VLADIMIR TISMANEANU
389
Vladimir Zhirinovski's ludicrous statements about deporting whole
groups, reconquering the Baltic states, and restoring the empire through
military force should not be dismissed as simple bufoonery (although there
is a clownish element in his performances): such statements stir responsive
chords among many demoralized and outraged former Soviet citizens who
still do not see how was it possible for their great Fatherland to have fall–
en apart. Similar rhetoric ensured the mass appeal of Gennady Zyuganov
and his Communist Party of the Russian Federation.
The end of communism has left individuals with a sense of loss: even
if they hated their cage, at least it offered the comfort of stability and pre–
dictability. Like former prisoners, they now have freedoms but do not
know exactly what to do with them. Under these circumstances, they are
ready to espouse the rhetoric of the tribe with its emphasis on group iden–
tity and community values. The neuroses of the transition period, the
collective fear of a general collapse, the closing of the historical horizon
and the anger at the new economic barons,
les nouveaux riches,
no less
brazen and amoral than Balzac's characters in
La
comedie humaine,
nourish
sentiments of revolt, distress, and intolerance. There is a need to find scape–
goats, to identifY those culpable for the ongoing sorrows. The political
myth oflost and reconquered ethnic unity serves precisely this purpose: to
explain defeats and alienation and reassure the individual that he or she has
a place within the
volkisch
community. Nativism and xenophobia merge in
these new resentful constellations.
Under these conditions, the easiest way to find the scapegoat is to look
for those who do not belong (ethnically or religiously), the inner enemy,
potential traitors, intruders, "cosmopolitans." Traditionally, the xenopho–
bic imagination assigned this role
to
the Jews: they were essentialized as
internationalists, linked to modern institutions, to the rise of financial cap–
ital, to money and banks, and to communism and radicalism. They appear
as the embodiment of what the nationalist mind fears most. The enemy
has to be constructed in order to give the mythology of the besieged
nation coherence and inflammatory power.
The hypnotic effervescence of such political myths is directly related
to the vivid invocation of both its positive and negative "heroes." New
exclusionary mythologies attack any expression of doubt about the pre–
destined mission of the nation. The normal and understandable need for
identity and belonging is turned into an absolute. Critical intellectuals
who refuse to join the national chorus of self-congratulation are accused
of treason. To doubt the immense wisdom of the national leader is seen
again as a form of betrayal. When the country is presumably surrounded
by vicious enemies, when internal fiends constantly conspire against the
nation's very survival, any expression of disagreement is by definition
