the new russian nationalismnow banned Slavic Union), the National- socialist Initiative, the
Russian Imperial Movement, the Union of Russian People and
Georgii Borovikov’s Russian Liberation Front ‘Pamiat’ (Russkii
Front Osvobozhdeniia ‘Pamiat’’).^21 True, the National- socialist
Initiative and the Russian Imperial Movement also joined the
Russian Platform founded by the national democrats – but, in
the end, the Platform fell apart and the national democrats opted
for the path of party building, which ruled out associates like the
National- socialist Initiative. Thus the Russkie movement have
remained de facto the main political union and face of radical
nationalists.
Sergei Baburin’s Russian All- People’s Union chose to go it
alone, and since December 2011 has more often come out
against the protest movement than for it. In 2012, with the lib-
eralisation of legislation relating to political parties, the Russian
All- People’s Union managed to reclaim registration swiftly, in
contrast to the other radical nationalist organisations that have
remained unregistered to this day (Verkhovsky and Strukova
2014). Since then, the party has made efforts to regain respect-
ability. As a result, its political trajectory has been entirely
separate from that of the Russkie movement, and the Russian
All- People’s Union has become part of pro- Kremlin national-
ism – like the resurrected Rodina party, only even weaker. It is
difficult to say who of the grassroots radical core still remain in
the Russian All- People’s Union, but the leadership once again
looks like a group of ‘old nationalists’, united in their loyalty to
the authorities.
The Russkie movement, in contrast, have played an active role
in the protest movement from the very beginning, together with
the national democrats. The most obvious result of this policy has
been a marked shrinkage of support for the radical nationalist
movement’s political wing among the main body of their grass-
roots militant allies. At the large anti- regime Moscow protest
marches during the winter of 2011/12, nationalists, including
national democrats, usually numbered about 500 people – some
ten to twelve times fewer than at Moscow’s ‘Russian March’,^22
and on average 50 to 100 times fewer than the overall number of
participants.