Fighting Fascism the Radical Nationalist Way

On the eve of nationwide celebrations to mark the 50th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany, the establishment of a new anti-fascist organization in Russia would seem appropriate. But the leaders and aims of the Anti-Fascist Patriotic Center is sure to set liberal alarm bells ringing.


Launched at a press conference Thursday by fired press minister Boris Mironov and radical nationalist State Duma deputy Sergei Baburin, the group has a comprehensive list of "fascist influences" it says every conscientious Russian should recognize and rebuff.


There is no mention of racism, authoritarianism or anti-Semitism, nor any other tendencies normally associated with the politics of the far right. Instead, the list singles out the International Monetary Fund, the government, President Boris Yeltsin, the liberal press, the new world order -- and an unnamed "non-indigenous nation" that "has a country of its own outside Russia," an apparent reference to Israel.


"Minsk and Brest, Kiev and Sevastopol are again violently torn apart from Russia," Mironov told the press conference, recalling the cities of the Soviet Union where some of the bloodiest battles of World War II were fought. "The winners of the war are meeting on the 50th anniversary of their victory as oppressed, impoverished witnesses of the plunder of their country, as trains full of stolen wealth head West across the border."


It is time for a new full-scale war on fascism, group members said -- and they have a precise idea of who the enemy is.


"Fascism is a form of international Russophobia," said Baburin. "It is mainly an external danger for Russia, but unfortunately, it is compounded by the work of a fifth column inside the country."


The group's unorthodox definition of fascism comes after several recent widely publicized trials, including the first libel suit against the Russian president, reflected controversially on the notion. Lawyers are still wrangling over an acceptable legal definition of fascism.


Last year, reformist leader Yegor Gaidar was forced to pay damages to extreme nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky after calling him a fascist in a newspaper article. But Mironov, who filed a similar suit against the weekly Moscow News, was rebuffed by a Moscow district court last month: The court ruled that the word "fascist" did not insult Mironov, a man of hard-core nationalist views.


However, the new group seems to have come up with a surefire way to determine whether or not someone is a fascist.


"A Russian cannot be a fascist," said one of the group's organizers, Major General Leonid Petukhov.


The word "Russian" figured prominently in the group's diatribes against fascism. The word "Jew," however, was avoided altogether. In the group's description of Nazi atrocities there is no mention of the Holocaust.


Anti-fascist activity would seem to be a new battlefield for Mironov, who was fired as press minister after declaring, "If Russian nationalism is fascism, then I am a fascist." Now, Mironov has no warm words left for the cabinet of which he once was a member.


"The policy and ideology of the current government are based on fascist doctrines," the former press chief said. "When I was a minister, I never worked for the government. I worked for Russia, and that is why I lost my job."


The audience's response to the Anti-Fascist Patriotic Center's presentation held the promise of more sensational libel trials in the future.


"These people are the fascists," said Nadezhda Bogatikova of the human rights group Memorial. "They are talking about genocide against Russians just as Hitler talked about genocide against Germans when he came to power."