Читать книгу In the Name of the People - Liaisons - Страница 19

While it has lost some momentum, in the 2000s, the Antifa movement was a significant mobilizing force for Russian youth. While it was a very heterogeneous movement, what its members held in common was the beautiful but not always well-calibrated desire to smash Nazis. The more this movement focused on the practical aspects of attacking the Right, the less it could propose any kind of significant theoretical framework to analyze fascism. What is worse is that its members often just ended up naming “fascist” anything they didn’t like. This was the case for the gangs of youth coming from the Caucasus. These gangs not only challenged their hegemony in the streets, but also showed “a lack of will to integrate” and accept the power of Russian culture in the “historically” Russian cities. “Black racism” or “Caucasian fascism” became widespread terms within the Antifa milieu. A significant part of the milieu even had no problem calling themselves “patriots” and Nazis “spoiled Russians” who forgot their roots. As one of the most popular songs of the milieu proudly proclaimed: “I am the real Russian / You are just a Nazi whore.”⁴

Consequently, these milieus could not produce any alternative vision of history that could pose a challenge to that of the state. They just repeated mindless mantras about the strange character of fascists and Nazis in the “country that defeated fascism,” and bragged about having a grandfather who went to war.

Elaborating other narratives and representations, they believed, could undermine their reach and separate them from the “common people.” They tried as much as possible to look and act ordinary. They wanted to distance themselves from any form of marginality. Some even assumed an avant-garde role among the “healthy” part of Russian society. Given the commonplace of this populist strategy, it isn’t surprising that some of them began to sympathize with imperialist ideas, or even went to fight for the “Russian World” in Donbass.