The Emergence of the Russian Young Conservatives

Western scholarship on Russia has missed the development of a homegrown school of mainstream conservatism, the Young Conservatives. Like far-right thinkers, they see liberalism as a dangerous ideology. But beyond that point, there are significant differences in their thinking. The Young Conservatives do not share the same ideological genealogy as far-right thinkers. They dream not of expanding Russia’s influence in the world, but rather of a much more modest and pragmatic co-existence with the West made possible through an isolationist posture, a leftist economic stance, and a democratic nationalism à l’ancienne. Another feature that sets the Young Conservatives apart from the thinkers presented in this volume is that the former do not claim to be working within the parameters of a liberal democracy, as Russia does not consider itself as such. In these respects, the study of these figures is a useful corrective to some scholars’ assumption that all critics of liberal forms of democracy coming from the right are part of the same school of thought.