the new russian nationalismThis does not mean that the fans are incapable of acting as an
organised force – also in relation to incidents that the nation-
alists and their sympathisers attribute to ‘ethnic criminality’.^10
During 2011, however, radical nationalists’ hopes of harnessing
the energy of racist fans for their political ends dropped to their
ordinary, low, level.
The protest movement, which began in December 2011 and
continued actively for about a year, turned out to be almost
unconnected with violence. Various radical groups, also national-
ist ones, made attempts to turn protests into attacks on the police
or to provoke police violence, but generally with scant success.
The use of force by radical nationalists – more accurately, by the
Russkie movement – also proved fruitless in disputes within the
opposition (Al’perovich and Yudina 2013).
The majority of radical nationalists did not get involved at all in
the protest movement, although they of course monitored it. It is
easy to imagine that, in these circumstances, the opposition’s lack
of political success throughout the whole of 2012 can only have
reinforced the perception that political action could not conquer
the authoritarian ‘anti- Russian regime’. If force is the only thing
that the regime understands, then the problem is simply from
where to harness such force.
The radical nationalists may have hoped, of course, that the
2012 year of protest would give a jolt to the customary political
indifference of ethnic Russians (referred to as ‘sheep’ in the most
radical circles, for their passive failure to defend their ‘national
interests’ or ‘national pride’). Although the radical nationalists
did not manage to enlist new supporters directly on Bolotnaia
Square and Sakharov Prospect, dissatisfaction spread wider than
the circle of participants in protest marches and meetings. It
seemed reasonable to hope that this public dissatisfaction could
turn towards the ideal, converting a (democratic) ‘revolution of
white ribbons’ into a (racist) ‘white revolution’. Indeed, 2013 did
see an unprecedented number of local riots along Kondopoga
lines. The political climax came with a pogrom conducted not in
the provinces, but in the Moscow suburb of Biriulevo- Zapadnoe.
This could have been read as the start of the long- awaited ethno-
nationalist mobilisation (Pain 2014).