Post-Soviet Russia and the Weimar Republic
Russia's invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, is already seen in the media and politics as a watershed in the world order. More often, articles compare Putin with Hitler and post-Soviet Russia with Nazi Germany. In order to better understand this turning point, but also to objectively classify the actual similarities and differences between the cases, a look at the background of the developments seems useful. In the cases of Weimar Germany and post-Soviet Russia, the 2019 article by our staff member Steffen Kailitz and Andreas Umland identifies a post-imperial syndrome that highlights nationalist irredentism and the desire to return to the status quo ante of a "great power" as the main reason why democratization poses specific challenges for former "great powers." A reversion to an autocratic form of rule takes an extremely high toll in post-imperial democracies - as recent developments in particular underscore. It fosters international political conflicts, including annexations and wars, with neighboring states hosting territories to which claims are made, as historically the Sudetenland by Germany or Crimea and eastern Ukraine by post-Soviet Russia.
While this article highlights the parallels between the processes of de-democratization in the Weimar Republic and post-Soviet Russia, the study by Steffen Kailitz and Andreas Umland elaborates on differences. As in the Weimar Republic, there are fascist actors and widespread nationalism in today's Russia. But unlike in Germany during the interwar period, the party system in post-Soviet Russia is highly manipulated and civil society is underdeveloped. Paradoxically, this means that fascists have had no chance to use elections or penetrate civil society to build political support. The continued presence of a decidedly authoritarian but not fascist "national leader", Vladimir Putin, kept the country from becoming a liberal democracy, but also made the regime less likely to become fascist.
If it was wrong that in recent years the similarities between the Weimar Republic and post-Soviet Russia and the geopolitical dangers resulting from them were often ignored, it is now important not to equate Putin with Hitler and post-Soviet Russia with Nazi Germany. Rather, a careful look at the initial situation brings into focus the currently suppressed danger that a fall of Putin would by no means necessarily open the door to a liberal democracy, but rather that in the midst of chaos the outcome is open and fascist forces could also prevail in Russia.
© fig. left: Bundesarchiv, Bild 102-07707 / CC-BY-SA 3.0; fig. right: Amakuha / CC-BY-SA 3.0