Vladimir Avdeyev And The Russian Revival Of Racial Science

[Adapted from Kevin MacDonald’s Foreword to Raciology–Available on both Amazon and Lulu–by Vladimir Avdeyev]











Several themes recur throughout Raciology.






[Introduction to The Foundations of the 19th Century ]



Naturally, the idea that Whites had superior traits went along with eugenic ideas of racial betterment. In the words of German racial theorist Hans F. K. Gunther, quoted by Avdeyev, the question is “whether we have enough courage to prepare a world for future generations, [by creating a race] that has purged itself in racial and eugenic terms.”


Undoubtedly, one may lead our race to such an ascent and flowering like it has never achieved before. But if we lose heart, our Nordic race will utterly die. … Before us stands the greatest task of history.


Avdeyev expresses the fundamental goal of eugenics as follows:


Compare American writer Lothrop Stoddard, writing in 1920:






Eugen Fischer:


And finally, Otto Reche, writing in 1936:




My view is that there is a strong empirical basis for this suite of traits, and that ultimately these traits, particularly moral idealism and science, are the psychological manifestation of individualism as a response to selection pressures in the far north. As Avdeyev notes:

…the home of the Nordic race may be located in the zone of a cool and moist climate, abundant with clouds of fog, in which water vapor is retained in the air [absorbing ultra-violet rays]. In this climate there should be strong and frequent fluctuations of temperature.

I first became aware of the idea that natural selection in the north was responsible for the unique traits of Europeans by reading Fritz Lenz, whose work is reviewed in Raciology. Lenz, like several modern theorists (e.g., Richard Lynn and J. Philippe Rushton), gives major weight to the selective pressures of the Ice Age on northern peoples. He proposed that the intellectual abilities of these peoples are due to a great need to master the natural environment, resulting in selection for traits related to mechanical ability, structural design, and inventiveness in problem solving (what psychologists term “performance IQ”). He argued that Jewish intelligence, in contrast, was the result of intensive social living (what psychologists term “verbal IQ”).

There is in fact good evidence that in general intelligence is linked to mastering the natural environment (see here), and this is particularly the case among Northern peoples.

Lenz argued that over the course of their recent evolution, Europeans were less subjected to between-group natural selection than Jews and other Middle Eastern populations. Because of the harsh environment of the Ice Age, the Nordic peoples evolved in small groups and have a tendency toward social isolation rather than cohesive groups. This perspective does not imply that Northern Europeans lack collectivist mechanisms for group competition, but only that these mechanisms are relatively less elaborated and/or require a higher level of group conflict to trigger their expression.

Under ecologically adverse circumstances like the Ice Ages, adaptations are directed more at coping with the adverse physical environment than at competing with other groups. In such an environment, there would be less pressure for selection for extended kinship networks and highly collectivist groups. Ethnocentrism would be of no importance at all in combating the physical environment.

Europeans are therefore less ethnocentric than other groups—which makes them susceptible to being subverted by groups with a strong sense of in-group solidarity. Individualist cultures show relatively little emotional attachment to in-groups. Personal goals are paramount, and socialization emphasizes the importance of self-reliance, independence, individual responsibility, and “finding yourself.”

Individualists have more positive attitudes toward strangers and out-group members. They are also more likely to behave in a pro-social, altruistic manner to strangers. People in individualist cultures are less aware of in-group/out-group boundaries and thus do not have highly negative attitudes toward out-group members. They often disagree with in-group policy, show little emotional commitment or loyalty to in-groups, and do not have a sense of common fate with other in-group members.

Opposition to out-groups occurs in individualist societies, but the opposition is more “rational” in the sense that there is less of a tendency to suppose that all of the out-group members are culpable. Individualists form mild attachments to many groups, while collectivists have an intense attachment and identification to a few in-groups (see Harry Triandis, Individualism and Collectivism).


Cultural anthropologists have located European groups as part of what is termed the North Eurasian and Circumpolar culture area. This culture area derives from hunter-gatherers adapted to cold, ecologically adverse climates. In such climates there is pressure for male provisioning of the family and a tendency toward monogamy because the ecology did not support either polygyny or large groups for an evolutionarily significant period.

The historical evidence shows that Europeans, and especially Northwest Europeans, were relatively quick to abandon extended kinship networks and collectivist social structures when their interests were protected with the rise of strong centralized governments (see here, p. 21ff). There is indeed a general tendency throughout the world for a decline in extended kinship networks with the rise of central authority. But in the case of Northwest Europe this tendency quickly gave rise well before The Industrial Revolution to the unique European “simple household” type. The simple household type is based on a single married couple and their children. It contrasts with the joint family structure typical of the rest of Eurasia in which the household consists of two or more related couples, typically brothers and their wives and other members of the extended family.

These cultures are characterized by bilateral kinship relationships which recognize both the male and female lines, suggesting a more equal contribution for each sex as would be expected under conditions of monogamy. There is also less emphasis on extended kinship relationships and marriage tends to be exogamous (i.e., outside the kinship group). This tendency toward exogamy, combined with relative lack of ethnocentrism, could account for the tendency for genetic barriers between Nordics and others to break down over time and a general decline in the population, a point noted by several of the writers mentioned by Avdeyev.

In some of my own recent writing I have attempted to account for the Nordic tendencies toward idealism and principled morality as also a result of selection pressures for individualism. In collectivist cultures, the standard of morality is what is good for the group as seen, for example, in the celebrated phrase “Is it good for the Jews?” Judaism is a highly collectivist culture in which the needs of individuals are subordinated to the needs of the group.

In individualist cultures, on the other hand, there is a tendency to moral universalism where morality is defined not as what is good for the individual or the group, but as an abstract moral ideal—e.g., Kant’s moral imperative: “Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law.”

Individualism implies an equality of interest—that everyone has interests but no one has a privileged moral position. Arguments on morality therefore must necessarily seek an abstract sense of morality, independent of the interests of an individual or the group.

Moral idealism is a powerful tendency in European culture, particularly since the 17th century apparent, for example, in the German idealist philosophers and the American transcendentalists. Universalist moral ideals are erected and then steps are taken to achieve the moral vision by changing the world, often accompanied by a great deal of moral fervor (see here). The anti-slavery movement in England in the 18th and 19th centuries is paradigmatic.[1] This pursuit of moral ideals accounts for some of the dynamism of Western history.

As noted, European culture descended from northern hunter-gatherers. Another way to conceptualize this is that Western groups retained their tendencies as hunter-gatherers longer than the other main culture areas, particularly the Middle Old World culture area that characterizes the rest of Eurasia (see Footnote 3). Christopher Boehm argues persuasively that hunter-gatherer bands are not based tightly on kinship but rather consist mainly of non-family members, thus predisposing toward individualism. These groups are egalitarian “moral communities” where decision making is by consensus and maintaining one’s reputation is key to successful group living.

The analogy with the contemporary world is obvious. The entire edifice of Political Correctness is framed as a moral in-group. Every attempt is made to shame and ostracize those who, for example, oppose massive non-White immigration or believe that Europeans, like other peoples, have legitimate interests in defending their territories. Labels such as “racist” function to define moral in-groups. All of the intellectual and political movements discussed in The Culture of Critique subjected to West to moral critique where dissenters are not just factually or theoretically wrong but evil.

Thus the moral universalism characteristic of individualism is a liability in the struggle with other groups. Individualists are prone to acting against their own people on behalf of a moral principle—as in the American Civil War where a great many Yankees were motivated to go to war against the South in order to eradicate slavery as a moral evil. Such people place their moral ideals above ties of racial kinship.

Here is U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens expressing a typical sense of moral idealism common among Europeans:


After Stevens: What Will the Supreme Court Be Like without Its Liberal Leader? By Jeffrey Toobin, The New Yorker, March 23, 2010.

Ideas are worth fighting for—but Stevens has no interest in advancing the cause of White people as a racial kinship group. He idealizes non-White Filipinos fighting alongside Whites to secure a set of principles. He is not concerned about his race—presumably because he thinks that what’s important is that certain ideas will continue to guide the country even if (as seems likely) people like him are fated to become a small minority of the country. These ideas are more important than the racial composition of the country.

There is an obvious sense in which such moral idealism can be fatally maladaptive. In the contemporary world of Political Correctness defined by the Cultural Marxist Left, moral ideals incompatible with the interests of European-derived peoples are constantly trumpeted by elites in the media and academic world. Such messages fall on fertile ground among European peoples, even as other races and ethnic groups continue to seek to shape public policy according to their perceptions of self-interest. The European proneness to moral idealism thus becomes part of the ideology of Western suicide.

Similarly, science is an outgrowth of individualism because it implies that scientists are independent researchers not influenced by allegiance to an in-group or commitment to religious dogma. Scientists, like individualist moral actors, adopt a disinterested intellectual stance in which they independently evaluate evidence and are not influenced by an in-group affiliation such as their race or ethnic group. Real science assumes that groups of scientists that form around particular ideas (e.g., the theory of evolution in biology) are maximally permeable and highly subject to defection when the empirical data do not support previously held views.

On the other hand, in the Jewish intellectual the movements reviewed in The Culture of Critique, intellectual endeavor had strong overtones of ethnic group solidarity, as individual participants could always count on others to hold similar views and to present a united front against any unwelcome data. As in the case of Boasian anthropology, “truth” could be manufactured to meet the goals of the group and without any connection to the real world. This “truth” could then be disseminated from the most prestigious academic and media organizations, giving it an air of scientific respectability and a huge influence on the public.

Avdeyev makes brief reference to how Jewish identity influences the views of Jewish scientists when they discuss race. Regarding the views of A. I. Yarkho that racial instinct has been lost among humans, he notes

It is particularly amusing to hear through the mouth of “God’s chosen” people that incontrovertible racial and species solidarity is considered anti-Semitism …. The very principle of Zionism is built on the racial solidarity of the Jews.

He also mentions a need in recent times to defend Russian racial anthropology against the view, common in the West, that there are no races. In doing so, he makes it clear that his main opponents are Jews:

With authentic Russian patience and quick good sense, a convincing answer was given to the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of those same tailors and tavern-keepers [i.e., typical Jewish occupations in the Russian Pale of Settlement of the 19th century].

Although the current state of anthropology in the West is far from monolithically Jewish, the strong influence of Franz Boas and his tightly-compacted group of Jewish race-deniers continues to have a strong influence. Anthropology as well as other fields in the social sciences and humanities are best described as “tribal moral communities”—communities based not on science but on a shared moral vision and unified by the view that research on race and race differences must be suppressed at all costs.






