of ethnic Russians compared to other ethnicities and Orthodox Christianity as the state religion.

Since nationalism tends to divide people between those who belong to a nation and those who don’t, this inevitably leads to a dichotomy between ''we" and ''they". In case of ethnic nationalism, the separation, which is done along ethnic lines, quite often leads to intolerance, directed against other groups or communities who do not belong to them, what can be explained by the inability to understand and entertain a different national consciousness (Pou, 2006; p.36). Modern Russian society accepts not only features of civic nationalism but also treats ethnic nationalism rather warmly. According to Levada-center (Russian opinion poll), in a survey which was carried in October 2013, 67% of the respondents welcomed, more or less, the statement that “Russia must only belong to ethnic Russians”; in addition to that, 78% of respondents wanted the government to put constraints on the immigration; most interestingly, in the question which asked respondents about limiting migration and accommodation for certain ethnicities, the biggest undesired group turned out to be people of Caucasus (54%), while the second group were Chinese as 45% of respondents said that their presence must be limited (2013).

Such strong evidence of ethnic-based nationalism in the society can be explained by undesirable economic conditions of the 1990s, which, as was mentioned in the beginning, caused general rejection of liberal democracy; the dissolution of the Soviet regime, produced rejection of communism as well among significant part of the society. As the result, a more conservative way was chosen, what allowed nationalism to obtain popularity and influence minds of people (Parland, 2004; pp. 157-158).

The main difference between Russian versions of ethnic and civic nationalism is the fact that ethnic-based nationalism revolves around the idea of including exclusively ethnic Russians into the society: the concept of “Russian” is similar to that of the czarist rule, which, at the time, defined that there were three branches of Russians. This means that ethnic nationalism in Russia rejects the idea that knowing Russian is enough for being added into the nation: one must also be an ethnic Russian and Orthodox Christian.

However, apart from having these features, Russian ethnic nationalism had also been adopting Western concepts. According to Parland, in addition to monarchism and the Orthodox Church as core features of the concept, it also “borrowed” from Nazism and Fascism: primarily, the notions of “white supremacy” and fierce anticommunism (Parland, 2004; pp 24-25).

Noticeably, Russian nationalism developed an additional theory to the above mentioned features, in order to stress the “uniqueness” of Russians, namely, the Eurasianism that proposes a distinct “third way”, non-European and non-Asian, for the country (Parland, 2004; pp 26-27).

Judging from the above mentioned facts, it is natural that Russian ethnic nationalism fears and rejects Chinese immigration as these migrants hardly correspond with any of the “requirements” that would allow to be included in the “Russian” nation. What is even worse for right-wing nationalists is that Chinese have their own counterpart of ethnic identity what creates dangerous grounds for ethnic conflict, where Russian nationalism is not necessarily going to be the winner.

Alexeev & Hofstetter provide an example of these anxieties by saying that “host populations have few means and little time to find out whether migration is not, in fact, being encouraged by the sending state in the hope of establishing an ethnic "fifth column" to weaken the receiving state, if not to challenge the receiving state's sovereignty (2006; p.12). Therefore, ethnic nationalism seeks to limit the amount of “aliens” in Russia as much as possible, in order to have a rather homogeneous society, where there would be no attempts to contest the legitimacy of key principles, which are advocated by this ideology.

In addition to ethno-cultural pressure, there is a fear of economic inequality: the majority of the local Russian public and businessmen believed that they were shortchanged by the Chinese, what caused hostility. Russian nationalism exploits this topic in many ways among certain parts of the society, in order to demonstrate how “aliens” are taking advantage of the native economy; the same example can be observed in the United States, where “low-skilled and uneducated whites are often expressing the most virulent racism because of presence of unskilled immigrant and black workers who were ready to perform the same job” (Burns, Gimpel, 2000; p.203).

The prevalence of xenophobia towards Chinese can therefore also be explained by notions of “realistic threat which concerns both the economic and political power of the in-group that is perceived to be challenged by the out-group” and “symbolic threat that stems from differences in values, beliefs, morals, and attitudes between the in-group and out-group members” (Yakushko, 2009; pp.46-47).