One leader plans to run for president; but he sees force as an option for taking over
Philadelphia Inquirer
12 November 1998
 [for personal use only]

by Dave Montgomery KNIGHT RIDDER NEWS SERVICE

 STAVROPOL, Russia -- The drill instructor is only 15, but in the Russian Knights, youth is no barrier to commitment.

 On a late Saturday afternoon on a barren field south of Stavropol, in the south of Russia, Nikolai the drill instructor is showing five obedient teenage recruits how to fall while carrying dummy Kalashnikov rifles. A few hundred yards away, other fatigue-clad youths are scaling their way out of a 20-foot-deep excavation under the watch of an off-duty Russian military officer.

 The Knights are the youth wing of Russian National Unity, the country's most militant ultranationalist party, whose modified swastika emblems, black uniforms, and raised-arm salutes strike a discordant tone in a nation where Adolf Hitler's aggression claimed 20 million lives a half-century ago.

 Extremist groups such as Russian National Unity remain far outside the mainstream of Russian politics. But many of the same ingredients that fostered Hitler's rise from obscurity in Weimar Germany -- rampant inflation, unemployment, widespread poverty, national humiliation, and a weakened political leader -- are abundant in Russia, providing ample fuel for extremism.

 In a radio address last summer, President Boris N. Yeltsin, now ailing and the target of much of his country's anger, warned that fascism "is rearing its head" in Russia, fanned by groups that are "using lofty words about the revival of Russia and its national spirit as a cover."  'It's the ideology'

 "There is an electoral niche for these people," said Nikolai Petrov, of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace's Carnegie Moscow Center. "There is a strong feeling that the nation is humiliated by what's going on. And there are a lot of voters who lost almost everything, who will support anybody challenging this feeling of national humiliation."

 "A few thousand armed and ideologically prepared people always manage to beat a multimillion-people majority," said Yevgeny Proshechkin, founder and chairman of the Moscow Anti-Fascist Center, which closely follows Russian National Unity's activities. "It's not the numbers that are dangerous. It's the ideology."

 Russian National Unity is frequently described as the best-organized of Russia's radical nationalist groups, with a wide following among those most familiar with armed force: the army, the police, and the Federal Security Service. The Russian news media have estimated its membership at 100,000, but the party may be betting that, someday, numbers will matter less than firepower and military skills.

 Russian National Unity was founded eight years ago by Alexander Barkashov. One of the ringleaders of the 1993 siege of the Russian parliament, which ended when Yeltsin's forces shelled the building, Barkashov eluded authorities for three months before his arrest. He later was granted amnesty.

 'We are ready'

 Today, at 45, he sports a ponytail, and his black hair is thinning and splotched with gray. During an interview in his office conference room, with the party's red swastika flag on the wall behind him, Barkashov signaled his intention to run for president in 2000, but he said his followers were prepared to use force if necessary to help bring about a "national renaissance."

 "We are ready to get power by a democratic, peaceful way," the former electrician and karate expert said through an interpreter. "But if they try to prevent us from doing that, then we will perform our rights by force. . . . You may call it a revolution. . . . Today, we are strong enough for that, but we do not see the necessity for that.

 "I'm a strong man. I'm not afraid of anyone. People are just afraid of me."

 Barkashov said the group was neither fascist nor neo-Nazi. The swastika, he said, is a 10,000-year-old symbol used by many groups, and his party's raised-arm salute is merely an enthusiastic greeting that "comes from the heart."

 Party literature and speeches, however, feature strident xenophobia and calls for a resurgence of Russian power. The party's newspaper, Russian Order, once insisted that Jews and Gypsies be "fully eradicated at the earliest possible time."

 "The party, however, couples such extremist slogans with more mainstream appeals, including a pledge to take Russia away from "the criminals," restore the military, protect "motherhood and childhood," and provide jobs, housing and education for all Russians.

 One of the party's biggest strongholds is in Stavropol, near the border of the breakaway republic of Chechnya. Leaders of the Stavropol organization have told the Russian news media that party members were well-entrenched in the local government, and in police and army units in the area.

 Off-duty military officers double as adult supervisors for the teenage Russian Knights, who train at a remote site outside the city. One encampment consists of a cluster of red buildings with obstacle courses and barracks. Another training ground is near a rural airport with Soviet-era biplanes emblazoned with Communist red stars.

 Barkashov and other leaders liken the party's youth auxiliary to the Boy Scouts, saying it is intended to help prepare Russian young people for the country's compulsory military service. But watchdog groups say the training programs are breeding young ultranationalists with lethal paramilitary skills.

 Despite the military trappings, Barkashov said, Russian National Unity prefers peace to violence.

 "We are against bloodshed in the country, and we will do it only to save our lives," he said. Nevertheless, he said, "everyone in this country knows how to shoot. No one has any illusions about how serious our intentions are."