ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses a late development of the utmost importance a split that took place in September 2000 within Russia's largest fascist organization, the Russian National Unity (RNU). In April 2000, President Vladimir Putin visited Krasnodar and had a private meeting with Nikolai Kondratenko, governor of the Krasnodar Territory. In the run-up to the presidential elections of March 26, 2000, several leading members of nationalist organizations, including Sergei Baburin, Yuri Belyaev, Nikolai Lysenko, and Vladimir Popov, backed Putin with various degrees of enthusiasm. On September 12, 2000, Alexander Barkashov issued a communique in the name of the Central Council of the RNU in which he accused the RNU's regional coordinator, Oleg Kassin, of conducting a campaign to discredit him, denounced Kassin as a traitor, and excluded him from the ranks of the RNU forever. October 13, Kassin and several of the regional RNU leaders announced the creation of a new organization, to be called "Russian Rebirth".
