radical nationalists: true till death?By participating in the protest movement, the nationalist elite
lost almost all grassroots support: not only did ordinary activ-
ists not want to march alongside liberals and leftists themselves,
they also described those who did so in extremely negative terms.
Repeated efforts to organise independent opposition events such
as that of 6 May 2012 failed to heal this schism or deliver any
positive results.
In the united opposition that evolved in the context of the
protest movement, the nationalists – with their clearly limited
support – could occupy a position of sorts thanks solely to some
of the liberal and leftist leaders (like Aleksei Navalnyi and Ilia
Ponomarev). The latter have made every effort to secure national-
ists in the opposition leadership via the ‘ideological quota’ mecha-
nism. Evidently the belief widely held elsewhere in the opposition
that the nationalist leaders represent mass ethno- xenophobic ten-
dencies – that many opposition activists consider impossible to
disregard – also worked in the nationalists’ favour.
The clear division between radical nationalists and national
democrats has also been maintained within the protest move-
ment. At the first Citizens’ Council of the opposition, formed in
January 2012, the ten representatives of the nationalist ‘curia’
were divided from the start into two equal sides: the ‘national
liberation’ and the ‘national democratic’ factions.
Have the nationalists influenced the general direction of the
opposition and its position in society as a result? I doubt it. Their
only real achievement is the 11 February 2013 resolution of the
Opposition Coordination Council, on the need for a visa regime
for the countries of Central Asia (except Kazakhstan). It should
be noted, however, that protest meetings beyond Moscow have
been smaller, and the proportion of new participants consider-
ably lower, so here the proportion of nationalists and their role
may prove more significant than in the capital. The proportion
of nationalists was particularly high in St Petersburg because the
highly effective National- socialist Initiative and Russian Imperial
Movement are based there, and because the local branch of
Limonov’s Other Russia shows strongly nationalist tendencies.
However, even in St Petersburg, nationalist opposition activity
has gradually faded away, in parallel with the general decrease in