ABSTRACT
DURING THE early 1990s there were several indications that the far right was gaining ground in Russian politics. The success of Vladimir Zhirinovskii’s ultranationalist Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR) in the 1993 Russian parliamentary elections; the active involvement of the Russian National Unity (RNU), led by a ‘national socialist’,1 Aleksandr Barkashov, in the street violence against the troops supporting President Boris Yeltsin in the disbandment of the federal parliament in the autumn of 1993; the existence of some hundred or so violent and racist groups-all these led to speculation that a far-right government might come to power in Russia. So far, however, these predictions have not been fulfilled. Moreover, the electoral success of extreme right-wingers has been in decline since 1993. At the same time, the impact of right-wing extremism on Russian society remains visible. Although predictions of large-scale pogroms of the Jews did not materialize, assaults by right-wing extremists on people from the Caucasus, Central Asia and African countries, as well as the desecration of Jewish cemeteries and synagogues take place on a regular basis throughout the country. More importantly, this chapter argues that the main achievement of the far right is the contribution of its propaganda to the radicalization of political discourse in the country. This means that chauvinism, xenophobia, the idea that Russia is a victim of a conspiracy of external and internal enemies striving to weaken and even destroy her, are sometimes promoted by mainstream politicians in parliamentary debates and, on occasions, even inform government policies, particularly in the treatment of ethnic and/or religious minorities by local authorities. This chapter aims to analyse and explain the dynamics of the activities and the impact of the extreme right on Russian society. We will focus on the paradox of its relative unpopularity with the electorate, on the one hand, and its success nevertheless in ‘legitimizing’ the expression of a xenophobic and highly paranoid worldview, on the other.
