The Black Hundreds and the Roots of Illiberalism in Russia

The Black Hundreds and the Roots of Illiberalism in Russia

By Dima Kortukov

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Keywords: illiberalism, fascism, autocracy, Russia

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Scholars and political observers have noted the recent growth of political movements and ideologies that reject liberalism.[1] Illiberalism—an ideology that represents an opposition to and reaction against contemporary liberalism, in its philosophical, political, economic, and cultural variants—appears to be on the rise globally. This illiberal assent—stretching from the United States to Russia and from Hungary to Israel—is widely considered to be one of the most prominent developments in world politics of the last decade.[2] However, with few exceptions,[3] historical instances and aspects of illiberalism have received little scholarly attention. The lack of interest in historical cases is often justified by viewing illiberalism as a form of postliberalism, a reaction against liberalism after having experienced it. As Marlene Laruelle argues, scholars should not apply this concept to cases that never experienced liberalism in the first place.[4]

In this paper, I attempt to push back against this argument and improve the scholarly understanding of the historical roots of illiberalism by reconstructing the ideology of the Black Hundreds (Chornaya sotnya). These diverse monarchist and reactionary groups operated in Russia between 1905 and 1917 under the banner of Orthodoxy, autocracy, and (Russian) nationality. Black Hundred organizations, such as the Russian Monarchist Party and the Union of the Russian People, were rabidly antisemitic and opposed any liberalization of the Tsarist regime. The 20^th-century Black Hundreds were inspired by a variety of earlier movements and ideologies, including the 17^th-century grassroots militia led by Kuzma Minin and Dmitry Pozharsky, the early 18^th-century Slavophilia movement, as developed by Aleksey Khomyakov, and the late-18^th-century Russian conservativism a la Konstantin Pobedonostsev. By plotting the ideology of the Black Hundreds along a continuum of fascism and illiberalism, this paper contributes to debates in intellectual history and illiberalism studies.

While the twilight of the Romanov dynasty received ample scholarly attention, the Black Hundreds are relatively understudied. As Jacob Langer argues, such a dearth of research likely stems from scholars’ distaste toward the movement.[5] Anglophone research is particularly scarce: Don C. Rawson’s Russian Rightists and the Revolution of 1905 remains the only authoritative monograph, alongside a couple of articles and a handful of doctoral dissertations.[6] Thus, another motivation of this paper is to contribute to the gradual closing of this lacune. Pursuing this goal, I draw upon several collections of primary documents, alongside Black Hundred programmatic materials and the abovementioned secondary sources.[7] The Black Hundreds have fascinated many Russian authors after the end of the USSR. Some have used the newly accessible archives to offer largely value-free analysis, while many others have referred to them to produce politically motivated hagiographies.[8] Not uncritically I consult these sources as well.

The Black Hundred movement weakened during World War I and did not play a significant role in the Russian Revolution of 1917. However, its legacy had a considerable impact in the Russian émigré community between the world wars.[9] This legacy outlived the Communist regime to stimulate nationalist intellectuals and activists in post-Soviet Russia. The Black Hundreds’ ideology has provided an important source of inspiration for the far-right, antisemitic Pamiat society and its various splinter groups, such as the Russian National Union (Russkii natsional’nyi soiuz).[10] The story of the Black Hundreds is told in numerous books from the flourishing genre of alternate history, with writers such as Vadim Kozhinov locating this movement at the core of Russia’s enduring struggle against enemies domestic and foreign.[11] Lastly, the anti-Ukrainian position of the historical Black Hundreds enabled their incorporation into the Novorossiya narrative—especially in its ultraconservative, Orthodox variant—following the Russia-orchestrated Donbas insurgency.[12] This recent revival provides an additional motivation for this paper.

Reconstructing the Black Hundreds’ Ideology

The term “Black Hundred” originally applied to guilds of small tradesmen in medieval Muscovy. Liberals and socialists in early-20^th-century Russia used this term as a pejorative to emphasize the uncultured and hooligan elements among their right-wing opponents. “Owning the insult,” many Black Hundred activists adopted the moniker themselves, following the example of Vladimir Gringmut, one of the main ideologues of the movement.[13] The 20^th-century Black Hundreds traced their roots to the grassroots militia that operated during the early-17^th-century Time of Troubles (Smutnoye vremya). This militia played an important role in ending the occupation of Russia by the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and establishing the Romanov dynasty. Their leaders, Minin and Pozharsky, became folk heroes in Russian history; a monument in their honor is located in Red Square. These references indicate the main lessons the Black Hundreds learned from history: the dangers presented to the Russian state by foreign people and ideas, as well as the need for a strong monarch to prevent the state’s disintegration.[14]

Before the beginning of the 20^th century, Russia’s right-wing movements were primarily focused on intellectual and cultural endeavors. With the onset of social unrest and demands for elected representation, these movements began transitioning toward organized political activity. The Russian Assembly, established in 1900 and led by Prince Dmitry Golitsyn, was the first right-wing group to make this transition. Slavophilism was a major source of intellectual influence for the Assembly’s founders.[15] Slavophile thinkers, such as the philosopher Aleksey Khomyakov (1804–1860), attributed a crucial role to the Orthodox faith as the basis of Russian civilization and argued that the principles of communality and collectivism are essential to Russian society. According to the Slavophiles, Russia’s historical development followed a unique path.[16] Therefore, adopting Western ideas and institutions will not do Russia any good. Instead, Russia’s social and political development should be based on reinvigorating existing institutions such as the Orthodox Church, the village community (mir), and the ancient popular assembly (zemsky sobor).[17]

The Assembly initially focused on cultural issues.[18] Among the Assembly’s goals laid out in its 1901 charter was the promotion of the “original (iskonnykh) creative principles and everyday (bytovykh) characteristics of the Russian people.”[19] As political tensions in Russia escalated, particularly following the outbreak of the 1905 Revolution, the Assembly’s attention turned increasingly toward advocating for the monarchy’s preservation. In December 1904, a delegation of the Assembly’s leaders advised Nicholas II against the creation of an elected advisory body with the power to participate in the government’s affairs; the delegation argued that such a body could drive Russia toward parliamentarism and anarchy.[20]

Ideologically, the Russian Assembly was striving to restore the principles of “Orthodoxy, autocracy, and nationality” (pravoslavie, samoderzhavie, narodnost’). This triad was of utmost importance for other Black Hundred organizations as well. Count Sergey Uvarov, the Russian minister of education between 1833 and 1849, had laid out these three principles as part of his doctrine of official nationality (Teoriia ofitsial’noi narodnosti). For Uvarov, the Orthodox faith—to which every Russian was supposedly deeply attached—guaranteed social stability and personal happiness. “Autocracy,” meaning the absolute rule of the Tsars, was necessary to ensure the political existence of the Russian state. “Nationality” implied the unity of the Russian people and their Tsar, but it also suggested the absence of social and ethnic contradictions and the need to follow ancient traditions while rejecting foreign ideas.[21] The doctrine’s implementation during the second half of 19^th century resulted in restrictive educational policies, censorship of the press, and attempts to isolate Russia from dangerous European ideas, such as liberalism and socialism.[22]            

The Russian Assembly’s leaders believed that the departure from these principles is detrimental to the stability and prosperity of the Russian state. The Assembly’s 1906 political program considers “the diminishment of faith, the plunder of the Tsarist autocracy [by] the bureaucratic system, [and] the weakening of national sentiment and patriotism” as the key reasons for “the unprecedented turmoil” occurring in Russia.[23] The solution was said to lie in restoring the dominance of the Orthodox faith and strengthening patriotic sentiments via the education system, respectively. The program also asserted the indivisibility of Russia, strongly opposing any movements for national autonomy, and called for national unity across ethnic lines instead. As for Russia’s governance, the program rejected bureaucratic overreach and called for increased ministerial accountability to the monarch. It goes without saying that “The autocratic (samoderzhavnyi) Tsar… cannot be held accountable to anyone except God and history.”[24]

In 1905, the Russian Monarchist Party emerged as the first formal right-wing political party. It was founded by Vladimir Gringmut in response to Tsar Nicholas II’s February acts, which paved the way for the liberalization of Russia’s political system.[25] With a platform centered on preserving autocracy and strengthening the Orthodox Church’s influence, the party opposed any moves toward parliamentarism.[26] Instead, it sought to maintain the autocratic power of the tsars while addressing internal unrest through legal means. After order is restored, it said, a time will come for “thoroughly considered” reforms that will strengthen the power of the autocracy and ensure the prosperity of the Russian people. Thus, the party opposed any attempts to use the State Duma to restrict or limit authoritarian power (samoderzhavnaia vlast’). The reforms were supposed to expand the role of the Russian Orthodox Church and preserve the system of social estates (soslovie), with each of the historical estates having its own special purpose within the body politic (gosudarstvennyi organizm).

The program also elaborated upon the “nationality” component of Uvarov’s doctrine, calling to enshrine the preeminence of ethnic Russians over minority nationalities. The unity and integrity of the Russian empire—with Russian as the single state language and a school system that raised loyal subjects of the tsar—were to be preserved.[27] “Local national characteristics” of minority groups would be allowed to exist, as long as they did not violate the abovementioned conditions of Russian unity. It is telling that party membership was open to adult Russians “without restrictions of class, property, or religion, except for Jews.”[28] Lastly, the program included several suggestions for reform of the state apparatus. Its authors recommended restructuring the State Council to include “more capable” members—as opposed to retired bureaucrats—and reforming the system of local government while stressing that these institutions should not be directly elected or limit the tsar. The program also called to decrease the taxation of essential consumer products and advance legislation to improve the living conditions of the peasants and the workers.[29]

Another association emerged in the spring of 1905: the Union of Russians (Soiuz russkikh liudei). Count Pavel Sheremetev was its founder; most of its members came from Russia’s titled aristocracy. Sheremetev and his circle supported the tsar’s intention to establish a consultative assembly for Russia. They hoped that such a revived version of the zemsky sobor—an old Slavophile aspiration—could strengthen the unity between the tsar and his people, without limiting the autocracy.[30] The Union’s ideological principles were outlined in its charter and through the large number of appeals (vozvanie) issued. The April 1905 appeal “To the Russians” stated that the Union’s key goal was to promote the unity of the Church, the throne, and the people. Autocracy was said to be the only form of government suited to the Russian temperament; any ideologies seeking to impose foreign forms of government in Russia must be opposed by all legal means.[31] To enable this unity, the artificial barriers between the tsar and his people were to be removed. The Union’s ideologues actively promoted the “good tsar, bad boyars” exegesis. According to them, state officials are responsible for all the injustice in Russia. Therefore, the solution lies in limiting their high-handedness and arbitrariness.[32]

The Union of the Russian People (Soiuz russkogo naroda; hereafter URP) was established in November 1905. Nicholas II’s October manifesto, which granted imperial subjects basic civil liberties and transformed the State Duma from a consultative assembly to a legislative body, provided the immediate impetus for its creation. The URP’s founder and first chairman was Alexander Dubrovin, a former member of the Russian Assembly. Soon the URP established numerous branches throughout Russia, becoming the most numerous Black Hundred organization. This growth resulted largely from the URP’s success in dissociating itself from the interests of the aristocracy and bureaucracy; instead it spoke in the name of all “true Russians.” In addition to its mass popularity, the URP also enjoyed royal support.[33] In turn, the leaders of the URP proclaimed their utmost loyalty to the tsar. This loyalty, however, failed to translate into full-fledged support of the tsar’s government. Most URP leaders wished to see more decisive governmental action in confronting the revolutionary turmoil, while the government was reluctant to give up its political monopoly.[34]

According to its charter, the URP aimed to unify all Russians working toward the preservation of Orthodoxy, unlimited autocracy, and Russian nationality. The Orthodox Church was to be given a dominant position in the state. The Russian people, who created a great and powerful state, were to have primacy in the state. The Russian autocracy—blessed by the Church and justified by history—was not to be limited; however, the State Duma must help the tsar conduct necessary reforms.[35] To see its goals realized, the URP pledged to actively participate in the Duma elections. The URP’s 1906 electoral program declared its commitment to defend the “unity and indivisibility of the Russian empire within its present borders,” ensuring that “the lands conquered by the blood of our ancestors forever remain an integral part of the Russian state.” The URP also recognized the need to improve the material conditions of the working class and the peasantry, advance free public education for all, and reform the judicial system by, inter alia, expanding the list of crimes punishable by the death penalty.[36]

A substantial part of the program was dedicated to the Jewish question. For many years—and especially throughout the revolutionary turmoil—Jews had demonstrated their irreconcilable hatred toward Russia and the Christian faith, the program stated. The only solution was said to be the eviction of all Jews from Russia. As Jews themselves wished to establish an independent state, the URP pledged to advance this goal and facilitate Jews’ resettlement. Given this upcoming resettlement, Russian Jews were to be legally recognized as aliens and not to be allowed to fulfill civic duties in Russia: They should not be allowed to serve in the army (replacing this duty with a monetary fine), work in the civil service, study and teach in educational institutions, or own newspapers and printing houses. They should be forbidden to vote and to be elected to the State Duma. Lastly, Jews convicted of participating in revolutionary actions were to have all their property confiscated.[37]

The URP’s antisemitism extended beyond these particular proposals. Scholars have argued that this was a key postulate of Black Hundred ideology.[38] For Apollon Maykov, one of the URP’s founders, fear of Jews was one of the reasons for rejecting representative government. Since Jews supposedly controlled Russia’s economy, they could easily manipulate elections; thus, transferring power to parliament meant transferring control over Russia into Jewish hands.[39] Similarly, for Georgy Butmi, one of the first Russian publishers of “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” constitutionalism was merely a Jewish conspiracy. Jews participate in the constitutional movement only to gain greater freedom for themselves so that they could enslave the Russian people.[40] The URP saw anti-Jewish pogroms in Russia as spontaneous manifestations of popular grievances, but there is substantial evidence that the URP instigated many of them and helped create an atmosphere conducive to many more. The Black Hundreds also arranged the assassination of several prominent Jewish politicians.[41]

Ideology, Elections, and Street Politics: The Black Hundreds Between Revolutions

Fueled by antisemitism and a refusal to limit the autocracy, the URP’s suspicion of representative institutions loomed large. While Black Hundred groups participated in electoral politics, such attitudes hindered their chances. The election for the First State Duma in spring 1906 was a bitter loss for the Russian right, with only six out of 497 deputies belonging to their camp.[42] These deputies had an uneasy relationship with the new parliament; Dubrovin declared that since the Duma was inciting against the tsar’s government, it could not claim the right to represent the Russian people. The First Duma was dissolved on July 21, 1906.

The electoral fortunes of the Black Hundreds improved in the Second Duma election in January 1907. Overall, 57 of their members were elected.[43] This Duma turned out to be even more oppositional than its predecessor, initiating numerous conflicts with Stolypin’s government.[44] In June 1907, the Second Duma was dissolved after failing to comply with Stolypin’s request to waive the immunity of the Social-Democrat deputies involved in revolutionary activity.[45] Simultaneously, the government revised the electoral law, with the new system favoring the urban rich and the landed nobility at the expense of the peasants.[46]

The election for the Third Duma took place in October 1907. The unsurprising result of the revised electoral law was a comfortable loyalist majority. According to various estimates, between 144 and 154 of the Duma members—one third of its total membership—were affiliated with the right. While executive-legislative relations were no longer characterized by intense hostility, many Black Hundred deputies often found themselves opposing the government’s policies. Eventually, the Black Hundreds realized that the government did not intend to implement its political agenda but was pursuing its own policies.[47]

The years 1907–1908 were the zenith of the Black Hundreds’ influence on Russian politics. Their participation in street politics, among other factors, helped quell the revolutionary turmoil. Their participation in electoral politics, aided by the government’s electoral engineering, allowed them to establish parliamentary influence. The URP maintained a dominant position within the movement, while earlier organizations—like the Russian Assembly and the Russian Monarchist Party—either stepped away from politics or went into decline. However, the Black Hundred movement became a victim of its own success. The transition to postrevolutionary politics marked the beginning of the movement’s crisis, which soon resulted in its disappearance, even before the 1917 revolutions. The ideological disagreements and personal conflicts among the leadership of the URP were a crucial factor for the Black Hundreds’ failure to maintain long-term political influence.[48]

The outbreak of World War I further exacerbated the Black Hundreds’ situation. They have failed to offer any meaningful program to address Russia’s military problems and economic crisis.[49] Their commitment to strong monarchical rule drew few supporters as the tsar discredited himself with his poor wartime leadership. After the February Revolution, the Provisional Government outlawed Black Hundred organizations, arresting many of their leaders. The absence of promonarchic political struggle after February indicates the movement’s complete paralysis. Following the October Revolution, the Bolsheviks executed many prominent monarchists, including Dubrovin. Many of the survivors, like Purishkevich, joined the White movement. While the Whites did not fully commit to restoring the monarchy, their opposition to Bolshevism was a natural source of attraction for Black Hundredists. Following the Whites’ defeat, many Black Hundred supporters emigrated; some remained active in émigré politics in the interwar period and afterward.[50]

Ironically, the regime’s success in subduing the 1905 Revolution robbed the Black Hundreds of their raison d’etre. Without the need for its militants to counter revolutionaries, the URP lost much of its support. The public perception of the movement turned even more hostile as reports of URP corruption and infighting increased.[51] Sergei Lebedev has similarly argued that the Black Hundreds were ill-suited for “normal,” constitutional politics.[52] When the traditional pillars of Russian statehood, such as autocracy and Orthodoxy, were under threat, the URP and similar organizations mobilized their supporters. After the monarchy survived—even in an altered form—many of its defenders retreated into civilian life. This new reality exacerbated ideological differences within the Black Hundred movement. These differences, which seemed insignificant during the height of revolutionary violence, became more urgent in postrevolutionary politics, tearing the movement apart.

The Black Hundreds as Fascists?

Reconstructing the key postulates of the Black Hundreds’ ideology—as well as the ideology’s role in the movement’s rise and decline—was a necessary precursor to a conceptual discussion. Placing this ideology on a continuum of fascism and illiberalism is an important addition to intellectual history and ideology studies. This academic contribution also has real-world significance, given the revival of interest in the Black Hundreds within contemporary Russian nationalism. Scholars have pointed out the importance of “Orthodoxy, autocracy, and nationality” as a slogan and a set of policies for the Putin’s regime.[53] The fact that this regime has been described as fascist while branding itself as proudly antifascist adds even greater relevance to the following exercise of definition and comparison.[54]

The scholarly literature on fascism is extensive.[55] The exact nature of fascism—whether it is an ideology, a movement, or a regime type—remains disputed among scholars. Some scholars, such as Gilbert Allardyce, have argued that Italian fascism and German Nazism are unique phenomena and that, therefore, comparative studies of fascism outside these two cases are of little value.[56] Others—most notably George Mosse and Stanley Payne—has attempted to formulate a general theory of fascism.[57] Umberto Eco’s often-cited definition of generic Ur-fascism lists fourteen key elements that commonly appear in fascist movements, including cult of tradition, fear of difference, machismo, selective populism, and newspeak.[58] Critics have rightfully noted that Eco’s typology is too broad to meaningfully distinguish between fascism and related phenomena.[59] One influential approach has viewed fascism largely as lacking unique ideological content, a reactionary movement against communism, the Enlightenment, or modernity as a whole.[60] However, the recent scholarly consensus is to conceptualize fascism as a revolutionary form of ultranationalism that attempts to realize the myth of the regenerated nation.[61]

While originally suggested as “merely an analytic device of limited scope… a loose wide-spectrum definition,” Payne’s typological description of fascism is the closest thing to a standard, having been cited by many other prominent scholars.[62] Payne’s description includes three components. The first is fascist negations: anti-liberalism, anti-communism, and anti-conservatism. The second part stipulates fascist ideological goals: the creation of a nationalist authoritarian state, the organization of a regulated corporatist/syndicalist economic structure, the realization of a modern, secular culture, and the expansion of the nation into an empire. The third part describes the fascist style: a political aesthetic stressing romantic and mystical aspects, mass mobilization, a positive assessment of violence, promotion of masculinity and male dominance, the exaltation of youth, and a tendency toward charismatic authoritarian leadership.[63]

Crisscrossing Payne’s typology with the Black Hundreds’ ideology reconstructed in the previous sections enables an initial comparison. Some similarities emerge. The Black Hundreds were hostile to both liberalism and communism, encouraged political violence and mass involvement in politics, favored a strong and authoritarian state, and were supportive of Russia’s imperial ambitions. There are also substantial differences. The Black Hundreds were not an anti-conservative revolutionary movement that aspired to build a new political and economic system, but rather a reactionary coalition attempting to prevent the disintegration of the existing political order. They had no recognizable aesthetic or developed cult around charismatic leaders. Payne himself discusses the URP briefly as an example of fascism’s historical antecedents due to the organization’s emphasis on strong-arm squads, its virulent antisemitism, and its efforts at mass mobilization. However, he concludes that the URP “lacked the conceptual rigor and modernizing thrust of the new Italian Nationalists” and that, in any case, its “short life and limited development make it hard to categorize in Western terms.”[64]

Nonetheless, as early as the 1920s, observers described the Black Hundreds as Russian fascism. The 1925 biography of Purishkevich written by a Russian/Soviet journalist, Semyon Liubosh—titled The Russian Fascist Vladimir Purishkevich—is an early indication of this trend.[65] According to Liubosh, Purishkevich was a prominent leader of “the movement we can now call Russian fascism, which is decades older than the European one.”[66] Hans Rogger was the first to analyze this characterization seriously, arguing that the URP was not fascist. According to Rogger, Italian fascism and German national socialism were radical indictments of their respective societies, “responses to a deeper malaise of modern civilization, a malaise which Russia had not yet fully felt and which was not borne in upon Europe with full force until after World War I.”[67] The URP operated in a different historical context and was not positioned to lead a national revolution against the old order—it proclaimed loyalty to the monarchy. Lastly, no URP leader had sufficient charisma to compensate for these programmatic weaknesses.[68]

Walter Laqueur made another important intervention in this debate. Laqueur showed that parts of the Russian émigré community in the interwar period—including former Black Hundredists—fell under the sway of fascist ideas. Among them was the former URP leader Nikolai Markov, who fled to Germany in 1920. He established several organizations of Russian monarchists in exile, continued to publish antisemitic pamphlets, and collaborated with the Nazi regime between 1933 and 1945. Italian fascism and German national socialism appealed to many émigrés as dynamic and uncompromising anti-communist forces.[69] Russian fascist parties existed in the 1930s in Germany, Manchuria, and the United States; they advanced many of the antisemitic tropes popularized by the Black Hundreds earlier.[70] However, these parties consisted mostly of younger members, who often lacked respect for the older émigrés, aware of their failure in the struggle against the Soviet regime. The direct connections between the Black Hundreds and Russian fascist parties seem to be rather limited.

The Case of the Black Hundreds’ Illiberalism

Do the Black Hundreds represent an early version of illiberalism, a proto-illiberalism? Answering this question requires engaging with the recent illiberalism scholarship, including conceptual debates. Simultaneously with the expansion of the illiberalism scholarship, many have noted that illiberalism as a concept is ill-defined, applied inconsistently, and frequently used polemically as a way of labeling political opponents or negatively regarded developments.[71] However, recent scholarly attempts to resolve this terminological confusion have resulted in improved conceptual clarity. Illiberalism is defined in these works as an ideology that represents an opposition to and reaction against contemporary liberalism, in its philosophical, political, economic, and cultural expressions. “Illiberals” distrust minoritarian political institutions and minority rights, promoting democratic majoritarian principles instead. Illiberalism proposes nation-centric or sovereigntist solutions, favoring traditional hierarchies, cultural homogeneity, and culturally integrative approaches to contemporary politics.[72]

Alongside this conceptual refinement, scholars of illiberalism have continued to explore the political, social, cultural, and legal aspects of this complex phenomenon in a variety of contexts. Recent works have analyzed, inter alia, the gendered aspects of illiberalism, illiberal constitutionalism in Poland, the entrepreneurial illiberalism of Russian media, and the illiberalism of military regimes.[73] Most of these contributions have focused on contemporary illiberalism, while historical instances and aspects have received very little scholarly attention. Frank Furedi’s article on the historical and philosophical origins of illiberal liberalism and Helena Rosenblatt’s chapter on the history of illiberalism are exceptions that prove the rule.[74] The lack of attention to historical cases is often justified by viewing illiberalism as a form of postliberalism, a reaction against liberalism after having experienced it. Laruelle has suggested that scholars should not apply this concept to cases where liberalism was never experienced in the first place.[75]

This argument seems plausible; accepting it would close the door on the possibility of determining that the Black Hundred movement was illiberal. Curiously, this line of thinking is very similar to that put forward by Rogger in the 1960s, positing fascism as a response to the civilizational malaise that Russia was yet to experience. However, there are reasons to think otherwise. At least since the 18^th century, Russian intellectual history has been in dialogue with the West, absorbing, rejecting, or developing unique variations of the prevailing tendencies in Western thought.[76] As evident by the examples of Nikolay Karamzin, Aleksey Khomyakov, and others, an important part of this ideational exchange was the debate regarding the merits of liberalism and its suitability for Russian soil. This debate was also an important part of the Slavophile-Westernizer exchange, although these camps did not present homogeneous positions pro or contra liberalism. Ignoring these realities is counterproductive, especially given the abovementioned scarcity of scholarly attention toward the historical aspects of illiberalism.

There are further similarities between Black Hundred ideology and the ideal-type contemporary illiberalism. The first is opposition to political liberalism. The principle of limited government has been a key postulate of liberalism since its early days. Critiques of limited government, constitutionalism, and parliamentarism are common among contemporary illiberals. The Black Hundreds strongly opposed political liberalism and were especially resistant to any form of representative government in Russia. They viewed institutions like the Duma as pathways to potential anarchy and as threats to the established order. The movement’s leaders actively campaigned against the creation of parliamentary institutions and, when such bodies were established, opposed any further expansion of their power. The deep skepticism toward representative and parliamentary politics—best expressed by Dubrovin vis-a-vis Purishkevich—resulted in an uneasy coexistence with the Duma. Relatedly, an important pillar of Black Hundred ideology was total unwillingness to limit the powers of the Russian monarchy. The Black Hundreds believed that autocratic rule was integral to Russian stability and prosperity, arguing that only a single, unaccountable leader could maintain unity and resist divisive influences.

Another commonality is distrust of minority rights. Liberalism generally advocates the protection of individual rights—including those of minority groups—to ensure the equality of all citizens, while accepting societal diversity as a natural and even beneficial phenomenon. Illiberalism, by contrast, emphasizes a unified national identity that prioritizes the majority culture; illiberals often view minority rights as undermining national cohesion. Instead of celebrating diversity, illiberalism leans toward fostering homogeneity, with a focus on preserving traditions, hierarchies, and sometimes exclusionary practices that may marginalize minorities. The “nationality” component of the Black Hundreds’ ideology emphasized a single, cohesive national identity rooted in Orthodox Christianity and ethnic Russian heritage. This illiberal doctrine translated into an explicit rejection of protections for ethnic and religious minorities in Russia. The Black Hundreds’ suspicion of minorities is best reflected in their noxious antisemitism. The movement’s propaganda depicted Jews as both a cultural and political threat, accusing them of instigating revolutionary activities and controlling key economic sectors; support for anti-Jewish pogroms was often framed as necessary to save the Russian state.

Lastly, respect for traditional ways of societal organization is another component of illiberal thinking that was at the core of Black Hundred ideology and its practice. In contrast to liberalism’s emphasis on social mobility and individual rights, illiberal ideologies often promote social and cultural hierarchies and emphasize the importance of established traditions that contribute to a cohesive society. The Black Hundreds exemplified this by elevating the Orthodox Church and tsarist autocracy as pillars of Russian society, viewing them as inseparable from Russian identity itself. Their ideology sought to protect these institutions from the destabilizing forces of secularization, Western-style reform, and revolutionary activity. Moreover, the Black Hundreds attempted to preserve the traditional social estates (sosloviye) system, which divided society into groups with distinct roles and duties. For them, this system was not merely a social arrangement but a natural order that kept the state stable and enabled Russia to withstand internal and external threats.

Overall, there is a significant degree of ideological overlap between the Black Hundreds and contemporary illiberalism. By combining opposition to political liberalism with nationalist exclusivity and support for traditional hierarchies and social arrangements, the Black Hundreds could be easily integrated into the “illiberal international” of our times. Indeed, the Black Hundred principles of Orthodoxy, autocracy, and nationality—perhaps subject to local contextualization—may appeal to many contemporary illiberals.

Conclusion

The Black Hundreds, a nationalist, promonarchic movement in late imperial Russia, played a significant role in the turbulent politics of the era. Their violent tactics and anti-Semitic convictions left a dark mark on Russian history. The Black Hundreds perceived their movement as a 20^th-century continuation of previous instances of popular mobilization in Russian history, such as the Minin and Pozharsky volunteer militia. Similarly, contemporary Russian nationalists—both the conservative Orthodox and the national socialist variants—often refer to the Black Hundreds in their search for relevant historical analogies. Thus, examining the ideology of the Black Hundreds is essential to comprehending their historical role, as well as their lasting impact on modern Russia. This paper is one of the first attempts to do so.

At the core of the Black Hundreds’ ideology were Orthodoxy, autocracy, and nationality, along with opposition to parliamentarism, constitutionalism, and any limits on monarchic rule. Engaging with Payne’s tripartite typological description of fascism has allowed for a fruitful comparison. While similarities between fascism and the Black Hundreds’ ideology emerge—such as hostility to liberalism and communism, support for strong-hand leadership, and imperial ambitions—the differences highlight the Black Hundreds’ reactionary nature. The paper further posits the potential classification of the Black Hundreds as an early form of illiberalism, drawing parallels between their ideology and contemporary illiberalism’s distrust of liberalism, minority rights, and advocacy of traditional societal structures.

By examining the intellectual roots and the development of the Black Hundreds’ ideology and placing this ideology on a continuum of fascism and illiberalism, this paper contributes to debates in Russian intellectual history and illiberalism studies. Additionally, its arguments provide several possible directions for future research at the intersection of these disciplines. First, more conceptual work is needed to better locate this ideology in dialogue with other historical illiberal/anti-liberal traditions, such as those developed by Louis de Bonald, Juan Donoso Cortés, and others. The Black Hundreds could also be analyzed as a conservative reactionary movement, part of a broader “family” of political reaction. Lastly, a more detailed examination of the Black Hundreds’ influence within contemporary Russian nationalism—especially in the context of Russia’s war on Ukraine—presents another promising avenue for further research.

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[1] Patrick J. Deneen, Why Liberalism Failed (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2018); Timea Drinóczi and Agnieszka Bień-Kacała, Illiberal Constitutionalism in Poland and Hungary: The Deterioration of Democracy, Misuse of Human Rights and Abuse of the Rule of Law (New York: Routledge, 2021).

[2] Marlene Laruelle, “Illiberalism: A Conceptual Introduction,” East European Politics 38, no. 2 (June 2022): 303–327, https://doi.org/10.1080/21599165.2022.2037079; Ivan Krastev and Stephen Holmes, The Light That Failed: Why the West Is Losing the Fight for Democracy (New York: Pegasus Books, 2020); Julian Waller, “Distinctions With a Difference: Illiberalism and Authoritarianism in Scholarly Study,” Political Studies Review, 22(2), 365-386.https://doi.org/10.1177/14789299231159253; Kortukov, Dima, and Julian G. Waller. “The Foundations of Russian Statehood: The Pentabasis, National History, and Civic Values in Wartime Russia.” Communist and Post-Communist Studies, 1–27. https://doi.org/10.1525/cpcs.2024.2271407.

[3] Frank Furedi, “Illiberal Liberalism: A Genealogy.” Journal of Illiberalism Studies 2, no 2 (2022): 19-36 https://doi.org/10.53483/WCKT3541; Helena Rosenblatt, “The History of Illiberalism.” In Routledge Handbook of Illiberalism, 16-32 (New York: Routledge).

[4] Laruelle, “Illiberalism: A Conceptual Introduction,” 311.

[5] Jacob Langer, 2007, “Corruption and the Counterrevolution: the Rise and Fall of the Black Hundred.” PhD dissertation, Duke University.

[6] Don Rawson, Russian Rightists and the Revolution of 1905 (Cambridge University Press, 1995); Hans Rogger, “The Formation of the Russian Right, 1900-1906,” California Slavic Studies 3 (1964): 66-94. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-06568-4_7; Hans Rogger, “Was there a Russian Fascism? The Union of Russian People,” Journal of Modern History 36 (1964): 398-415. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-06568-4_8; John Brock, 1972, “The Theory and Practice of the Union of the Russian People, 1905-1907: A Case Study of Black Hundred Politics.” PhD dissertation, University of Michigan; Langer, “Corruption and the Counterrevolution”; Robert Zimmerman, 1976, “The Right Radical Movement in Russia, 1905-1917.” Ph.D dissertation, University of London. Despite the book’s name, only a small part of Laqueur’s Black Hundred: Rise of the Extreme Right in Russia focuses on the pre-revolutionary Black Hundred movement.

[7] Vasiliy Vodovozov (ed), Sbornik programm politicheskikh partiy (St. Petersburg: Nasha zhizn’, 1906); Valentin Shelokhaev (ed), Pravyye partii. 1905—1917 gg. Dokumenty i materialy. Tom 1. (Moskva: Rosspen, 1998); Russian Monarchist Party, Russkaya monarkhicheskaya partiya: programma (Moskva: Universitetskaya tipografiya, 1905); The Russian Assembly, Russkoye sobraniye. Ustav Russkogo sobraniya (St. Petersburg: V.V. Komarova, 1901); The Russian Assembly, Programma Russkogo sobraniya (St. Petersburg, 1907); Union of Russians, K russkomu narodu. Vozzvaniye. (Kazan’, 1905).

[8] Rafail Ganelin, “Ot chernosotenstva k fashizmu” in AD Hominem. Pamyati Nikolaya Girenko (St. Petersburg: Kunstkamera, 2005); Sergei Lebedev, Al’ternativa sprava: natsional’no-patrioticheskoye dvizheniye v Rossii istoricheskaya traditsiya, napravleniya i perspektivy (Sankt-Peterburg: Nestor, 1999); Anatoly Stepanov, Chernaya sotnya: vzglyad cherez stoletiye (St. Petersburg: Tsarskoe delo, 2000); Sergey Stepanov, Chernaya sotnya (Moskva: Exmo-press, 2005); Grigory Ivakin, “Osnovnyye elementy pravokonservativnoy ideologii chernosotenstva v nachale XX v.” Srednerusskiy vestnik obshchestvennykh nauk 3, no 33 (2014): 285-292; Grigory Ivakin, “Politicheskaya dinamika chernosotennogo dvizheniya nachala XX veka: ot organizatsionnogo oformleniya k popytkam ob”yedineniya,” Gosudarstvennoye i munitsipal’noye upravleniye. Uchenyye zapiski 3 (2014): 189-194.

[9] Walter Laqueur, Black hundred: The rise of the extreme right in Russia (Harper Collins, 1993).

[10] Marlene Laruelle, Russian nationalism: Imaginaries, doctrines, and political battlefields (Taylor & Francis, 2019), 154-158.

[11] Vadim Kozhinov, Pravda chernoi sotni (Moskva: Exmo, 2006)

[12] Laruelle, Russian nationalism, 195-209.

[13] S. Stepanov, Chernaya sotnya.

[14] Langer, “Corruption and the Counterrevolution,” 14.

[15] Rawson, Russian Rightists, 49-50.

[16] Utechin, Russian Political Thought, 80.

[17] Andrzej Walicki, The Slavophile Controversy: History of a Conservative Utopia in Nineteenth-Century Russian Thought (New York: Oxford University Press, 1975); Laqueur, Black hundred; Dima Kortukov, “‘Sovereign Democracy’ and the politics of ideology in Putin’s Russia,” Russian Politics 5, no. 1 (2020): 81-104, https://doi.10.30965/24518921-00501004.  

[18] A. Stepanov, Chernaya sotnya.

[19] Ustav Russkogo sobraniya.

[20] Rawson, Russian Rightists, 50.

[21] Uvarov, Desyatiletiye Ministerstva narodnogo prosveshcheniya; Lebedev, Al’ternativa sprava.

[22] Utechin, Russian Political Thought, 73.

[23] Programma Russkogo sobraniya.

[24] Programma Russkogo sobraniya.

[25] Rawson, Russian Rightists, 17-26.

[26] Russkaya monarkhicheskaya partiya: programma.

[27]  Rawson, Russian Rightists, 28-9.

[28] Russkaya monarkhicheskaya partiya: programma.

[29] Russkaya monarkhicheskaya partiya: programma.

[30] Rawson, Russian Rightists, 35.

[31] Union of Russians, K russkomu narodu.

[32] Lebedev, Al’ternativa sprava, 84.

[33] Shelokhaev, Pravyye partii, 190.

[34] Rawson Russian Rightists, 151.

[35] Vodovozov, Sbornik programm, 17.

[36] Shelokhaev, Pravyye partii, 192-7.

[37] Shelokhaev, Pravyye partii, 192-7.

[38] Laqueur, Black hundred; Ganelin, Ot chernosotenstva k fashizmu ; Langer, Corruption and the Counterrevolution.

[39] Lebedev, Al’ternativa sprava, 94.

[40] Rawson, Russian Rightists, 70.

[41] Langer, Corruption and the Counterrevolution, 32-45.

[42] Rawson Russian Rightists, 166-7.

[43] Rawson, Russian Rightists, 172-95.

[44] George Tokmakoff, “PA Stolypin and the Second Duma,” The Slavonic and East European Review 50, no 118 (1972): 49-62, https://doi.10.30965/24518921-00501004.

[45] Tokmakoff, “PA Stolypin and the Second Duma,” 57-61.

[46] Levin, Alfred, “The Russian Voter in the Elections to the Third Duma,” Slavic Review 21, no. 4 (1962): 660–77. https://doi.org/10.2307/3000580.

[47] Rawson, Russian Rightists, 222-3.

[48] Langer, Corruption and the Counterrevolution, 116-22.

[49] Langer, Corruption and the Counterrevolution, 138-53.

[50] Laqueur, Black hundred.

[51] Langer, Corruption and the Counterrevolution, 172-3.

[52] Lebedev, Al’ternativa sprava, 110-3.

[53] Sean Cannady and Paul Kubicek, “Nationalism and Legitimation for Authoritarianism: A Comparison of Nicholas I and Vladimir Putin,” Journal of Eurasian Studies 5, no. 1 (2014), 1-9, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.euras.2013.11.001

[54] Alexander Motyl, “Putin’s Russia as a fascist political system,” Communist and Post-Communist Studies 49, no. 1 (2016): 25-36; Marlene Laruelle, Is Russia fascist?: Unraveling propaganda east and west (Cornell University Press, 2021).

[55] Stanley Payne, Fascism: Comparison and Definition (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1980); Zeev Sternhell, Neither right nor left: fascist ideology in France (Princeton University Press, 1996); Roger Griffin, The nature of fascism (Routledge, 2013); Ernest Nolte, Der Faschismus in seiner Epoche (Munich: Piper Verlag, 2008).

[56] Gilbert Allardyce, “What Fascism is Not: Thoughts on the Deflation of a Concept.” The American History Review 84, no. 2 (April 1979) 2, 367–388.

[57] Payne, Fascism: Comparison and Definition; George Mosse. “Towards a general theory of fascism.” In International Fascism. New thoughts and appreciations (London: Sage, 1979).

[58] Umberto Eco, “Ur-Fascism,” New York Review of Books 42, no. 11 (1995): 12–15.

[59] Laruelle, Is Russia Fascist?, Ch. 1.

[60] Nolte, Der Faschismus in seiner Epoche; Sternhell, Neither right nor left.

[61] Griffin, Roger. “Studying Fascism in a Postfascist Age. From New Consensus to New Wave?,” Fascism 1, no. 1 (2012): 1-17.       

[62] Payne, Fascism: Comparison and Definition (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1980);Federico Finchelstein, Transatlantic fascism: Ideology, violence, and the sacred in Argentina and Italy, 1919-1945 (Duke University Press, 2020); Sternhell, Neither right nor left; Griffin, The nature of fascism.

[63] Payne, Fascism: Comparison and Definition, 7.

[64] Payne, Fascism: Comparison and Definition, 29.

[65] Semyon Liubosh, Russkiy fashist Vladimir Purishkevich (Leningrad: Byloe, 1925).

[66] Liubosh, Russkiy fashist Vladimir Purishkevich, 29.

[67] Rogger, “Was there a Russian Fascism,” 414.

[68] Rogger, “Was there a Russian Fascism,” 415.

[69] Laqueur, Black hundred, 72-78.

[70] Laqueur, Black hundred, 79.

[71] Laruelle, “Illiberalism: A Conceptual Introduction”; Waller, “Distinctions With a Difference”.

[72] Laruelle, “Illiberalism: A Conceptual Introduction,” 309; Waller, “Distinctions With a Difference”.

[73] Nam Kyu Kim, “Illiberalism of Military Regimes,” in Routledge Handbook of Illiberalism, 2022; Drinóczi and Bień-Kacała, Illiberal Constitutionalism in Poland and Hungary; Julian Waller, “Elites and Institutions in the Russian Thermidor: Regime Instrumentalism, Entrepreneurial Signaling, and Inherent Illiberalism,” Journal of Illiberalism Studies 1, no. 1. (2021): 1-23. https://doi.org/10.53483/VCHS2523; Matthijs Bogaards and Andrea Pető. “Gendering De‐Democratization: Gender and Illiberalism in Post‐Communist Europe,” Politics and Governance 10, no. 4 (2022): 1-5, https://doi.org/10.17645/pag.v10i4.6245.

[74] Furedi, “Illiberal Liberalism”; Rosenblatt, “The History of Illiberalism”.

[75] Laruelle, “Illiberalism: A Conceptual Introduction,” 311.

[76] Utechin, Russian Political Thought; Mark Raeff, Political Ideas And Institutions In Imperial Russia (Routledge, 2019).