Translated material
Far-right in Russia in 2012
Nationalists in Russia differ not only in terms of their degree of radicalism, but also in terms of which “nation” they are nationalists of. Finally, the Russian ultra-right has undergone a significant evolution over the eventful post-Soviet period. The subject of this article is a brief description of the state of the radical flank of the Russian nationalist movement during the period of mass protests at the turn of the presidencies of Dmitry Medvedev and Vladimir Putin.
2. The main actors of the far-right movement
3. The place of the ultra-right in society
1. Subject of study
The subject of the article is not nationalist tendencies in the political mainstream, as well as major national-populist projects, which in the 2000s should be considered the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia by Vladimir Zhirinovsky and which existed in 2003-2006. Rodina party of Dmitry Rogozin. However, the Motherland party has long since disappeared (although there is a chance for its revival), and the LDPR of Zhirinovsky has not been perceived in the Russian nationalist movement as a natural part of it since the mid-1990s. It turns out that speaking about the radical flank of Russian nationalism, we are talking about almost the entire movement that is usually called Russian nationalists, and which itself calls itself that.
The conspicuous reason for this dominance of radicals in the nationalist field is the lack of access to democratic mechanisms. With the exception of the Liberal Democratic Party, which has not been an ideologically motivated party for a long time, other nationalists were already worse and worse in the elections in the 90s, and during Putin's presidency they were completely excluded from the elections. The only exception was the Motherland party, which was created for the 2003 parliamentary elections as a project manipulated from above, but was quickly liquidated by the Kremlin as soon as it became clear that it was getting out of control and that radical elements were playing an increasingly prominent role in it. Already in 2007, by the next parliamentary elections, the united nationalist party "Great Russia" was not even registered, although the party members had some reason to count on this.
But no less, but rather even greater importance for the formation of the current radical image of Russian nationalism was played not by pressure from above, but by a decisive change in the basis of the movement at the turn of the 90s and 2000s. In place of a very motley in ideological and social terms, a mass of activists focused on agitation and party building, there came thousands of young Nazi skinheads, focused more on street violence [1] . It is these matured young people, as well as their young imitators, that now form almost the entire asset of the nationalist movement, although the skinhead subculture itself is already a thing of the past. And with such an asset, even those nationalist leaders who would like to act as moderate national populists cannot refrain from radical gestures. The maximum moderation that such politicians, and even then not all of them, manage to consistently maintain is the avoidance of literally neo-Nazi connotations.
It seems that it was the combination of these two factors - the constant pressure of the authorities and the dominance of the neo-Nazi masses, as well as the crisis of specifically Russian ideological currents of nationalism (Orthodox monarchism, Stalinist nationalism, neo-Eurasianism, etc.) back in the 90s that gave rise to that structure of Russian nationalism that we have to date [2] .
2. The main actors of the far-right movement
Autonomous neo-Nazis
As already mentioned, the basis of today's Russian nationalism is formed by numerous small (numbering 5-10 people and usually nameless) groups of neo-Nazi persuasion, focused on street violence. Their views are based on biological racism and are emotionally motivated by hostility towards any "foreigners", but first of all - towards people from the North Caucasus (anti-Semitism among the ultra-right remains practically mandatory, but rarely motivates attacks and generally no longer plays a system-forming role). The claims put forward by these "foreigners" are mainly related to the "cultural difference", which seems insurmountable. Economic arguments and even the theme of the connection of the Caucasus with terrorism remain in the background. In this sense, the young radicals, with their propensity for aggression, consider themselves the vanguard of the majority of the people, and not without reason [3] . They, with rare exceptions, positively regard historical fascism as the basis of their views, although they usually consider that they have “outgrown” historical fascism (which, combined with ethnic Russian nationalism, gives rise to a wide range of assessments of the Second World War).
This movement, which decisively replaced the national patriots of the 1990s about ten years ago, has not given rise to a qualitatively new and politically noticeable ideology since then. Their "white revolution" rhetoric [4] is suggestive of a new fascist movement in the sense of Roger Griffin [5] . But it seems rather that the majority of young neo-Nazis are simply groups of racist hooligans (but not necessarily from socially deprived strata of society [6] ), only partly influenced by ideological-fascist group-sculls [7] of various persuasions or radical exponents of one or another subcultural currents. In addition to traditional idols focused on near-football and / or skinhead subculture, here we should mention adherents of nazi-straight-edge, “people haters”, anarcho-Nazis, etc. (in particular, one can point to such group-puscles as several groups united by the self-name "NS / WP" or the group "Volnitsa"). It can be assumed that with the development of the Internet and the expansion of international contacts associated with this, new Western ultra-right trends are increasingly penetrating into the ultra-right environment: anti-Islamism, anti-globalism, anarchist tendencies, etc. (although the practical connections of the Russian ultra-right with the Western ones were and remain of little importance for the development of this sector of the movement, as well as all others). On the other hand, there has been a growing interest in Orthodoxy, which was previously practically absent in the neo-Nazi environment (neopaganism and indifference to religion dominate in it, and even sympathy for radical Islamism is occasionally found).
This environment, as a rule, is highly critical of public politics and nationalists who try to participate in it: they are suspected of opportunism, and often in collaboration with the secret services. Therefore, the number of events held by "political nationalists" in Moscow never exceeded a thousand people, and even many who came were critical of the organizers. But on the “Russian march”, which is considered a nationalist action, in Moscow in recent years, from 5 to 7 thousand people have gathered.
Of course, “political nationalists”, the main part of which is described below, still attract young people from this very environment to their activities. First of all, because they have almost no other base for replenishing the asset. But "political nationalists" still do not identify themselves with this milieu. Attempts to become precisely the political representation of Nazi skinheads and their modern successors (often referred to as Nazi autonomies) have also been made more than once. The last, worth mentioning, was the attempt of the Russian Obraz organization, which maintained ties with the neo-Nazi cult groups Blood & Honor (a Russian group) and United Brigades - 88. However, this attempt, which took place in 2007-09, failed.
Nazi-autonomists believe in the "white revolution" as a panacea, for them the racial criterion is not only above all, but everything else - religion, the desired form of government, the economic system and even the borders for Russia, etc. – is usually debated as minor details. Subcultural features (skinheads, straight edge, near-football, etc.) and musical tastes (Hatecore, Nazi-rap, etc.), of course, are very important, since the movement is youth (mainly from 16 to 20 years, although the proportion of those over 20 is gradually increasing), but they only rarely lead to open conflicts (it seems less often than just personal conflicts). It should only be noted that groups of near-football hooligans with racist views and neo-Nazi groups are generally two different environments, although there are many personal and even group intersections.
The "White Revolution" must be achieved through constant violence. In theory (as it has developed in the neo-Nazi environment in recent years), it should be directed against the “system”, that is, the authorities and law enforcement agencies (at the same time, people from law enforcement agencies or even active officers regularly come across among the militants), but put it into practice very problematic, and violence is still usually directed at representatives of any visual minorities (mainly people from Central Asia, then people from the Caucasus) and young anti-fascists (sometimes also LGBT activists and other ideological opponents) [ 8] .
"Political Nationalists"
"Political nationalists" after all the transformations of the 2000s can be basically classified by mid-2012 into three main types:
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the Russian movement and its allies;
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nationalist organizations of the 1990s, striving for renewal by attracting radical youth activists (the Russian All-People's Union, the Russian All-National Union, etc.);
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several different organizations calling themselves National Democrats (National Democratic Party, New Force Party, etc.).
Of course, there are organizations outside these categories, such as the Great Russia party, but they do not currently have a significant impact on the development of the ultra-right movement. All of them are trying to register as political parties on the basis of legislation liberalized in early 2012. But the results of these attempts are still poorly predictable.
All these organizations are opposed to the current government, they are ready to participate in the parliamentary opposition, but they do not shy away from non-parliamentary methods and are ready to support racist riots like those that took place in Moscow in December 2010. All of them do not call for violence, but support neo-Nazis convicted of racist violence, and find different ways to justify such violence.
The rhetoric of "political nationalists" increasingly includes elements of "civil nationalism", but mostly remains purely ethno-nationalist. Since 2010, they have been increasingly in favor of democracy (but, of course, not for the rights of minorities, but human rights are understood in a very primitive way), they claim to be not political outcasts, but part of the opposition movement. But at the same time, nationalists maintain their tough anti-Western and anti-liberal positions, using violence even against partners in protest rallies.
The “Russians” movement (trying to register as the “Party of Nationalists”) is a coalition of the Movement Against Illegal Immigration (DPNI, leaders - Alexander Belov, Vladimir Basmanov and others; banned by the court in 2011), “Slavic Force” (SS, successor to the Slavic Union , banned in 2010, the leader is Dmitry Demushkin), the National Socialist Initiative (NSI, the leader is Dmitry Bobrov), the Memory organization (the successor to the main organization of Russian nationalists of the late 80s, the leader is Georgy Borovikov), etc. . It is difficult to estimate the number of the movement, but, apparently, it is in the hundreds.
The "Russians" combine relatively legal rhetoric against "migrants", by which they mean all "ethnically alien" groups, with the undisguised neo-Nazism of the SS and the NSI. Many activists from coalition groups have been convicted of hate crimes, and even now, some of the Russians' activists appear to be prone to violence. The “Russians” inherit the DPNI, which was the main force of the nationalists in the second half of the 2000s (and even tried to become the basis of the national populist party, but failed), and still attract maximum attention from young activists. The intellectual activity of the movement is very low. Actually, the "Russians" are not fully legalized underground neo-Nazis.
Similar in many ways to the "Russians" are those old nationalist organizations that have experienced a revival at various points in the 21st century thanks to the recruitment of ultra-nationalist youth. Although the old organizations retain their own characteristics. Banned in 2011, the Russian All-National Union (RONS) by Igor Artemov is an explicitly Orthodox organization. "People's Cathedral" (the organization was created in 2005, but on the basis of the old ones; the leaders are Vladimir Khomyakov and Oleg Kassin, in the past one of the leaders of the Russian National Unity (RNU), the largest organization of Russian nationalists in the 90s), even directly supported by the ROC (although it is not by chance that the abbreviation of the name of this organization is the National Assembly). On the other hand, Sergei Baburin's Russian People's Union (RUS) combines elements of pro-Soviet nostalgia and sympathy for neo-Nazis, trying to combine old and young cohorts of activists.
Now the RONS is in decline, the People's Cathedral has not managed to become popular (perhaps in the ultra-right environment, close ties with the Russian Orthodox Church and a pro-government position rather hinder growth), but the ROS, which has restored the status of a political party, is on the rise and has attracted radical nationalists (Roman Zentsov, Ivan Mironov, Nikolai Kuryanovich).
The National Democrats are just beginning to build their movement as distinct from movements like those described above, and they don't always succeed. Both main national democratic projects - the National Democratic Party (NDP, leaders - Konstantin Krylov, Vladimir Tor, etc.) and the New Force party (leader - Valery Solovey) - distance themselves from neo-Nazism and from the "Russians", although the NDP is make it more difficult due to the previous long-term cooperation with DPNI.
But most importantly, the national democrats (and after them the “Russians” and other groups) oppose themselves to the so-called imperialists, that is, supporters of various ideologically motivated versions of Russian nationalism (whether they be Stalinists, Orthodox monarchists or Nazis), and insist on that the only criterion of politics is the interests of the ethnic Russian majority, and ethnicity is usually understood by blood. It also contrasts ideas about the ideal Russia as a Russian ethno-national state that competes with its own kind, and the idea of Russia as a messianic and absolutely unique empire (these latter ideas are called "civilizational nationalism" [9] ) . In contrast to the 1990s, the "imperials" of any kind no longer dominate Russian nationalism ("The People's Cathedral" is a vivid example of such a decline), retaining positions rather at the level of ideologists, but the intellectual level of the national democrats allows them to compete successfully on this as well. field.
Although the National Democrats also have enough radical youth, these organizations are more focused on representatives of the middle strata. The national democrats are trying in every way to leave the ultra-right sector proper, turning into national populists. And it can be assumed that they have more chances of successfully appealing to a wide range of xenophobic-oriented citizens than the too marginally behaving "Russians", but so far these chances have not been realized to any extent, and now the national democrats are a collection of small, several dozen people, local groups.
3. The place of the ultra-right in society
The ultra-right movement as a whole remains a marginal phenomenon in Russian politics. This, under the existing conditions, cannot be verified in elections for a long time, and sociological polls show only mass sentiments that are poorly converted into support for specific nationalist organizations. It can only be judged by the number of mass events. And here the ultra-right was clearly in the lead against the backdrop of a general decline in political activity. Until December 2011, the most massive political actions (counting only those in which participation was free and voluntary) were carried out by the Communist Party of the Russian Federation and nationalists, and the quantitative indicators of the Communist Party decreased, while those of the nationalists grew. The democratic and left (outside the Communist Party) opposition could not be equal to them. But even the most numerous “Russian march”, on November 4, 2011, gathered no more than 7 thousand people [10] , which is not so much an impressive event for a capital of more than ten million people, but any actions of the extreme right, in addition to the “Russian march” collected 5, 10 and even 20 times less The far-right movement has attracted attention with a huge number of hate crimes, but in the last few years the active work of the police has led to a sharp decrease in this level (even though it is still very high compared to other countries) [11] . As more and more neo-Nazi gangs are defeated (some account for dozens of dead), the subculture of violence is being destroyed. This gives hope that new age cohorts of radicals will not be as effectively drawn into this subculture as it was in the first 10-12 years of the new century, but so far - nothing more than hope.
The semi-underground state, the system of autonomous groups - all this gives the far right the opportunity to survive, but limits their opportunities. The riots on Manezhnaya Square in Moscow on December 10, 2010 were their incredible success: several thousand [12] young people chanted racist slogans and beat passers-by right next to the Kremlin, and even the OMON (riot police) could not disperse them. These events were the result of an as yet not fully understood confluence of various circumstances, and numerous attempts by the far right to repeat this success did not even give a remotely similar result.
The authorities, using authoritarian methods, do not allow ultranationalists to enter “big politics”, which creates a twofold effect: on the one hand, it is difficult for ultranationalists to agitate among ordinary citizens, on the other hand, nationalist-minded young people often prefer the underground. Over the 2000s, this effect has acquired its own stability, since even the core of legally operating organizations is formed from those who have grown politically underground, and organizations with such an asset are not able to effectively agitate among ordinary citizens. Therefore, the New Force tries to gather activists outside the usual nationalist groups, but it does not work well.
The exhaustion of their own resources was clear to many ultra-right after November 4, 2011, but just a month later, the beginning of mass protests gave new hope - to turn the protests into a nationalist direction (the left has similar hopes). For 7 months of the protest movement (by the time this article was written), the nationalists managed to actively participate in it [13] . Moreover, the significance of their participation was the higher, the less the protest actions involved new, previously not politicized, participants. Thus, in Moscow, the role of nationalists was insignificant (their participation reached its maximum on the march on February 4, 2012, but even then there were only 800-900 nationalists among several tens of thousands of people) and became noticeable only in the small Occupy movement in May-June . In the clashes with the police on May 6 in Moscow, the role of the ultra-right was also insignificant. In St. Petersburg, the influx of really new participants in the protest was less than in Moscow, and the role of nationalists, respectively, was greater, but even there the nationalists were perceived at protest rallies rather as a kind of "internal opposition". In general, it can be said that the far-right did not derive significant political dividends from the protests that began in December, in contrast to the liberal and left (apart from the Communist Party) opposition.
Nevertheless, there is a widespread opinion in Russian society that nationalism is a promising ideology, and this opinion is directly related to the fact that all topics related to ethnicity are perceived more and more painfully. At the same time, the opinion that the authorities do not solve the existing problems (which, of course, different groups of citizens understand differently) is becoming more and more widespread. The authorities, for their part, from time to time react to this massive bewilderment through populist declarations or the adoption of some isolated measures. Since it is the nationalists who have the greatest experience in speaking on ethnic topics, the language and conceptual range of nationalists greatly influence both the mainstream public discourse and the steps of the federal and other authorities [14] . However, the federal authorities may have their own reasons to cultivate, for example, anti-Western sentiments.
The federal course is slowly and unevenly, but shifting towards an ethno-nationalist policy, and this process has been going on for many years. The mass consciousness is also shifting. It is in this, and not in the mythical threat of "fascists coming to power", that the real influence of the far right lies. True, at the same time, representatives of the authorities often speak in the spirit of “civilizational nationalism”, opposing it to pure ethno-nationalism.
The federal authorities can actively cooperate with national populists such as Dmitry Rogozin, who headed the Rodina party and is now deputy prime minister. And after such people, their more radical followers are approaching power, but these followers do not have a chance to play an independent role. Even evolving to some extent towards the far right, the existing regime is not ready to share even a crumb of influence with them.
4. Lack of counter strategy
The ultra-right movement is understood in society as a symptom of oncoming nationalism, and this oncoming nationalism itself remains very vague, and the attitude of the majority towards it is rather ambivalent. In this situation, many seek (some actively, but most only occasionally) to construct their own, "acceptable" version of nationalism.
In 2011, it was possible to observe how a variety of actors - the President and the Prime Minister, some opposition (including liberal) politicians, the most moderate of the nationalists - gradually converged towards a model of a future Russia as a state with limited immigration and a strong assimilation policy, carried out not only in relation to immigrants, but also in relation to the "internal other" - to the representatives of the peoples of the North Caucasus. The contours of such a consensus were still extremely vague and it was impossible to say whether it would translate into a real ethno-policy, alternative to the ideas of the ultra-right [15] . But the winter wave of protests has dramatically changed the entire political agenda, and now there is even less chance that serious changes can occur in ethno-politics. And, consequently, the existing tension will only gradually increase.
It is also not yet known how tough the authorities will behave in the matter of registering new political parties, including nationalist ones. Most likely, a few less radical ones will be registered. In the future, this should affect the balance of forces within the ultra-right movement.
Ordinary citizens and participants in non-nationalist political and civil movements can be conditionally divided into two categories: some reject anything called nationalism, others are ready for some kind of dialogue with "moderate" nationalists, but imagine them differently or simply do not see them. The first category is rapidly declining as the extremely superficial Soviet internationalist and anti-fascist upbringing withers away, and as the sense of tension associated with ethnicity grows.
Public, and not police, opposition to the far right was based on two main elements: firstly, their behavior was condemned in terms of hate crimes and incitement, direct or indirect, to these crimes, and secondly, their views were branded as “fascist”. But gradually the basis of such opposition was eroded. First, the level of racist violence began to decrease, while “political nationalists” became more and more noticeable, seemingly not involved in violence and gradually learning to avoid literally inflammatory public statements. Secondly, Russian anti-fascism is based mainly on Soviet anti-fascism, which boiled down to the rejection of Hitlerism specifically, and then mainly for its anti-communism and external aggression, and not for racism and totalitarianism. Therefore, it was enough for the nationalists not to demonstrate a connection with Hitler, which "political nationalists" are getting better at, in order to appear "acceptable". Thirdly, mass dissatisfaction with "migrants" encourages us to see even in groups of ultra-right militants simply overly expressive young idealists - defenders of the Russian people. Fourth, one cannot fail to mention such a factor: the massive abuse of anti-extremist legislation has so discredited it in recent years that in the eyes of a part of the public, even quite legitimately persecuted groups (like DPNI) and characters (like Nikita Tikhonov, the murderer of lawyer Stanislav Markelov) began to call sympathy.
With the start of the protest movement in December 2011, it became clear that within its framework, anti-Putin sentiment is clearly more important than any disagreements, including disagreements with the far right (previously, this could be observed in the ranks of the Other Russia movement, led by Garry Kasparov and others). The organizers of the protest rallies systematically invited the leaders of the extreme right to the stage, even despite the extremely disloyal behavior of the latter.
We can say that now the development of the ultra-right movement is hampered primarily by internal problems, among which the main one is the marginal radicalism of most of the activists. And from the outside, this movement is to some extent limited only by police pressure.
[1.] On the Nazi skinhead movement in Russia, see Vyacheslav Likhachev. Nazism in Russia. M.: Center "Panorama", 2002. S. 108-136; Tarasov Alexander. Britological // Friendship of Peoples, 2000, No. 2; He is.
Skinheads in Putin's Russia: the latest trends // Russian nationalism in the political space. Moscow: Franco-Russian Center for the Humanities and Social Sciences, 2007, pp. 156-165; Shnirelman Victor. "Moscow street cleaners": skinheads, media and public opinion. M.: Academia, 2010. S. 63-152.
[2.] The ideological and organizational history of Russian nationalism from the period of Perestroika to 2010 was summarized by me in: Alexander Verkhovsky. The evolution of the post-Soviet movement of Russian nationalists // Bulletin of Public Opinion. 2011. No. 1 (107). pp.11-35.
[3.] Of course, mass ethno-xenophobia is not so radical, but in general it is directed in the same way. See for example: Nationalism in Russia // Levada Center. 2011. September 6 (http://www.levada.ru/26-09-2011/natsionalizm-v-rossii); VTsIOM survey data in the report of the Ministry of Regional Development: On measures to strengthen interethnic harmony in Russian society // Website of the Ministry of Regional Development. 2011. February (http://www.minregion.ru/activities/interethnic_relations/national_policy/505/902.html). pp. 15-17;
See also an interesting study by the Polytech agency, commissioned by the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation: Interethnic intolerance in the urban youth environment (in the wake of the events on Manezhnaya) // Website of the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation. 2011. April (http://www.oprf.ru/files/oprosmolodezh.pdf). pp. 48-49.
[4.] White - in a racial sense, not to be confused with the mass protests of late 2011 - early 2012, also often called the "white revolution".
[5.] Griffin Roger. The Nature of Fascism. London: Routledge, 1993.
[6.] Unfortunately, there are no fundamental studies on the social composition of the ultra-right movement. One can only notice that the parents of those who end up in the dock are most often representatives of the middle strata - small businessmen and officials, clerks, officers, etc.
[7.] This term was introduced in: Griffin Roger. From Slime Mold to Rhizome: An Introduction to the Groupuscular Right // Patterns of Prejudice. 2003. No. 37. Vol. 1. P. 27–50.
[8.] For more details about the views and practices of Nazi-autonomous organizations, as well as about the organizations that will be discussed later, see: Alperovich Vera. Thinking from the right // Website of the SOVA Center. 2011. October 31 (http://www.sova-center.ru/racism-xenophobia/publications/2011/10/d22894).
[9.] This concept was introduced in: Pain Emil. Russia between empire and nation // Pro et Contra. 2007. No. 3. The theme of "civilizational nationalism" is analyzed in detail by me in: Verkhovsky A. Decree. op.
[10.] 10 The organizers and even the police gave big numbers, but several employees of the SOVA Center independently counted no more than seven thousand people on the march.
[11.] This dynamic is explored in detail in the reports of the SOVA Center. See the most recent: Vera Alperovich, Alexander Verkhovsky, Natalia Yudina. Between Manezhnaya and Bolotnaya: xenophobia and radical nationalism and opposition to them in Russia in 2011 in Russia // Xenophobia, freedom of conscience and anti-extremism in Russia in 2011. M.: Center "Sova", 2012. S. 5-66; Statistics of crimes and punishments // Ibid. pp. 135-163 (also available: http://www.sova-center.ru/racism-xenophobia/publications/2012/02/d23739/).
[12.] The number 5 thousand is usually called. The nationalists themselves say - 10. But all the surviving videos rather suggest about 3 thousand participants.
[13.] See the events after the parliamentary elections on December 4, 2011 in the seasonal reports of the SOVA Center: Alperovich V., Yudina N. Winter 2011-2012: Ultra-right protest and party building // SOVA Center website. 2012. April 3 (http://www.sova-center.ru/racism-xenophobia/publications/2012/04/d24040/); They are. Spring 2012: Far-right on the streets, law enforcers on the Internet // Ibid. 2012. June 29 (http://www.sova-center.ru/racism-xenophobia/publications/2012/06/d24757/).
[14.] This process was described in detail by me in: Verkhovsky A. Modern discursive confrontation between Russian nationalists and federal authorities // Bulletin of Public Opinion. 2011. No. 4.
[15.] See about this ibid.
Sources
- Verkhovsky A. Far-right in Russia in 2012" // Website of the Ebert Foundation. 2012. October.