Lol we’re too far out from predicting Russian fascism at the moment (actually, Russia was close to fascism once, during Yeltsin’s reign, we will discuss that below). First, their industrialization plan has to succeed, which is not even a given at this point.

However, I’d like to offer some additional points for considerations, which in my opinion makes Russia truly one of its kind in history (I’ve been thinking about this for a while, and emphasis: just my opinions and thoughts but it could be an interesting discussion).

First, Russia is the only country in history that has within a century, went through the experience of being a (second tier) imperialist power, the (world’s first) socialist superpower, and a peripheral developing country exploited for its resources. There is simply no other country like that. All the European imperialist powers from WWI are still very much part of the imperial core today, except for Russia. Its developmental trajectory is truly unique and still today a complex mix of all three modes of economic systems.

This is why you see Russia can be sympathetic to the plight of the Global South, can align itself closely to socialist countries like China, Cuba and the DPRK, while at the same time still want to be a part of the imperial core that exploits the rest of the world (although this door is now being shut by the NATO imperialists).

People like to say “Russian imperialism” but I don’t think it’s as simple as that, in fact I think it trivializes the very complex trajectory that Russia as a country had to go through over the entire 20th century, including having to deal with a very brutal invasion from Nazi Germany, which brings me to the second point:

The crimes of Nazism has never been forgotten in Russia even after the collapse of the USSR. While all the allied powers in the West have pretty much forgotten about the history of WWII (including all the countries invaded by the Nazis), Russia continues to celebrate Victory Day annually which really hammers home the message unlike in many other Western countries. Even the Russian nationalist chuds hate Nazism.

Why is this the case? I claim (without evidence) that the specter of the USSR will always haunt Russia. Whenever Russia tries to get rid of its Soviet past, they find themselves in a worse position and had to rely on some aspects of Soviet legacies to save themselves. This parallels with the Ukrainians who managed to “de-communize” and turning full fascist. The Russians instead found themselves relying on Soviet weapons to save itself from a war because of their own troubling arms industry, they found themselves relying on remnant Soviet industries during Western sanctions to save the economy; and they found themselves relying on Soviet anti-fascist propaganda to unite the people of the country against Ukrainian fascism (I truly believe that the domestic support for the war wouldn’t have been so strong if they weren’t fighting against literal Banderites)

And this sentiment has only grown stronger since the Ukraine war. The last time Russia nearly became fascist was during Yeltsin’s era in the 1990s when the economy was in chaos, and you know what’s funny, Putin literally had to rehabilitate Stalin (which had been denounced since Khrushchev) in the 2000s to calm people down. You can say it’s all cynical nationalist propaganda, and I agree, but it’s also as I said, the specter of the Soviet Union will always haunt Russia. They tried to get rid of the Soviet past, and the Soviet specter kept coming back wanting to stay.

Why does this matter? Because if you look at the history of Italy and Germany, fascism really was about protecting private property and privatization, but if you look at the surveys of Russian citizens today, at least half of the people want the economy nationalized. Where else can you find a country with so much support for nationalization? I can’t even imagine the US having this much sentiment for a nationalized economy. Even if the people don’t have the political power, it’s still a formidable force to reckon with, especially when now Russia has to rely on its workers to sustain itself (i.e. can no longer sell cheap raw materials or strip assets and sell them to Western countries anymore, both of which are now a death sentence for a heavily sanctioned economy like Russia. Being self-reliance is the only way they get out of this mess.) People are so pissed off at Yeltsin’s mass privatization (as I said, when Russia was closest to fascism) that I don’t even know that’s something ever possible again.

And finally, some people may ask, what about the Naz Bols? I’ve always seen it as a fringe theory because you cannot mix socialism and fascism. Fascism as I’ve said is about protecting private property, which is fundamentally opposed to the goals of socialism. There is a reason why national bolshevism never gained traction anywhere in the world, because it simply doesn’t fit into a materialist model of capitalism. Both fascism and socialism are ideologies that actually succeeded, because they both played their historical roles that conformed to the dynamics of capitalist system.

Still, Russia is the wildest of wildcards and we can’t really say for sure what’s going to happen. How many of you predicted Russian invasion of Ukraine? lol!

we already had one