Kremlin Backs Revival of Tsarist-Era Anti-Semitic Union of the Russian People

Executive Summary:

• Far-right Russian nationalist groups are becoming increasingly active, with some already instigating pogroms and intimidating officials.
• Other organizations like the historically infamous Union of the Russian People have attracted the support of the Kremlin and the Russian Orthodox Church.
• The Union of the Russian People takes its name and political leanings from a pre-1917 Black Hundreds group that became notorious for its pogroms against Jews and other minorities at the end of tsarist times.
• With official backing, such groups will likely expand in number, leading to intensified repression of minorities. In the absence of state protection, Russia’s minorities are likely to organize their own defense, triggering ever more violence and instability in the country.

In October, two developments on the extreme right of the Russian political spectrum occurred that cast a dark shadow on the country’s future. In the first, the Russian Community, an extreme right-wing Russian ethno-nationalist group (see EDM, October 15) has assumed a leading role in a pogrom against Roma people, sometimes known as gypsies, that began in the city of Chelyabinsk in advance of National Unity Day on November 4. The Russian Community has intimidated local officials, who appear to be afraid of taking concerted action against the perpetrators (Kavkaz, October 27). In the second, the Kremlin and the Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church (MP ROC) have made the fateful decision to support the revival of the Union of the Russian People, a radical monarchist party notorious for organizing the Black Hundreds and their anti-Semitic pogroms in the last years of the Russian Empire (Tsargrad, October 24). By once again lending credibility to Russian nationalist extremism in this way, the Kremlin and the Moscow Patriarchate have made it more likely that Russians will join such groups, convinced that they have are doing precisely what the Putin regime wants. To the extent that this happens—and there is already evidence that this is occurring—said Russian groups are likely to launch ever more violent attacks on minorities. In the absence of state protection, members of these victimized groups are likely to take measures in self-defense, with the collective result being a further destabilization of the situation in Russia (Window on Eurasia, September 27; EDM, October 3; Kavkaz, October 9).

At a congress on October 24, more than 1,000 activists, Orthodox churchmen, and senior government officials met in Moscow’s prominent Christ the Savior Cathedral to announce the “restoration” of the Union of the Russian People (Tsargrad, October 24, 26; rusk.ru, October 25). Among the most distinguished speakers were Duma deputy head Pyotr Tolstoy, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mariya Zakharova, Duma deputy Aleksandr Borodai, and prominent actor (and former ROC MP priest) Ivan Okhlobystin. Their participation underscores the extent to which this revived party enjoys support of both the Kremlin and the Moscow Patriarchate, as none of these individuals would have taken part if that were not the case.

Konstantin Malofeyev delivered the keynote address. He has frequently been referred to as the “Orthodox oligarch” for his support of Russian Orthodox and nationalist causes and is considered to be the main force behind the Union of the Russian People. Malofeyev told the congress that,

Our ideals and values are simple: Russia is a great Orthodox state-civilization. The Russian people [are] the state-forming [people; this phrase is used to denote ethnic Russians as the core of any Russian state] and on its well-being depends the well-being of all the citizens of our country. The foundation of the people is a strong, traditional, multi-child family, the support of which is the most important obligation of the state (Telegram/@kvmalofeev, October 24).

Malofeyev further suggested that “the overwhelming majority of Russian people” support these ideas. “We are the voice of the Russian Orthodox majority. The revived Union of the Russian People. All who are not indifferent to the future of Russia should join the Society and its Russian Militia” (for more on these “self-defense squads,” which also partook in the October 24 session, see Telegram/@russian_druzhina, October 29).

Both Malofeyev and the most prominent speakers from the Russian government devoted most of their attention to combatting the West and defeating Ukraine. Other speakers, including the governors of Kurgan and Kaluga oblasts, Vadim Shumkov and Vladislav Shapsha, respectively, focused on domestic affairs, specifically the handling of minorities—the area in which the Union of the Russian People is most likely to impact (Stoletie, October 28). Shumkov and Shapsha called for concerted efforts to Russify immigrants and minorities and the expel immigrants that fail to do so. These calls leave little room for the rights, linguistic or otherwise, nominally enjoyed by the quarter of the Russian Federation’s population that is not ethnically Russian.

Unsurprisingly, many non-Russians living in the Federation view such attitudes as a threat to their existence and are being radicalized as a result. This trend has intensified since Putin began his expanded invasion of Ukraine, though it reached new heights after the terrorist attack on Moscow’s Crocus City Hall last April (see Svoboda, September 6; Idel Realii, September 8; Telegram/@Free Nations League, September 6; Indigenous Russia, September 9 [1], [2]). More thoughtful Russians, such as Moscow commentator Viktor Frolinsky, are also alarmed by what the revival of the Union of the Russian People means. Commenting on the October 24 meeting, Frolinsky argued that Malofeyev’s Union “is designed to inherit all the worst in the Black Hundred movement of pre-revolutionary Russia: Ideological obscurantism, aggression and servility to those in power” (v Krizis, October 25). Frolinsky points out that the word “Tsargrad” that the revived Union of Russian People has chosen to attach to its name is indicative of dangers ahead. According to Frolinsky, Tsargrad “refers to imperial dreams of [Russian conquest of] Constantinople and the chauvinistic organization” of Aleksandr Dubrovin, an anti-Semite who organized pogroms and led the predecessor of today’s Union of the Russian People. Before he was executed by the Soviets, Dubrovin identified himself as “a monarchist-communist,” the kind of fusion of principles favored by the Putin regime. People like Malofeyev and his ilk, Frolinsky says, can—and do—claim they are following in these footsteps.

Many in Western governments and elsewhere assume that individuals like Malofeyev are on the margins of the Russian state, rather than the part of a dangerous trend that must be opposed. Conversely, now that senior Russian officials and churchmen have come out in favor of the explicit revival of a Black Hundreds organization—amid an ongoing pogrom against the Roma in Chelyabinsk—there should be no illusions about the direction of the Union of the Russian People and its ideological ilk, such as the Russian Community. There is after all another precedent that these developments inevitably recall. German pastor Martin Niemöller famously warned that the Nazis attacked society piecemeal, allowing many to blind themselves to oppression that did not directly affect them, until “there was no one left” to speak in their defense.  Moscow’s endorsement of extreme right-wing groups’ rising power in Russia bodes ill for the Russian Federation’s minorities as the long war drags on.