Thanks for posting this. I have been following the development since last month when it started, and writing a summary for the news mega but I want to wait a bit longer for anything substantive to happen first.

So far, the students have demonstrated to be unwavered by any challenge from the authorities. The movement has since grown larger and has now spread to over 80 universities across Russia. There is also a rumor that the rector will be replaced but nothing substantial has happened yet.

Dugin said he’s only willing to respond if the students had “passed the Ilyin test”, to which the students responded they are “totally prepared” and not afraid to argue on the opponent’s grounds.

Volodin said “don’t bring politics into school” lol and the RSUH admins pretended like they never received the formal complaints from the students. All these show that they simply have no arguments against the student protestors, and only going with “this is not the time to be divisive. Ilyin was a Russian patriot.” Which makes even less sense considering Ilyin’s connections with actual Nazis that have been much too extensively documented to be dismissed out of hand.

There was a debate a couple weeks back between the Initiative and the conservatives and it became clear that the latter simply do not have a firm ground to stand on.

I think with the war with Ukraine ongoing, and the anti-fascist stance that the Russian authorities have decided to take on against NATO, there is very little hope for fascism to thrive in Russia. The brand of Ilyin is far too tainted to be salvaged, while the ongoing war constantly reminds the people of the sacrifice made by the Soviet people who fought against the very fascists they are now facing today.

This could be an optimistic take (which is rare for me considering that browsing Russian telegram turns you into a doomer almost instantly), but they cannot afford to alienate their own students, their own people, with all the anti-fascist rhetoric going on in the country. The likes of Dugin and Ilyin simply do not have the space to survive in a society increasingly shaped by the Nazi’s relentless aggression (I’ve seen on internet even young people who usually don’t comment anything about politics got agitated during the Moscow concert hall shooting). The authorities will try, but that will only deepen the contradictions. Something has to give at some point.

I heard someone said that “Dugin could be the best thing to happen to Russia’s left”, and with some luck, that might turn out to be true.