radical nationalists: true till death?the DPNI. Thus, suppression became the only strategy – at least
until 2013 (see below).
The riot on Moscow’s Manezhnaia Square on 11 December
2010 marked a turning point in the authorities’ relations with
radical nationalists. The fact that riot police (OMON) could not
disperse a crowd of about 3,000 (my estimate) radical nationalists
and football hooligans, right under the very walls of the Kremlin,
evoked serious concern. Although it remained unique in terms of
size, this event prompted the federal authorities to undertake not
only a series of police operations and populist gestures, but also
to formulate a more intelligible and, importantly, stable position.
Recent years have seen a whole series of official announcements,
concept papers and programmes, which – despite the unavoidable
eclecticism – have at least established a basic position. Not only
do the authorities reject any radical nationalism, they also pit their
own variant of statist ‘civilisational’ nationalism against ethnic
(including Russian) nationalism. Although not set out in detail,
the basic shape of the confrontation is clear: the political nation
must unite around figures and ideas proposed by the authorities,
and not around ethnic or any other communities that may arise
and/or be manifested independently of them (Verkhovsky 2014a).
There were also less significant political manoeuvres, especially
in the pre- election period of 2011 (see, for example, Novorossiia
2011). Dmitrii Rogozin’s return to politics became the most
important event. He simultaneously resurrected the Rodina party
and re- established contacts with the nationalist movement. In the
end, however, representatives of the movement were not allowed
real access to the elections, whether through Rogozin or via
DPNI channels, and the strategy of marginalising radical nation-
alists continued. Since then there have been some episodic excep-
tions to this trend, like inviting the known neo- Nazi Maksim
(Tesak) Martsinkevich to participate in a television programme as
a ‘warrior against paedophilia’, but these have not developed into
a general tendency – not least since radical nationalists took part
in the protest movement (see below).
The events of 2013 proved considerably more serious –
specifically, the totally unexpected anti- migrant campaign con-
ducted over several months on federal television channels (see