radical nationalists: true till death?Moscow- wide ultra- right youth sector responded. With the simul-
taneous participation of several hundred bellicose neo- Nazis and
several thousand local inhabitants, OMON could not suppress
the riots.
This turn of events strengthened hopes among Russian nation-
alists that they may seize the initiative from the weakened opposi-
tion movement and, if not actually have a revolution, then at least
manage to enter the main political arena. In the week following
13 October, efforts were made in Moscow and St Petersburg to
prolong the disturbances. Record numbers of people attended
the 4 November ‘Russian March’ in 2013 – more than in any
year since the event was established. The march also reached
its furthest geographic spread, being held in forty- seven towns
(although the most significant leap, from thirty- two to forty- five
towns, had taken place one year earlier). In Moscow numbers
were slightly higher than those attained in 2011,^23 and in St
Petersburg the march turned into a pogrom in a market, with
other attacks as well.
However, the impression of a stable rise in radical nationalist
fervour proved deceptive. As noted, the stream of Kondopoga- like
events suddenly dried up, and the public disorders in Arzamas in
December were practically ignored by nationalists – although the
curtailing of the anti- migrant campaign in the mass media should
not have impacted upon them, in contrast to the broad mass of
ordinary citizens. In fact, after 4 November 2013, all enthusiasm
swiftly evaporated.
During the winter of 2013/14, meetings ‘against ethnic crimi-
nality’ were already fading away, and even the number of raids
was beginning to fall. Not all traditional networked activities
have been declining, however. Although in 2014 the ‘Day of
Heroes’^24 was held in just half as many towns (nine) as in 2013,
‘Russian May Day’ attracted about the same number of partici-
pants and was held in about the same number of towns as the year
before. Still, on the whole, measured by the standards of recent
years, radical nationalist political activity has been less marked
since the end of 2013. And the ‘Russian March’ on 4 November
2014 gathered half as many participants in Moscow as in previ-
ous years, and it was perceived as a great failure. Why is this so?