The Seeds of Fascism in Russia
By Vasily Andreev
A fascist movement has existed in Russia in various forms
for approximately ten years. This year, the "brown plague"
began to spread to Moscow State University, which is renowned
for its liberal traditions. On January 30, 1996, approximately
ten students from the history department of Moscow State
University held a party "for their narrow circle" to celebrate
the 63rd anniversary of Adolph Hitler's coming to power in
Germany. At the party, they announced the creation of a
Nazi-style student movement called the Russian Liberation
People's Movement (ROND). This was the name of extremist group
established by Russian emigrants in Germany in the 1930s, of
whom the student Nazis consider themselves the successors.
The appearance of radical nationalist student groups is a
result of the spread of nationalist ideas among Russian youth,
which reflects the general shift toward the right by the
Russian general public. Such groups have appeared not only at
Moscow State University, but in some twenty other universities
in Russia -- primarily in Moscow and St. Petersburg.
In the 1960s and 1970s, alongside the democratically
oriented wing of the Soviet dissident movement, a nationalist
wing also took shape. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, when
the democratic movement emerged and began to develop rapidly,
however, the nationalists faded into the "shadows." It was not
until after August 1991 that they raised their heads. Until
that time, the small and scattered national-patriotic groups
were unnoticeable in the stormy sea of democratic activism.
The revival (I use the term advisedly) of Russian nationalism
is a consequence of the general decline in the democratic
movement in the country and the formation of a well-structured
opposition to the course formulated by Yeltsin and Gaidar.
After the collapse of the USSR and the beginning of radical
economic reform, two trends have formed in the opposition
camp: a Communist trend and a nationalist trend. The
contemporary Russian national-patriotic movement therefore can
in no way be called a "child of perestroika." In order
to reach its present state, this movement had to pass through
a forty-year period of development.
The ideology of Russian nationalists is based on the
following three basic points:
· the "inherent superiority" of ethnic Russians in the
country's political, economic, and cultural life;
· the new Russia's dominant role in the world;
· and the existence of a worldwide plot against the Russian
state and its people.
Some nationalist groups propose resolving the country's
national problem by "expelling all aliens, i.e., non-Russians,
from the country's social life" (a quote from the program of
the Russian National Unity Party led by A. Barkashov). Others
propose that the ethnic groups which constitute the population
of the Russian Federation should be represented proportionally
in the country's power structures. A similar idea is currently
part of the program of the Party of Russian Nationalists, the
National Front party and a number of other nationalist
parties.
Modern "Eurasians" -- such as writer A. Prokhanov, essayist
A. Dugin, and other proponents of the doctrine of Russia's
particular destiny in light of her position between Europe and
Asia -- have a great deal to say about the leading role of the
"new Russia" in the future of the world. More radically
disposed nationalists speak of Russia as the future "savior of
the white race from an invasion of the yellow and black
races." Among those involved in the "plot against Russia," the
nationalists name the traditional suspects among the extreme
Russian right: "Yids," "Masons," and a "new world government"
which rules the entire planet under orders issued by
Jewish-controlled banks. The majority of contemporary Russian
nationalist organizations profess nothing but the traditional
set of dogmas described above; their inability to add anything
new is testimony to the fact that the rightist opposition does
not have a clear vision of its cause or its ultimate goals.
As far as tactics of political struggle are concerned,
Russian nationalist parties do not differ radically from one
another. Their arsenal of political methods includes
ostentatious street marches and rallies (the real virtuosos at
organizing such parades are Dmitry Vasiliev, a leader of
Pamyat, and A. Ivanov-Suzarevsky, a leader of the
People's Nationalist party). However, the majority of
contemporary nationalist organizations limit their activities
to holding small, closed meetings for a narrow circle of
supporters.
It is precisely the rightist youth organizations of this
sort that are developing rapidly today. At present, the ROND
student group is rapidly gaining political capital by relying
on young people who aspire to join the political elite. In
less than a month, the numerical strength of ROND doubled.
This result can primarily be attributed to ROND's rejection of
political extremism in its program documents and its
definition of its paramount task as the study of the history
and ideology of nationalism in Russia and throughout the
world, and the elaboration of a common doctrine for Russian
ultrarightists. By joining ROND, students do not fear for
their career, public ostracism, or prosecution under the law.
The "National Front" party led by Ilya Lazarenko was
established in the fall of 1994. The program of this
organization calls for authoritarian rule (by a leader
responsible to the people) to be established in Russia and
reversion to a planned economy. "National Front" members do
not number more than 20 activists, but there are a
considerable number of sympathizers. The activities of the
party boil down to holding numerous meetings, primarily timed
to mark the anniversaries of important events in the history
of the Nazi party.
The Russian National Union, led by Aleksei Vdovin and
Konstantin Kasimovsky, is also a small organization. However,
this organization has a powerful printing infrastructure (it
publishes the newspaper Shturmovik and the magazine
Natsiya) and its own video studio. The Russian National
Union often holds rallies -- small but obstreperous -- in
support of the Bosnian Serbs, Saddam Hussein, or the white
population of South Africa. The leaders of the organization
have extensive connections with ultraright organizations in
the West. During the Duma elections, the Russian National
Union, together with the People's Nationalist Party (led by A.
Ivanov-Sukharevsky), tried to create an election bloc named
"Russian Action." After the attempt failed, the Union
nominated several candidates in single-member districts of
Moscow. Some of these candidates were (for various reasons)
refused permission to register, while those who did register
failed to win the elections. Thus no one from the Russian
National Union managed to enter the Duma.
The "Werewolf Legion," an extremist organization led by
Igor Pirozhok, is composed primarily of young people from
fifteen to twenty years of age. This organization sticks to
the German pattern of Nazism. It is not involved in political
activities; instead, its members devote much attention to
combat training and staging terrorist acts. They have
committed a series of terrorist acts against religious sects,
as well as against meetings of the Democratic Union and
Anpilov's Russian Communist Workers party. They were also
planning to stage terrorist acts in movie theaters where
"Schindler's List" was playing. At this moment, the majority
of "Werewolf Legion" leaders are being prosecuted on murder
charges for having killed a member of their organization. All
of them are facing lengthy imprisonment. Nevertheless, the
organizational network of "Werewolf Legion" has generally been
preserved. As soon as the leaders return from prison, the
group may quickly come back to life.
Unlike these youth groups, which are growing, nationalist
parties which have existed for a long time are now in a state
which can be described as protracted decline. The oldest
association of Russian nationalists, the Pamyat
National Patriotic Front led by Dmitry Vasiliev, has almost
vanished from the political scene. Having been fairly active
from 1985 to 1987, Pamyat was plagued by a series of
splits in the subsequent three years, as a result of which it
lost up to 80 percent of its members. The organization has yet
to recover. In spring 1995, Dmitry Vasiliev made an indecisive
attempt to return to politics, when, together with a group of
his cohorts, he attended the organizational conference of the
above-cited "Russian Action" election bloc, which was held on
the premises of the Komsomolets movie theater. However,
his attendance ended up in a pointedly demonstrative
withdrawal of the Pamyat group from the hall.
Pamyat has not appeared in Russian politics since that
time.
The general crisis suffered by the nationalist movement in
Russia has not left the LDPR of Vladimir Zhirinovsky
untouched. Unlike other rightist parties, the LDPR is not
rooted in the Orthodox-Monarchist movement -- the common
tradition of the "old" nationalist parties. Neither does the
LDPR subscribe to the doctrines of Western ultrarightists. The
LDPR can thus be characterized as a populist-nationalist
party, a party that uses nationalist slogans only because they
are popular with a certain part of the population, for
example, residents of Russia's border regions. In the last
State Duma elections, the LDPR received approximately half the
number of votes than it had received in the 1993 elections.
This dramatic decline in popularity is largely the result of
Zhirinovsky's failure to coordinate organizational work within
the party, and his failure to establish closer connections
between the party and the general public. In addition,
Zhirinovsky has always flatly rejected the idea of cooperating
with other nationalist organizations. These factors may result
in Zhirinovsky's defeat in the upcoming presidential election.
Once strong, the National-Republican party led by Nikolai
Lysenko (notorious for his scandalous acts in the State Duma,
such as vandalizing a Ukrainian flag and punching Father Gleb
Yakunin, a democratically oriented priest), split into two
separate parties in late 1994. Each of the two successor
parties -- one led by Lysenko, the other by Yuri Belyaev --
claims the name "National-Republican Party of Russia." The
split resulted in the Lysenko group's failure in the Duma
elections of December 17, 1995. Moreover, other rightist
parties have refused to support Lysenko as the nationalists'
common presidential candidate. At the moment, his group is
leaning towards supporting Boris Yeltsin, while Yuri Belyaev's
group is leaning towards Gennady Zyuganov.
The Russian National Unity party led by Aleksandr
Barkashov, which emerged from Dmitry Vasiliev's Pamyat,
has been unable to recover from the consequences of having
been too actively involved in the events of October 1993. In
fall 1993, the Russian National Unity was forced to go
underground. Not until the 1994 amnesty did the party become
legal again. During this period (1993-1994), several RNU
members were arrested and attempts were made to arrest a
number of others, including Barkashov. Following legalization,
Russian National Unity entered a period of internal discord --
a tradition of the "old" parties of this type. A raid by
unidentified assailants on RNU headquarters and Barkashov's
public apology to Jews and Caucasians served to promote the
process of the disintegration of the RNU. Barkashov's apology
strongly discredited the RNU in the eyes of other
nationalists. The organization did not take part in the 1995
State Duma elections and to date has made no declaration of
its participation in the presidential election.
All Russian nationalists without exception have long been
in favor of creating a single, all-Russian, ultrarightist
movement. However, this task has yet been realized. Not a
single viable purely nationalist coalition has been
established since the collapse of the USSR. On the eve of the
1995 State Duma elections, an attempt was made to establish an
election bloc comprised exclusively of ultrarightists: the
"Russian Action" bloc, which embraced members from the Russian
National Union, People's Nationalistic Party, and a number of
other, smaller groups. However, this bloc failed to develop
into a full- fledged electoral bloc for organizational
reasons. The remaining ultrarightists were forced to look for
allies among the non-nationalist opposition. Today, Russian
ultrarightists have also failed to come to terms regarding a
common presidential candidate. To date, the nationalists'
efforts to unite have produced the following major results. A
number of parties belonging to the second, "old" group of
nationalist organizations have developed a desire to ally
themselves with "young" nationalist organizations. The desire
of "old" nationalistic parties to strengthen themselves by
allying themselves with younger organizations of this sort is
probably the result of the older leaders' preoccupation with
organizational work and internal fighting, which prevents them
from finding a way to appeal to the broad public. They want
the "younger" groups to do this job. In addition, the leaders
of the "old" groups plan to use their "young comrades" as
manpower for their personal guard units and military
formations.
Consolidation along these lines will hardly do the
nationalists any good. In the first place, a number of
organizations are being left out of the alliances now being
established. Secondly, alliances of this kind will not
overcome existing intra-party conflicts. Instead of
confrontation between individual parties, now there will be
confrontation between coalitions. Let us recall the term
"left-right opposition" invented during the Stalin era. At
that time, the term was used to describe a bloc (which never
existed) composed of representatives from the left wing
(mainly associates of Trotsky) and the right wing (Bukharin
men) who united for the common cause of fighting against the
Bolshevik mainstream.
The present situation of the Russian right-wing opposition,
however, gives this artificial term genuine political content.
As a matter of fact, the Communists and the nationalists have
long attempted to unite into a common opposition bloc. The
ideological basis for such a union has long been in
preparation. Significantly, both the Communists and the
nationalists have willingly made concessions to each other in
the field of ideology. In 1993, Gennady Zyuganov stated that
roots of Russian communism should be sought not in Western
Marxism, but in Orthodox Christianity and the Russian
collective (obshchina). On the other side, the
well-known contemporary right-wing ideologist A. Yeliseev has
conducted a campaign against the development of capitalism in
Russia for nearly two years in the pages of various
publications. Another nationalist ideologist, A. Shiropayev,
wrote a long article devoted to Russian national-socialism
that was published in the magazine Heritage of the
Ancestors. In characterizing Russian national socialism,
Mr. Shiropayev does not use the Nazism of Hitler, but the
socialism of Stalin as the model. The programs of nearly all
the notable nationalist groups contain more or less radical
anti-capitalist rhetoric.
The only politician who has made a practical attempt to
unite Communist and nationalist components within a single
party is the writer Eduard Limonov. On May 1, 1993, Limomov
issued an "Order to Establish a National-Bolshevik Front."
Currently, he is the leader of the National-Bolshevik party.
According to Mr. Limonov, the essence of national Bolshevism
is combining the most extreme forms of social protest with
radical national resistance. In 1993, Limonov's party was
labeled "red-brown," a term that has been used to characterize
all Communist-nationalist alliances that have emerged since
that time. In practice, however, all attempts to unite the two
major opposition camps have had little success. Two coalitions
of this kind were established in 1992: the National Salvation
Front (headed by Ilya Konstantinov) and Russian National
Assembly (led by Aleksandr Sterligov). Both groups embraced
nearly all the prominent figures of both the left and right
opposition. However, by early 1993 the majority of the
rightists withdrew from the National Salvation Front and
Russian National Sobor, explaining that in both associations,
Russian nationalism had been replaced by Soviet patriotism.
Recently, some nationalists have opted to support Gennady
Zyuganov for president, including Yuri Belyaev and Sergei
Baburin (leader of the Russian All-People's Union, a moderate
organization). The remaining nationalists have opted to
support Boris Yeltsin, a decision which was made at a recent
conference. Unexpectedly, the idea to support Boris Yeltsin
for president was advanced by Eduard Limonov. The initiative
has been welcomed by part of Lysenko's supporters and by
members of a number of other nationalist organizations. D.
Vasiliev has given his formal agreement to support Boris
Yeltsin for president.
Thus we can only conclude that Russia's ultrarightists are
seeking to ally themselves with those who enjoy real political
influence in Russia. In this context, supporting Boris Yeltsin
is a purely tactical move (the rightists are seeking to
improve their own position by taking advantage of the sympathy
of a considerable portion of the Russian population for the
incumbent president), while their alliance with Zyuganov has,
from nationalists' viewpoint, more far-reaching aims.
Nevertheless, in the long run, an alliance between the
Communists and the nationalists will not be of any real use to
the latter. Those nationalists who have opted to support the
Communists (as well as those who have opted to support Boris
Yeltsin) will be doomed to play a secondary role; Gennady
Zyuganov's party has its own, powerful organizational
structure and is not much in need of assistance from the
ultrarightists.
As far as the more distant future is concerned, an alliance
of these two major opposition forces will hardly be stable.
The current anti-capitalist rhetoric of the nationalists is
definitely a trick designed to attract part of the Communist
electorate. The Communists will not reconcile themselves to
this loss and will have no choice but to fight the
nationalists. In the near future, the crisis of the Russian
nationalist movement will become further aggravated. The
bankruptcy of their chosen tactics for the presidential
elections and the collapse of their alliances with interim
partners will serve to hasten the disintegration of the
right-wing as a whole and will prompt new splits in individual
parties (with the possible exception of the LDPR). Given that
no realistic path to overcome their crisis is foreseeable, the
role of nationalists in Russian political life will diminish
further.
Translated by Aleksandr Kondorsky
Vasily Andreev is a free-lance journalist specializing
in national issues.
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