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date: 25 May 2019

Abstract and Keywords

This chapter introduces some basic contours of Russia’s contemporary radical right scene. It distinguishes between systemic and non-systemic ultra-nationalist groups in Putin’s Russia, the principal difference being the groups’ and individual actors’ proximity and clarity of connections to the crypto-authoritarian regime. The systemic component consists of political groups, authors, and activists that are allowed or encouraged to participate in official mass media and public life. Main actors of the mainstream radical right include Vladimir Zhirinovskii’s Liberal-Democratic Party of Russia and organizations using the “Rodina” (Motherland) label. Major expressions of government-supported Russian “uncivil society” and anti-democratic intellectual discourse include the writings of the far right political thinkers Lev Gumilev and Aleksandr Dugin. Manifestations of the non-systemic component of Russia’s extreme right include skinheads and their use of ethnic violence, political movements such as the Movement Against Illegal Immigration, other descendants of the “Pamiat” (Memory) organization in the 1980s, and their activities.

Keywords: Russia, radical right, radicalism, right-wing movements, nationalist groups, Liberal-Democratic Party of Russia, extreme right, ethnic violence, Movement Against Illegal Immigration

Richard Arnold

Richard Arnold (Ph.D., The Ohio State University) is Associate Professor of Political Science at Muskingum University in New Concord, Ohio, and most recently the author of Russian Nationalism and Ethnic Violence: Symbolic Violence, Lynching, Pogrom, and Massacre (Routledge, 2016). His papers have appeared in, among other journals, Theoretical Criminology, Post-Soviet Affairs, Problems of Post-Communism, Journal for the Study of Radicalism, and Nationalities Papers.

Andreas Umland

Andreas Umland (Ph.D., University of Cambridge) is Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Euro-Atlantic Cooperation in Kyiv, and general editor of the book series Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society (ibidem-Verlag, 2004) distributed, since 2014, by Columbia University Press. His articles have appeared in, among other journals, e-Foreign Affairs, e-Foreign Policy, Political Studies Review, Perspectives on Politics, European Political Science, Journal of Democracy, Europe-Asia Studies, European History Quarterly, Problems of Post-Communism, Communist and Post-Communist Studies, Russian Review, Nationalities Papers, East European Jewish Affairs, Journal of Slavic Military Studies, Demokratizatsiya, Internationale Politik, Österreichische Zeitschrift für Politikwissenschaft, Osteuropa, Jahrbuch für Ostrecht, and Voprosy filosofii.

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