Factors of (de)radicalization of Russian nationalists in the 2000s

The radical nature of political groups and movements can be understood both in terms of attitudes and in terms of methods of action — used or advertised. Talk about radical views in relation to the entire movement of Russian nationalists is impossible, since it has always been very diverse in ideological terms. If you try to see it as a whole, one can say that its main part has always stood in more or less decisive opposition to the existing in post-Soviet Russia to the political order and to its constitutional foundations, no matter how they change. That's why the article will focus only on the radicalization of Russian nationalists in the second sense, in terms of actual or supposed methods actions. In this case, we will consider radical methods related to with the use of violence, including calls for its use. This not the only possible understanding of the radical nature of methods, but quite common, easy to discuss and very significant for the Russian nationalist movement.

Since we are going to talk about dynamics, it is necessary start with an important note. Of course, Russian nationalists are political movement or even political environment, and the composition of this environment very colorful in every way. This includes all age spectrum, although uneven: there is a visible deficit at middle ages. But if we mean more radical, that is, the more violent part of the movement, here the overwhelming the majority are young people - from middle and even younger adolescence up to about 25 years of age. And people like that age have, on average, two features: first, it is important emotionality (respectively, behavior is very variable), secondly, generations of radicals are replaced quickly, in just a few years. That's why recent events are more important than the long-term memory of the movement (although it is and even cultivated). As a result, youth and radical part of the movement reacts faster to various factors than the more moderate and age. Indeed, the practice of violence in Russian nationalism was transformed rather quickly.

In this article, we will first take a brief look at the dynamics the development of the movement and especially its radicalism in the sense of the attitude to violence, and then discuss factors that might explain just such a dynamic.

The history of far-right violence in a nutshell

If we describe the dynamics of violence as briefly as possible [1] , the uneven pace of change is visible - there are periods of qualitative changes, this around 2000, 2007-2009 and 2012-2014. First half of the 1990s was a time of great plans for violence rather than its actual use, but from the second half the big plans disappeared, but from below gradually there was a Nazi-skinhead, neo-Nazi wave of everyday violence, and directed against not the "anti-people regime", but directly against "ethnic enemies". Neo-Nazi violence experienced two peaks—at the beginning and in the second half of the zero years, and only at the second peak at least partly turned against the "system", and then in many respects in retaliation for the fact that the "system" finally began to actively catch and plant neo-Nazis. In parallel, on the basis of the same environment grew political movements, both neo-Nazi and those seeking to become from far-right to national-populist, but from violence at least partly distance themselves, and here the main example was Movement against illegal immigration (DPNI). New organizations of the "zero" years differed from the organizations of the 1990s also in that there are much fewer argued about various aspects of nationalism: the definition of "Russianness" form of government, religious priorities, etc., but focused on one point - on the idea of ​​ethnocultural homogeneity and, accordingly, the rejection of migration, both external and internal. In principle, the energy of former and current Nazi skins could thus be transformed into a political channel, relying on to mass migration phobia. But "political nationalists" actively interfered with from above, and, no less important, organizations of this type with their too radical activist base, they could not go beyond the stylistic framework of the "Russian march", unacceptable for the average citizen: no matter how badly this citizen treats migrants and in general to the "non-Russians", a crowd of hooligan youth with incomprehensible and suspicious symbolism frightened him away. Together, this led the movement to a crisis.

Meanwhile, large-scale criminal prosecution of real militant groups led after 2008 to a rapid drop in the level of violence [2] . In 2011-2013, the far right tried to get out of the situation, moving from backyard murders to forms of less brutal and violence that is usually safe for them (raids on migrant hostels etc.), but this form of radical action later became fall into decline. Was it a general decrease in activity in the ultra-right sector, or were greatly distracted by the events in Ukraine [3] .

The war in the Donbass, it would seem, gave from the spring 2014 is a rare chance to realize a craving for violence. It was implemented moreover, on both sides of the front line, but not so many at all [4] . And since then we have seen a constant process of deradicalization on the move: Violence is declining almost evenly (although 2021 was an exception), and a few really radical groups law enforcement officers now have time to defeat in the early stages [5] .

By the way, the decline in activity also affected those nationalist groups that fully support the policies of the Kremlin and, thus, cannot write off the lack of activity, including including the radical, on repression, as the opposition do nationalists. We see that groups such as NOD or SERB, visible to their political hooliganism in 2014-2015, then reduced activity, especially power, and the latter did not revive after February 24, 2022. However, after this date we have no we do not see any radical activation of nationalists of any kind. And the inflow far-right to the front in 2022 turned out to be an order of magnitude weaker than it was in 2014-2015 [6] .

Five factors of (de)radicalization

The decline of the far right is a complex phenomenon that we we cannot cover here, but actually deradicalization this sector, "glorious" for its tradition of violence, needs in explanation. To do this, just try to consider the main factors radicalization and how they worked for Russians far right in the 2000s.

The first factor is a specific ideology that gives special the meaning of violence. In this case, it was presented in full measure. White Power ideas inherent in both Nazi skinheads and grown-ups on their basis, political movements such as DPNI, from the very beginning rejected the diversity and complexity of the nationalist currents of the 1990s in favor of white racism as a simple and, moreover, universal answer to all questions. White Power authorized "direct action" that is, violence, and as a political tool for preparing the "white revolution”, and as a practice of personal self-improvement. The simplicity of these ideas and low, until the mid-2000s, the risk of going to jail when attacks on "foreigners" contributed to the involvement into the ideological violence of many people. At the beginning of the 2000s, these ideas were definitely gaining popularity, but how to further evaluate the dynamics the popularity of White Power is very difficult to determine. Scattered Observations allow us to say that now these ideas are noticeably less popular than ten or even five years ago, but at what point did their popularity become subside - before or after the beginning of the decrease in the level of violence is unknown.

The second, much discussed factor - socio-economic: complex, worsened or somehow else sharply changing social circumstances of families may contribute to the conversion young people to radical methods. It seems speculative plausible, although the mechanism of influence on young people is not so already clear. But most importantly, this factor in this case seems to be nothing at all. Yes, it seems that many of the Nazi skinheads and subsequent, no longer skinhead in style, fighting neo-Nazis were from relatively poor families, but not only of these [7] . At least a really strong correlation with standard of living Parents in these youth groups have not been identified. And obviously this correlation could not be higher than in apolitical street hooligan groups or in a related subculture football hooligans. The insignificance of this correlation is especially visible in the dynamics: the period after 1998 was characterized by economic growth and the growth of the welfare of the population, and it was these years that became the time explosive growth of racist violence, and after the crisis of 2008, violence, on the contrary, it began to decline - and so it went, despite the fact that the crisis has since been replaced by an upsurge, and then another crisis. Other abrupt changes in the social sphere, which could massively cause maladjustment of young people, all these years also did not exist.

The third important but usually overlooked factor - the general level of violence in society, the grassroots culture of violence, in which future members of radical groups may grow up. Here, of course, recognize that the level of violence in Russia is very high. And when we say that the number of violent hate crimes at the end of the 2000s years was incredibly high compared even with the peak values in previous periods in Europe, this indicator should first be normalized on the overall level of violence in the country. But assess the impact and this factor is still better in dynamics.

Most reliable compared to others homicide statistics are usually considered categories of crimes. Number of people killed in Russia has experienced two peaks since the early 1990s, of course coinciding with two Chechen wars, but then there was a rapid decline: roughly doubling every seven years, from over 30 killed per 100 thousand population in 2002 to less than five in 2020 [8] . The SOVA Center keeps a record of victims of hate crimes (of course, inaccurate and very incomplete, but we are now interested in the dynamics, and its these data can still be assessed, since the methodology for collecting them changed little over time) since 2004, so we don't know data on the first wave of Nazi skinhead terror in the very early 2000s. But since 2004 we have seen a sharp increase in the number of victims; quantity known to us killed increased by 2008 from 50 to 116, and then began to decline almost as rapidly. But only since 2015, when the level of racist violence has already seriously dropped and almost stabilized [9] , we can say that his attitude to the intensity of murders the country has also stabilized. That is, only when the wave neo-Nazi violence was brought down, the dynamics of this violence became possible at least approximately correlate with the dynamics of violence in general, and before that, other factors were clearly the main ones.

The fourth factor is the presence and accessibility of political alternatives to radical methods. The radicals themselves like to refer to this factor, but, of course, not only them: the authoritarian regime is definitely limits the possibilities of political activity, especially for radicals. But even with this factor, too, everything is not easy. Initially, in the 1990s, White Power and street violence were opposed I will not ban nationalists from politics (yes then and there was no such prohibition, although some obstacles existed), but the progressive failure of the policy of the "old nationalists". And in the first half of the 2000s, everything was still not so bad. with Political Opportunities: Let's Recall the Successes of the Old Rodina Party in 2003-2005, and DPNI continued to gain momentum. A real feeling of hopelessness of political participation came to the nationalists when in 2007 the project was destroyed from above large systemic nationalist party "Great Russia". But after This, we note, violence did not increase at all, but, on the contrary, the beginning decline.

And finally, the fifth factor of radicalization is revenge. This factor of a special kind, not associated with changes in society in general, but with motives of a subjective order, characteristic of specific activist environment. Revenge can be directed both against the authorities, that is, in response to repression, and against competing radical groups that clash with. The effect of this factor was clearly visible, especially in 2007-2009, when at the same time clashes with militant antifa (and to a lesser extent degree - with organized groups of Caucasian youth) and went mass arrests of far-right militants, which led to the multiplication of theorists and practitioners of attacks on the "system". Apparently, this factor has become the main reason for the fact that in 2008, against the backdrop of a decline that had already begun the general level of racist violence, the number of murders has increased markedly. Exactly in 2008-2009, according to the SOVA Center, the ratio of the number killed to the total number of victims of hate crimes was about 0.2 (and for some reason in 2014), while in others years - about 0.1 or even lower.

There is another interesting question, whether radicalizing action on the far right clear abuses by law enforcement agencies, including the use of torture. Radical Nationalists perceived themselves as being at war and did not really expect on procedural legality, but after all, even in war there are rules, and their too obvious violation can radicalize the movement. Alas, we do not have enough data to test this hypothesis.

One way or another, the decrease in the level of violence entailed to reduce the level of persecution for him. Approximately since 2011, criminal cases for violence have been replaced by cases for inciting hatred and other “extremist statements”, including often, at least in the first half of the 2010s, for appeals to violence. Judging by the numerous statements of Russian nationalists, criminal prosecution "for words", even if it did not lead to jail (and it usually happened), perceived in their environment as excessive. But in the general background reduction of violence, no radicalization out of revenge for this excess.

Thus, if we confine ourselves to these brief reasoning, we can assume that the radicalization of Russian nationalism from the second half of the 1990s until about 2007 driven primarily, if not exclusively, by the growth popularity of violent neo-Nazi ideology, and the subsequent deradicalization is due mainly to the successful repressive policies, although it cannot be ruled out that the decline of radical ideology. And, in addition to this, the decline in the level of ideological motivated violence is nevertheless associated with a general decrease violence in society. But other factors - as in radicalization, and in deradicalization—do not yet seem significant.

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[1] Read more I wrote about this in: Verkhovsky A. The dynamics of violence in Russian nationalism // Russia is not Ukraine: modern accents of nationalism. M. : SOVA Center, 2014. S. 32-61. URL: https://www.sova-center.ru/files/ books/ru14‑text.pdf (this material was created and distributed by the Russian a legal entity recognized as performing the functions of a “foreign agent”).

[2] All the necessary charts based on monitoring by the SOVA Center* can be found in last annual report on this topic: Yudina N. The state again took for Racist Violence: Hate Crimes and Countering Them in Russia in 2021 // SOVA Center. 2022. January 31. URL: https://www.sova-center.

en/racism-xenophobia/publications/2022/01/d45715 (this material was created and distributed by Russian

a legal entity recognized as performing the functions "foreign agent").

[3] I described the process of the general decline of those years in: Verkhovsky A. National radicals from Medvedev's presidency to the war in Donbass // Counterpoint. 2015. No. 2. URL: https://www.ponarseurasia.org/wp-content/uploads/attachments/verkhovsky_counterpoint2.pdf.

[4] Yudina N. (2015) Russian Nationalists Fight Ukrainian War. Journal on Baltic Security. P. 47-61. URL: https://web. archive.org/web/20150730024943/http://www.baltdefcol.org/files/files/journal/JOBS01.pdf. In Russian, this can be partially read in: Yudina N. Ultra-right passions in Ukraine // SOVA Center. 2014. September 15. URL: https://www.sova-center.ru/racism-xenophobia/publications/2014/09/d30505 (this material was created and distributed by a Russian legal entity, recognized as acting as a "foreign agent").

[5] As An example is an unsuccessful attempt to recreate in the early 20s previously destroyed NS/WP network structure: Suspects arrested in preparation for the assassination of Vladimir Solovyov // SOVA Center. 2022. 25th of April. URL: https://www.sova-center.ru/racism-xenophobia/news/counteraction/2022/04/d46180 (this material was created and distributed by a Russian legal entity, recognized as acting as a "foreign agent").

[6] Alperovich B. Two campaigns: anti-migrant and second Ukrainian. Public activity far-right groups, winter-spring 2022 // SOVA Center. 07/01/2022. URL: https://www.sova-center.ru/racism-xenophobia/ publications/2022/07/d46545 (this material was created and distributed by a Russian legal entity, recognized as acting as a "foreign agent").

[7] Good quantitative studies seem to be lacking. But, for example, the weakness of such a correlation interregional shown in: Myagkov M., Shchekotin EV, Goiko VL, Kashpur VV, Aksenova EA (2019) The Socio-Economic and Demographic Factors of Online Activities among Right-Wing Radicals. Studies of Transition States and Societies. Vol. 11. No. 1. P. 19-38.

[8] EMISS. State statistics. URL: https://fedstat.ru/indicator/31270.

[9] See mentioned report by N. Yudina.

Sources

• Verkhovsky A.M. Factors of the (de)radicalization of Russian nationalists in the 2000s // Sociodigger. 2022, volume 3, issue 7 (19). pp. 45-50.