Besides the classic fascist segments that are mostly oriented towards youth cultures – the nazi music and skinhead scenes – there are also explicitly politically oriented groups. For a long time, Russian National Unity (RNE) was the most important grouping in this category, organising military-style training camps and with local grassroots groups active in many parts of Russia. At the end of the 1990s, however, the RNE shattered into several fragments. Its successors include Format 18, the National Socialist Society (NSO) and the National Socialist Movement – Slavic Union (SS). The nazi groups have become confident enough to swagger openly through the streets and put themselves about in bars and pubs. They focus on getting media attention by orienting themselves to well-known politicians who have emerged from the extreme right, and also towards Russian nationalist elements because they can help the nazi skins to climb out of the political and social margins and to become a factor in Russian politics. For example, in 2006, Dmitri Demuschkin, the leader of the Slavic Union, managed the leap from the internet to TV, grabbing attention through Nikolai Kuryanovich, a member of parliament for the far-right Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR), for whom he had been working as an assistant. Kuryanovich, subsequently expelled from the LDPR then joined the Slavic Union. Until December 2007, however, he remained an MP and used his status on behalf of his new political friends. |
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