ABSTRACT
Western opinion is accustomed to associate the threat of fascism in Russia primarily with the name of Vladimir Zhirinovsky. Until recently, indeed, Zhirinovsky was generally regarded as the sole significant Russian fascist politician. The attention devoted to him reached a peak in the aftermath of his dramatic success in the Duma elections of December 1993, when his Liberal-Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) came in first, with about a quarter of the votes cast. Only toward the end of the 1990s did Zhirinovsky recede somewhat from center stage as his electoral performance sharply declined and other fascist figures and organizations, notably Alexander Barkashov and his Russian National Unity (RNU), started to attract coverage in the Western press.
