Letov Interview 2

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Letov: It’s punk rock, Russian punk rock. I wouldn’t even focus on the style, there are many different styles. We have a few projects, Kommunizm, Grazhdanskaya Oborona, and my own personal project. On the whole, it’s garage rock, garage punk.

Interviewer: Punk rock means you’re against something, right? That’s how it was in the West 10 years ago. Can you compare Western music to your own?

L: I think that Russian rock has always differed from your rock. If in the West rock was popular music, that is pop music, an attribute to mass culture, then in Russia it was a religion. It’s more than music, it’s more than rock in and of itself. Our rock has always been religious, it’s the music of revolt. For us, that is for our rock groups it is war, it is revolt, it is a constant process of overcoming with the help of which we break through from an esoteric and metaphysical point of view to the other side. In terms of style, every restyling is a small revolution.

I: I see a communist flag, I even see Hitler. What role do communism and Hitler play in your music?

L: We share the views of all radical movements. Radical nationalists, radical communists, specifically the radicals, not centrists. All movements that value collective and collectivistic values over egotistical, personal, and individual ones. This movement could be either European fascism or communism over here.

I: Maybe I don’t completely understand, but do you mean that you support both the ideas of communist and fascist power.

L: Yes.

I: Why?

L: Because both communists and fascists support common human values. All people. Collective values. This is the primacy of the collective over the individual. That is, we are fighting against loneliness. The loneliness of every individual. Collective salvation is the only way forward. What we are doing is a new religion, this is why we are so popular among the youth. It is the creation of a new religion.

I: What is the basis of your religion?

L: Real Christian values. Sunny, bright, heroic. A rejection of all of the values of European civilization, the Babylonian-European civilization which currently rules the world, and even in our own country. Equality, brotherhood, liberty.

I: If I compare punk rock in the West, which was a provocation and radical music, but which was leftist first and foremost, and not from the right. But you are a right radical? I don’t even understand why you like the ideas of Hitler, since punk rock is something entirely different in the West.

L: I don’t equate communism and fascism. Those are entirely identical currents. It’s just that fascism is a more national movement, and communism is more international, that’s it. From the point of view of ideology there is no difference. In our country, the term “red-brown” carries a clear territorial aspect, because even on all May 1 demonstrations the fascists and the communists march together. There is one enemy, the bourgeoisie and capitalism. Furthermore, the situation in our country is such that, as they say, when the house is burning the fire must be put out first. After that we will settle the differences between us. But for now we are a united front. Because our enemy is the same and so is our goal.

I: The battle against the bourgeoisie happened here for 75 years. Why do you think that you must now start this fight?

L: This battle has been happening during the entire history of mankind. The battle between powers. That is, the battle between the powers of darkness, loneliness, chaos, and entropy, and the powers of creative work. It has always been thus and I suspect that it will always be this way. If the revolution of 1917 failed, that does not mean that we must not continue the struggle. There were certain mistakes made which led to the fall of communism here. Mao Zedong said it best, you must lose one hundred times to win once. If we are now able to do a new revolution, it’s possible that it will also not be perfect and that it too shall fall. But the coming generations will in the end drive our goal to completion.

I: Why do you think that your music is so popular in Russia?

L: Because it is founded on genuine Russian ideas and energies. Those people who go to our concerts share not our ideology, but our energy. They need the energy emanating from us. It is a popular energy. In a way we are not the authors of the music, only its medium. We do not belong to ourselves.

[Break in the footage, question not heard]

L: What we are doing is the raising a new generation of passionari¹ as explained by Lev Gumilev. New warriors who will come after us and who will inherit this land. So for example, there are obvious connections between generations. Grandfathers and grandchildren. Fathers and sons fall out. Those generations that should follow the one that we represent as Grazhdanskaya Oborona, they are against us. They are mostly businessmen, the bourgeoisie, the “New Russians”. But the next generation, the ones who are now 10-15 year olds, these are the people who understand and support us. They will take on the task of revolution. We are creating a new ideology. A new religion, like communism in 1917, with which they will win.

I: Which ideas of fascism do you especially like?

L: First of all, it is the idea of heroism. The person is not a lowly weak individual, but a warrior of sorts, a Hero with a capital H, a Person with a capital P. The creator, the maker. A person who does not fear taking responsibility for our reality.

I: Why do you think that fascism and communism are almost gone? Well, not gone, but their powers are no longer as strong as before?

L: I don’t think it’s gone. Quite the contrary. At first, the idea of democracy carried a certain myth in our country. Democracy as America. Specifically a myth. When it was unrealizable, when it was so far away, it seemed to carry the image of a sweet mirage. When this myth became a reality, it became so monstrous and scary. It birthed so much alienation and impoverishment among the people that now people instinctively go to either fascism, communism. To Barkashov², to Anpilov³, or to us. It is an instinctive, subconscious wish to resist this trap of chaos and entropy into which our country was thrown.

I: How does your idea sound [audio cuts off]

L: In a very unusual way. You’ll see it tonight at the concert. Our music I think is very heroic, powerful, firm, creative, and brave.

[Question not heard]

L: On the one hand, it is necessary. To quote the great Stalin, “splinters will fly when downing a forest.” Secondly, there were undoubtedly mistakes in German fascism. I think that you cannot stigmatize fascism, the ideology, for the victims of the Hitlerite German fascism. Because these were the negative consequences of German culture. The German nation, the German culture, over the course of the last centuries, made so many speculations and judgments about the individuality of people, that it inevitably led to them making gloves out of human skin, stuffing pillows with women’s hair, and making soap out of people. This is strictly the consequence of the German national culture. A speculative philosophical culture, let’s say.

This categorically cannot happen here. An incarnation of fascism or communism in any given country will be so incredibly different that to speak of the ideology of fascism is simply impossible. In this case we should also be stigmatizing Christianity for the Inquisition and the Reconquista of the 16th century [sic]. Christianity is not responsible for this. Let’s say that those… The governments who are succeeded by revolutionaries are always imperfect. Moreover, any power corrupts. And mistakes are unavoidable. But this does not mean that one should not try every time to do it the way it should be.

I: And what should be?

L: Revolution. Namely, an authentic affirmation of principles.

I: How do you think you could do this revolution?

L: Through armed struggle, it seems. Because never once in history has the bourgeoisie surrendered its power bloodlessly.

I: Do you think that the younger generation understands everything that you speak of? These are very serious matters.

L: They do not yet understand, but they will. The most important thing is that they feel our righteous energy. Righteous hatred towards this system. And this is why they support us, for now at least, on an emotional level. When they grow up, they will understand, they will ponder and they will fathom our position on an ideological level.

I: I would like to repeat [cut off]

L: I will say it again, what we are doing has an authentic popular energy. We do not belong to ourselves. We are not acting rationally. In a way, we are acting subconsciously, working, composing, and acting. We are the mediums of the popular energy which is embodied in our songs and our movement. This is why people follow us. The energy returns to them. It is realized through us and returns to them.

[Question cut off]

L: This took place in the 60s. This attempt at revolution of 1968. Rock is the rock revolution first and foremost. Rock as popular music is not rock. Initially it was envisioned and acted as revolution, rock revolution. The sexual revolution, the rock revolution, the revolution of ideas. It’s a revolution of the senses in the end. It was drowned in the West. It was commercialized and bought out. It was all over by 1970. The strongest people of those movements either ended their lives or overdosed on drugs or something like that. Like [Jim] Morrison in America. Or they entered the Red Brigades, the red brigade movement, which was also quickly suppressed or just crushed. That’s how it was in Europe, in the West. In America the yippie movement, not hippie but yippie, is active. Already in the 70s and 80s there was nothing approaching it. There was an attempt in the 80s with punk rock, but it was commercialized from the beginning.

[Question cut off]

L: These are purely superficial aspects, which do not matter. In truth, our movement has its own symbol and its own flag. Unfortunately I do not have it here. It’s a red flag with a white circle and a black hammer and sickle is inside.

I: How did you come to your ideas?

L: By the age of 20, I had read and heard, I had traveled the country, gathered information so to speak. At a certain point I understood that I had lived long enough to act independently. So much energy and information had accumulated inside me that it burst out of the seams. I gathered my first group in ‘83 and we’ve been playing since then.

I: How do you see the future of Russia?

L: I think that revolution is inevitable, the future is ours. I am not sure that it will happen in the short term, I harbor no illusions in this regard. But sooner or later we will come to power. Maybe not me, but those who come after us. Maybe it’ll be in 40-50 years, maybe longer, but it is inescapable.

I: Could it be said that you feel yourself to understand what it’s like in the West, or do you think that’s pointless? [Did a cut happen here? Did Letov misunderstand the question? The interviewer has a poor grasp of Russian.]

L: It’s pointless and very burdensome. I cannot allow myself the things that I had allowed previously. I cannot take the subway, or hang around the center of the city because I am recognized.

I: How does it feel?

L: Burdensome. Because I am not free. Now I must act as a symbol of sorts.

I: But this revolution needs such idols.

L: I agree to this role. It is my cross to bear. It’s a big responsibility which I had taken on subconsciously.

I: What do you think is your fate?

L: I don’t know. We will try to do everything so that our people come to power. Our national-communist bloc. Nothing is ever known in our country. Maybe even this week we will be shot because a mafia holds power in our country. The laws are very cruel here. Additionally, when revolutionaries come to power, they are themselves usually shot because a new bureaucracy comes to replace them.

I: How would you describe the younger generation?

L: These are people who are not just tired of the system, they’ve been driven mad by it. They are principally opposed to participation within any system, be it communist or fascist. By communist I mean in the form in which it existed until 1985, Brezhnevite [communism], which differed little from western capitalism in the economic and political sense. Limonov called this, very accurately, a disciplinary-sanitary regime. These are people who are potential mutineers who choose revolt in any form.

I: Do you think [cut off]

L: - Russian Revolution, not ideologically. At the very least it does not happen on the level of ideology. They happen emotionally. The animating force behind revolutions are emotions, not ideology. Ideologies come to replace them. Revolt comes first. A revolt directed against all ideologies in the end.

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We discussed this interview on the episode Yegor Letov and the National Bolsheviks