radical nationalists: true till death?for violence), and this has become a means of drawing closer to
the liberal opposition.
Since Russian Image’s indirect support from above came to an
end in late 2009, their competition with the DPNI has lost its
former dynamism. Things reached such a pass that in September
2009 these organisations signed a joint declaration together with
the Slavic Union, National- socialist Initiative, various national
democrats and even a few ‘old nationalists’ – Stanislav Vorobev’s
Russian Imperial Movement (Russkoe imperskoe dvizhenie)
(RID) and Aleksandr Turik’s Union of Russian People (Soiuz
russkogo naroda (SRN) (DPNI 2010). It is notable that this dec-
laration invoked democracy and civil rights, and not the usual
nationalist ideas. The discrediting of Russian Image meant that
the intended coalition never materialised,^19 but the approach
to coalition building is significant in itself. Radical nationalists
would like to be accepted by the liberal opposition as equals,
albeit special ones.
The pre- election period of 2011 presented further opportunities
in this respect. New criminal and civil proceedings were insti-
gated against the DPNI, the Slavic Union and the Russian All-
National Union (Russkii obshchenatsional’nyi soiuz) (RONS),
making it possible for them to present themselves as ‘victims of
the regime’. Nationalists outstripped liberals and communists in
terms of the size of their public demonstrations, in the capital and
in most large cities. Talk about the growth of ethno- xenophobia
became increasingly widespread.^20 These factors led various polit-
ical groups to view the nationalists as the most credible opposi-
tion sector. Contacts and even joint actions between nationalist
groups and the liberal opposition multiplied. However, against
the backdrop of continuing rhetorical support for the ‘Manezhka’
by nationalists of all persuasions, this collaboration looks rather
dubious. In the course of 2011, the most important nationalist
forces decided on their political trajectory. Here I will outline only
the main aspects of this regrouping.
The main radical nationalist forces disassociated themselves
from the national democrats (although maintaining friendly rela-
tions) and created the Russkie movement as a coalition involving
the DPNI, the Slavic Force (Slavianskaia sila) (the successor of the