Split in DPNI

In mid-May 2008, a split occurred in the Movement Against Illegal Immigration.

Externally the event looks like this:

On May 17, 2008, at a meeting of the Central Council of the DPNI, Vladimir Basmanov resigned from the post of coordinator of the Central Council, the Central Council itself announced self-dissolution, and for the first time his brother Alexander Belov (Potkin) was officially appointed “head of the DPNI.”

The motivation for these personnel decisions was not officially announced. However, in the “Address to Companions,” the new/old head of the organization, A. Belov, stated that DPNI must transform: “In my opinion, it’s time to take advantage of the conjuncture of the political situation. A springboard for the emergence of a new nationalism has been created, we must seize it. Therefore, DPNI must transform, to become a new force that will offer new ideas and new forms of activity" [hereinafter in quotations the grammar of the original is preserved - ed. ].

What exactly the movement should transform into was not specified, but from the context of the address it is clear that the organization’s leaders see the construction of a certain party structure - with a charter and fixed membership - as a “new” form. According to the draft Charter of the movement , “a citizen joining DPNI submits to the nearest DPNI unit in the region of his residence (to the head of the unit) a personal written application and a questionnaire in the established form. After submitting such an application, the person joining DPNI becomes a candidate for DPNI participants and is attached to the primary branch of DPNI ( outbreak) located on the territory of the subject of the Russian Federation in which the citizen permanently or primarily resides"

It was the desire to officially record all participants in the movement, and even with the provision of personal data, that, according to some information, provoked a split. (It is alleged, in particular, that when registering members of the DPNI, there was an alleged desire to collect passport data, but we were unable to find evidence of this. The organization’s website contains a questionnaire recording membership, in which it is required to indicate the full name, postal address of residence, and the maximum number of contacts ). Some DPNI participants see the real cause of the conflict as a clash of personal ambitions in the leadership of the organization (it is not entirely clear - between brother leaders or between someone else, including, possibly, influential regional activists), and the struggle for autocracy.

It is also not entirely clear whether the organization is talking about acquiring a legal entity (until now DPNI has refused registration on principle, demonstrating a lack of political ambitions). There is only evidence of attempts to register DPNI cells as regional public organizations.

The fact of the split is, of course, not reflected on the organization’s website, but the DPNI forum is actively discussing the possibility of overcoming the split through a conciliation commission (however, the participants in the discussion themselves do not seem inclined to compromise).

The start of preparations for the All-Russian Congress of the DPNI has been announced, which should streamline the organizational structure and resolve issues of managing the organization. One way or another, the period of growth of DPNI as a network structure, due in part to precisely this structural feature, has apparently exhausted itself. And at the congress we should expect approval of some structural changes.

Based on materials from right-wing radical sites, blogs and forums

Sources

• There was a split in DPNI // Lenta.ru. 2008. May 23.