Features of the Historical Policy of the LDPR

Timshina Ekaterina Leonidovna PhD in History Associate professor, Department of Linguistics for State Administration Personnel, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration under the President of the Russian Federation 119571, Russia, g. Moscow, ul. Prospekt Vernadskogo, 82 str.1 k.timshina@yandex.ru Other publications by this author

For political parties, the attitude to key episodes in the history of their country has become part of the ideological basis, a marker that helps to gain supporters and receive support in elections, especially clearly manifested in the activities of associations belonging to the extreme sides of the political spectrum. As the recent decades of the history of Eastern Europe and the post-Soviet countries have shown, historical ideas, even initially marginal and not accepted by professional historians, over time, thanks to the efforts of political parties, became generally accepted elements of state historical policy. Although political associations in the Russian Federation did not have such opportunities to impose their historical ideas on society and state power, parties were able to form their own vision for key historical events.

In the process of modifying historical processes and phenomena for political tasks, they are greatly simplified and transformed in accordance with the goals of the party, the search for parallels with modernity and the justification of the ideas and claims of the parties in the present. Thus, political parties, using their opportunities to access the media and election campaigns, have the opportunity to form and consolidate their own historical myths in the public consciousness, displacing memories of a real event. The methodological experience gained in the process of collective memory research is suitable for studying the formation and introduction of historical myths into the public consciousness.

In Western science, the beginning of an active study of the collective memory of society has been going on since the 70s of the twentieth century. Among the authors of their research, who set the vector of development of this direction in historiography and laid the methodological foundations, one can note J. Le Goff, P. Hutton, A. Assman, P. Nora and P. Bourdieu ^[1-5]. In our country, the beginning of research in the field of historical politics and culture of memory occurred later, after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The focus of attention of Russian scientists (O. I. Malinova, N. E. Koposov, A. I. Miller, G. A. Bordyugov, A.Y. Bubnov, etc.) was the formation of the state historical policy of the Russian Federation and the imposition of an aggressive anti-Russian policy of memory in post-Soviet countries ^[6-12]. Russian political parties as actors of historical politics attracted the attention of researchers to a lesser extent.

The study of the problem of collective memory is a vivid example of interdisciplinary research, scientists of most humanities have participated in the creation of works in this field. The difference in scientific roots has determined the absence of a single terminological apparatus, which, despite decades of development of the direction, remains very diverse and not unified. The research uses the terms "culture of memory", "collective memory", "symbolic politics", "historical memory", "historical politics", "politics of history", "politics of the past", which are quite similar in meaning, but not always identical. For the purposes of this article, it seems more appropriate to use the term "historical politics" in the definition proposed by A. Y. Bubnov: "any purposeful activity for the political use of the past, including both the activities of the authorities in the field of national and state identity, and the struggle in the public field of influential social groups for the approval of their versions of the interpretation of the collective past" ^{[12, p. 6]}.

Over the three decades of the existence of the Russian Federation as a sovereign state, the main political parties of the country have to some extent developed their own ideas about historical memory, one of the most distinctive policies of the past is the policy of the Liberal Democratic Party.  The LDSS (Liberal Democratic Party of the Soviet Union) was established in 1989. After the collapse of the USSR in 1992, the party was re-registered as the LDPR and took part in all federal elections, was a member of the State Duma of the Russian Federation of all convocations. The LDPR is a pronounced party of the leader type. Since the formation of the party until April 2022, its permanent leader was V. V. Zhirinovsky, who determined the ideological foundations of the movement.

The purpose of this article is to study the attitude of the LDPR representatives to the key stages of national history, to identify the peculiarities of their views on the past and the commemoration of important events, to compare the narratives of the LDPR with the views of other actors of historical politics. The object of study is the historical policy of the LDPR, the subject is the peculiarities of using the past for party political purposes. The research is based on a comparative analysis of the historical narratives of the LDPR, aimed at identifying the unique ideas of the party about the historical process and the peculiarities of using the past as political arguments. The main sources were official documents of the LDPR, election programs, speeches and publications of its leader, books published by the party, which deal with historical events. The peculiarity of the complex of sources is its connection with the views of V. V. Zhirinovsky, who actually single-handedly determined the policy of the past LDPR. The rest of the LDPR functionaries practically did not express their position on the events of the past, which distinguishes the party from the main political competitors. V. V. Zhirinovsky, being an excellent polemicist, often modified his statements depending on the conjuncture or momentary goals in the discussion, which to a certain extent makes it difficult to systematize them. As O. Y. Malinova rightly noted, the leader of the LDPR "within the framework of one speech can say completely opposite things" ^[13]. As a result, completely different approaches can be found on a number of problematic issues in V. V. Zhirinovsky's articles and interviews, after the death of the leader, the party made no attempts to systematize his legacy.

Modern domestic political parties are characterized by an appeal to the history exclusively of the XX century. The abundance of dramatic twists and turns, a lot of open discussions, the lack of a clear state policy on the most traumatic problems for society provided the parties with ample opportunities to appeal to the past. The LDPR does not fit into the general trend: although the events of the XX century occupy a significant place in the narratives of the party, it often and systematically refers to the more ancient past.

   After the collapse of the USSR, the key date of history (the so–called "founding myth") used in Soviet narratives - the Great October Socialist Revolution, no longer corresponded ideologically to the state historical policy and divided society, in addition, it was associated with the activities of the Communist Party, which in the 1990s regularly used the revolutionary anniversary for large-scale rallies mobilizing supporters. The date of the proclamation of Russia's sovereignty was linked to the collapse of the USSR – an event perceived by most citizens as a tragedy, and could not be used as a foundation myth. Attempts by the state authorities to establish a new holiday – the Day of National Unity, although accompanied by massive information support, did not cause the support of society, without finding a response in its collective memory. In the search for the source of the founding myth, the LDPR defends its own date. Russian Russian Party believes that the "Day of Russia" should be September 21: "on this day in 862, the Russian princes gathered to proclaim the creation of the Russian state" ^[14]. The LDPR believes that the date is politically neutral and emphasizes the continuity of the country's history.

The LDPR sees the "Russian people" as the main mover of the country's history, considering it unacceptable to blur it through the introduction of the terms "Soviet people", "multinational" or "Russians". The Russian people are at the center of the party's election programs, and the role of the people in the historical and cultural infrastructure of the country should be increased, and the people themselves should be recognized as state-forming.

The historical ideas of the LDPR are based on the centuries–old confrontation (since the XI century, and in some speeches earlier) of the Russian people and the collective West: "Confrontation with the West is not a modern innovation, it is already a thousand years old. Since 1054, the great schism of Christianity, we have become strangers to the West, value opponents, dissenters. And with the dissenters in the West, despite the so-called democracy, the conversation is short: whoever is not with us is against us. The West is not set up for dialogue, for the search for compromise" ^{[15, p. 4.]}. The West in the historical constructions of the LDPR often acts as a single force: ideological, religious, political differences of individual countries do not affect the general vector. The leitmotif in the LDPR concept is the permanent desire of the West to stop the development of Russia and the East, in a broader sense; to win a centuries-old competitive struggle. According to V. V. Zhirinovsky, this confrontation never stopped, only its forms changed: from direct military expansion in the Middle Ages to ideological influence, most of the waves of which hindered the progress of the country. The LDPR sees several ideological interventions of the West: "The following had the greatest influence among them: Protestantism (1717-1840), Enlightenment ideas (1750-1824), technical modernism – the arrival of engineers, the construction of factories (1890-1925), political liberalism (1770-1917), Marxism (1860-1917), Marxism-Leninism (1903 – 1991), free market ideas (1991 – 1996)" ^{[15, p. 55]}.

The LDPR finds the ideal of the state in the Russian Empire, considering the imperial form of statehood the most suitable for the Russian people. "The Empire is the most successful form of government. A major power unites with neighboring countries, protects them, settles all internal conflicts and at the same time strengthens itself and its interests. Thus, Russia defended Georgia from the Persians, Armenia from the Turks, Kazakhs from the Dzungars, Zaporozhye Sich from the Poles and Ottomans, Belarusians from the Lithuanians. Ultimately, Russia incorporated Poland and the Baltic States into its state as a result of numerous defensive wars that ended after that" ^[16]. The LDPR explains the need to carry out a number of reforms by the need to return to the successful experience of the Russian Empire, while the reality of the existence of such an experience in the empire is not significant for the party. A striking example of such an appeal to the past is the proposal of the LDPR to abolish the federal structure and abandon the formation of national administrative units with the transition to a unitary type of organization of the state and the division of the country into provinces in accordance with their economic potential.

The LDPR denies the existence of a crisis in the Russian Empire during the reign of Nicholas II, noting significant successes in the economic, social and cultural spheres ^[17]. On this issue, party leader V. V. Zhirinovsky actively polemizes with representatives of the Communist Party, who believe, in continuation of the Soviet historiographical tradition, that the reason for the fall of the empire was the growing crisis phenomena and the unresolved key socio-economic issues. Seeing the Russian Empire as a prosperous state with prospects of becoming a world leader, representatives of the Liberal Democratic Party perceived the revolutionary events of 1917 as a grave tragedy and a violent interruption of the "evolutionary development" of the country ^{[18, p. 3]}, the result of which in a few decades was to become a kind of constitutional monarchy without a sharp change in political formation.

There are a number of contradictions in the views of the LDPR about the late Russian Empire. On the one hand, the party points out that the imperial system is ideal for Russia, and it has become one of the reasons for its impressive successes in all areas, on the other hand, it notes that the weak link of this system and one of the reasons for the collapse is the Emperor. V. V. Zhirinovsky noted numerous personnel mistakes of Nicholas II ("Recruitment ? all ministers, governors are weak, weak-willed, incapable" ^{[19, p. 51]}) and his break with all layers of Russian society ("Nobles are dissatisfied, landowners are dissatisfied, workers are dissatisfied, Russians are dissatisfied, national businessmen are dissatisfied. Everyone is dissatisfied because the tsar failed to organize himself" ^{[19, p. 70]}).

The LDPR considers conspiracy to be the main explanation of the revolutionary events of 1917. Among the political parties of Russia, the LDPR are the most consistent adherents of the concept of the conspiratorial origin of both the February and October Revolutions. This approach helps the party to explain the sudden collapse of the empire against the background of its successful development. V. V. Zhirinovsky called foreign powers the main driving forces of both the February and October conspiracies, which fits into the theory of the party about the centuries-old confrontation of the West of Russia. Using a parallel with modern events, the leader of the LDPR defined the overthrow of the monarchy as an "orange" revolution carried out with foreign money ^[20]. The LDPR calls Great Britain, Russia's ally in the Entente, the direct initiator of the conspiracy: "In all positions, we had better indicators than in any belligerent country. And suddenly we have a revolution! This is all the machinations of Britain" ^{[19, p. 52]}."

The LDPR does not support the idea of combining events discussed in the professional historical community, starting with the overthrow of the monarchy until the end of the civil War, under the single term "The Great Russian Revolution", by analogy with the Great French Revolution (1789-1799). In its narratives, the party always divides the February and October Revolutions, considering them different events, as for reasons, and the consequences. If the February conspiracy led to the establishment of a republic or the preservation of a limited monarchy, that is, it was within the framework of the evolutionary trend of the development of the empire indicated by the party and only accelerated it, then the LDPR defines the October Revolution as the greatest tragedy of the XX century, which caused all the other cataclysms of the century. "We are told that thanks to the revolution, we then, subsequently, defeated fascist Germany. She wouldn't be there. The West nurtured Fascist Germany artificially, being afraid of what was happening to Soviet Russia.<...> Do not think that the revolution ended on October 25, 1917. It continued into the Civil War, it turned into Stalinist terror, it turned into the Great Patriotic War, it turned into the politics of Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Gorbachev, Yeltsin... and today Ukraine is smoking – it is a continuation of the October Revolution" ^[21]. The LDPR calls the October Revolution a coup and considers it the result of a foreign conspiracy. According to V. V. Zhirinovsky, the coming to power of the Bolsheviks was beneficial to the German Empire, which improved its position in the First World War and actively financed anti-government forces in Russia: "After the February Revolution of 1917, Russia was moving towards a normal European democracy. The provisional government consisted of former deputies, elections to the Constituent Assembly were scheduled for November, while Russia was on its way to victory in the First World War. But Lenin broke it all by organizing a coup d'etat with the money of the Germans" [cit. 22]. V. V. Zhirinovsky consistently advocated the maximum curtailment of the state commemoration of V. I. Lenin and the October Revolution. In the discourse about the events of 1917, the LDPR traditionally opposes the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, which has retained Soviet, albeit modified, ideas about the October Revolution.

The LDPR strongly condemns the October Revolution, describing it as a completely negative event, but the party's attitude towards the Soviet Union is not so unambiguous. The Liberal Democrats point out: "The Soviet Union was also an empire" and its separate periods cannot be excluded from history: "The Russian Empire, the USSR and the Russian Federation are historically the same state with the same people. Denying or denigrating episodes of one's history is a denial of reality" ^[14]. In order to avoid an obvious contradiction, the LDPR in its narratives tries to distinguish between the political system and the state. The party demonstrates its dislike of communist ideology by consistently criticizing the policies of the Communists. The national policy in the USSR, which was carried out to the detriment of the interests of the Russian people, was particularly sharply condemned in the party's program documents. The LDPR criticized "excessive korenization" ^[14], which led to the growth of local anti-Russian nationalism (the party usually cited Ukrainian nationalism as a vivid example). The main mistake, which became one of the main reasons for the collapse of the Soviet Union, was the separation of republics on a national basis ^[14]. This historical example was actively used by the party in election campaigns as another argument for changing the principles of the administrative structure of the Russian Federation. If, according to the party, the Soviet system was hopeless and doomed, then the Soviet Union as a state had to continue its existence. Unlike opponents from the liberal camp, the LDPR considered the USSR quite viable after the reform. In all election documents, the LDPR formed the image of the LDPSS (the predecessor of the LDPR) as the only party that advocated the preservation of the Soviet Union in 1991 [23 and 14].

Although the LDPR and the Communist Party are irreconcilable opponents, including within the framework of the politics of the past, it can be noted that their views are mirrored. Both parties mythologize a certain time: LDPR – the late Russian Empire, the Communist Party – the Stalinist USSR. Both parties endow the era chosen for the sample with the features of the "golden age", greatly simplifying and idealizing the socio-economic processes taking place in the country. Since, in this case, crisis phenomena are impossible, both parties actively introduce the conspiratorial component as a universal explanation for the sudden "expulsion from paradise", which became the revolution in the concept of the LDPR, and the collapse of the USSR – for the Communist Party. The main difference is in the personalization of the ideal state. The image of the LDPR empire is not accompanied by the image of an ideal leader, it is most often impersonal. Individual monarchs or statesmen are mentioned, but the main hero and engine of history for the party is the Russian people. The Communist Party of the Russian Federation uses a significantly mythologized and idealized image of I. V. Stalin as the personification of its ideal state.

The LDPR described the events of the collapse of the USSR as revolutionary, equating the negative impact on the fate of the Russian people with other Russian revolutions: "All revolutions were harmful to Russia: 1905, two in 1917, in 1991, in 1993. The very idea of revolution – the struggle for equality, justice, fraternity, helping the poor and the like – is good, but we are looking at the final result. We evaluate according to the saying “chickens are counted in autumn”. When the revolution ended, decades passed, and we see what happened" ^[24]. If the LDPR sees the predominant share of foreign influence in the causes of the events of 1917, blaming the West (both the Entente countries and Germany) for interference, then the party explains the causes of the crisis of the Soviet system as internal reasons, primarily linking them to poor-quality state management and the degradation of elites. In addition to the wrong national policy, the causes of the crisis were an attempt to modernize the system (too drastic reforms undermined the management apparatus based on the structures of the CPSU, without offering a viable replacement) and the economic crisis caused by the too active foreign policy of the USSR, the costs of maintaining allies around the world ^{[19, p. 81, 85]}. If in recent years the version about the betrayal of the USSR leadership has become popular, especially among Russian communists, then V. V. Zhirinovsky suggests considering the problem in the context of the crisis of managerial elites: weak and incompetent politicians have risen to the very top of the state hierarchy, but at the same time neither party, nor state, nor law enforcement institutions have been able to remove them from the authorities, nor offer a clear alternative policy ^{[19, p. 87]}.

Inside the history of the Soviet period, the LDPR (as well as other political parties and state power) focuses on the Victory in the Great Patriotic War. Due to the high elaboration of the topic in the media space and the unified commemorative approach that has strengthened in the consciousness of society, almost all political parties follow in the wake of state historical policy, not offering their own historical interpretations, but actively supporting the established culture of memory. From the peculiarities of the LDPR's interpretation of the events of the Second World War, it can be noted that the party negatively interprets the role of Great Britain as part of its doctrine of confrontation between the West and the East. According to Vladimir Zhirinovsky, in both world wars, the English "to pit" Russia and Germany for its own benefit ^{[19, c. 32]}.

One of the most difficult problems of party historical politics remains the attitude to the personality of I. V. Stalin and his policies. In modern society, the number of supporters and opponents of the "leader of the peoples" is divided roughly in half, which poses a difficult dilemma for political parties: It is impossible not to speak out, but there is a great risk of losing potential voters. I. V. Stalin, like the rest of the leaders of the USSR, were criticized by the LDPR. The leader of the party, V. V. Zhirinovsky, in public speeches for many years consistently negatively assessed the role of I. V. Stalin in the history of Russia. In the center of criticism of the leader of the LDPR was incompetence, anti-Russian policy, repression ^[25], catastrophic mistakes at the beginning of the Great Patriotic War ^[26], in addition, he stressed that his family suffered from Stalinism. Among the positive features of Stalin, V. V. Zhirinovsky singled out his statesmanship and position on the national question (the victory of I. V. Stalin's position against the national republics at the creation of the USSR would help preserve the country in 1991 ^{[19, pp. 76-77]}. Despite V. V. Zhirinovsky's personal anti-Stalinist position, the percentage of people who support Stalin among his supporters is high. According to polls, 67% of those who voted for the leader of the LDPR in the last presidential election positively assess the activities of I. V. Stalin ^[27], which significantly exceeded the percentage of support among supporters of other candidates, including the representative of the Communist Party. As a result, in election campaigns and programs, the LDPR did not broadcast its attitude to Stalin and avoided evaluating his activities.

The LDPR, like most domestic parties, divides the existence of the Russian Federation into two periods. If the party broadcasts an extremely negative attitude towards the state power of the "dashing 90s" (condemnation of the "wild market" and the tragedy of the Russian people against the background of the collapse of the USSR), then the activities of the government, since the 2000s, the party evaluates much more neutrally, although it calls itself oppositional and criticizes certain areas of activity, especially in the period of election campaigns.

As part of the creation of a memory infrastructure that supports the historical views of the party, the LDPR, in addition to traditional methods, proposed using relatively new ones. In the Western world, the status of museum space has undergone a rather radical revision in recent decades. The interactivity of the exposition, its ability to evoke empathy and a sensual response from the visitor, gained more importance than detached scientific representativeness. Museums have become a significant resource for maintaining state historical policy and forming collective memories through emotional perception. Examples of new approaches to museum organization can be considered institutions dedicated to the study of collective traumas of society – museums of Holocaust victims in Western Europe, museums of Soviet occupation in Eastern Europe, the Museum of the Holodomor-genocide in Ukraine, which had a significant impact on the formation of national identity and public memory. During the election campaigns, the LDPR repeatedly advocated "perpetuating the memory of the genocide of Russians" ^[14]. Russian Russian Holocaust Institute of the XX century should be created ^[23], which will be responsible for the investigation, study and museification of crimes against the Russian people. The party presented its initiative in the most detail during the 2011 election campaign.

Modern researchers of the "wars of memory" believe that the historical policy of modern Europe in relation to the tragic history of the Second World War is divided into two different periods. Initially, a "cosmopolitan" approach of shared guilt for war crimes was formed in Western Europe, with the Holocaust at its center. "This approach is based on the uniqueness of the Holocaust as the main European tragedy of the 20th century, as well as on the collective guilt and responsibility of all the peoples of Europe for it. The collective responsibility of all Europeans was based on the understanding that not only Nazi Germany and its allies were involved in the Holocaust, but also the local population and political groups in all occupied territories" ^{[28, p. 170]}. However, the enlargement of the European Union at the expense of Eastern European countries has led to serious changes in historical policy. The new members (especially vividly manifested in the activities of the authorities of Poland and the Baltic countries) shifted the focus to the suffering of their own people from totalitarian regimes, setting the vector of gradual equalization of the Nazi and Soviet regimes. The assertive policy of "self-victimization" has borne fruit, over time modifying the direction of pan-European policy. The LDPR was one of the first political forces in Russia to catch a new trend. Russian Russian Holocaust" should be considered as an attempt, using the tactics of the opponent, to formulate a response to the victimization policy, designed to show that the Russian people are also victims. According to historian A.I. Miller, the Russian state historical policy, starting in 2019, is gradually being rebuilt in the same direction, for example, the legal interpretation of war crimes as genocide, declassification and publication of documents related to the participation of Baltic and Ukrainian collaborators in Nazi crimes ^{[29, p. 228]}.

The LDPR defines quite vaguely and situationally which events of the last century should be attributed to the "genocide of the Russian people". Among the events mentioned are the prisoner of war camps of the Central Powers in the First World War, the Red Terror, Nazi terror in the occupied territories and death camps, the persecution of Russians in the former republics of the USSR. The 2011 program states that the victims of terror in 1918-1924 were (the program does not specify the nature of terror, but the party most often refers to the communist terror as genocide) more than 30 million Russians have become ^[23]. The periodization proposed by the party (from the beginning of the Civil War to the death of V. I. Lenin) is not traditional. Historians consider either the victims of the Civil War separately, and the periodization corresponds to its duration, or in the context of counting the victims of the communist regime, the end time is extended until the death of I. V. Stalin. The unusual dating is connected with the desire to exclude the time of Stalin's reign from the chronological framework of terror, given the popularity of the "leader of the peoples" among party supporters.

In addition to creating a commemorative infrastructure, the LDPR has also attempted to legislate its own view of history – it has repeatedly submitted proposals to the State Duma to adopt a separate law aimed at protecting against "encroachments on the historical memory of Russians". One of these draft laws, initiated shortly after the 2016 elections, introduced articles providing for prison sentences into the criminal code or a fine for "justifying the genocide of Russians" ^[30]. For law enforcement practice, a clear terminological definition is required, but the draft law proposed by the LDPR and the explanatory documents to it do not disclose the content of the term "genocide of Russians". The events attributed to the genocide are listed in fairly general definitions without detailing and dating, remaining at the level of earlier statements. Only Austro-Hungarian crimes in the POW camps of the First World War are described in relative detail with examples and indications of names ^[31].

Thus, the LDPR managed to develop its own historical policy, although its formation on hotel issues has not been completed, for example, the attitude to the personality of Stalin and the exact definition of events related to the "genocide of the Russian people". In some areas important for state policy (in particular, the memory of the Great Patriotic War, the opposition of the 2000s to the "dashing nineties", the inadmissibility and perniciousness of revolutionary events), the party's position is close to the position of the ruling elite, but in others the party offered its vision. The main line defining the history of Russia is the centuries-old confrontation with the collective West, in fact, a civilizational conflict. It is the pernicious intervention of the West that explains many tragic events in history. Of the political actors, the LDPR is the only one who pays such importance to external intervention. Another significant feature is the emphasis on the contribution of the Russian people and its leading role in the history of the country. Through such a construction of the past, the party strengthens its image of a defender of the Russian people, whose interests and aspirations, in its opinion, were unfairly ignored in the Soviet and post-Soviet periods, and justifies the need for large-scale administrative reforms. Unlike other parliamentary parties, the LDPR actively broadcast its ideas about the past during electoral campaigns, including by introducing them into election programs.