the new russian nationalismNovaia gazeta 2014). Explosives were increasingly used. Not only
did neo- Nazis kill ‘antifa fighters’, their opponents in the street
war, they even murdered a federal judge. Arson and bombing
attempts against police stations became commonplace. There was
no discernible abatement of these activities in 2009 and 2010, but
thereafter they declined steeply.^6
In late 2007 and early 2008, the National Socialist Society
(Natsional- sotsialisticheskoe obshchestvo) (NSO) of Dmitrii
Rumiantsev and Sergei Korotkikh, which until then had been
expanding fast, fell apart under pressure from law enforcement
agencies. The NSO, an organisation that had been a sort of model
result of the neo- Nazis’ near- total impunity, had combined ener-
getic political activism with no less energetic murder. The collapse
of the NSO showed young radical nationalists that it would be
impossible to combine these activities in the years to come. Some
became disillusioned, and some opted for politics instead of vio-
lence, but it would appear that the majority chose violence and
took secrecy more seriously.
That is not to say that political activities were divorced from
violence. In 2008, for example, an activist of the ‘political’
Movement against Illegal Immigration (DPNI) blew himself up
while preparing explosives in his flat. Among the organisations
in focus here, it would appear that the separation of politics and
violence has not been entirely accomplished to this day.
As for organised politics, almost no genuine patrons of the
radical nationalists remained in the new State Duma elected in
December 2007, so the hopes raised by collaboration with the
Motherland bloc were dashed. At the same time, pro- Kremlin
youth movements – primarily the Moscow region Locals (Mestnye)
- began a campaign against ‘illegal migrants’, quite reminiscent
of DPNI’s early activities. The top–down tactic of ‘intercepting
slogans’ was coupled with backstage manoeuvres aimed at reduc-
ing support for the then- leading ultra- right organisation, DPNI,
to benefit Russian Image (Russkii obraz), an organisation no less
radical but that presented itself as apolitical (Horvath 2014).
Russian Image attracted a sizeable portion of the radical youth
core from the DPNI in 2008. The politics of manipulating the
nationalist arena continued in this fashion until November 2009.