Neo-Nazism in Russia Was A Sure Sign of Things to Come in Georgia

It was Monday evening in February of 2004 when a particularly harsh winter arrived at the doorstep of Yusuf Sultonov. The Tajik immigrant was walking into his apartment building in St Petersburg with his young daughter, Khursheda, and son, Akobir. A gang of seven teen-aged skin-heads rushed across the snow-covered yard armed with brass knuckles, chains, metal bars and knives and literally started hammering the young family to the ground, according to eye witnesses. Nine year old Khursheda was stabbed eleven times and bled to death before an ambulance arrived. Her seven-year old brother was rushed to the hospital with severe head injuries but survived. Immigrants from the Caucasus such as the Sultonovs are frequent victims of hate crimes in Russia.

Since that night four years ago, thousands of immigrant job-seekers from the former soviet Union, among them Tajiks, Uzbeks, Georgians and Armenians, as well as scores of Africans, Jews, East Asians and Chechens have been assaulted all across the vastness of Russia, but especially in the areas in and around Moscow and St Petersburg. Over the past two years Neo-Nazis have been involved in at least 100 murders and 1200 attacks on immigrants, according to independent groups that monitor racially motivated crimes. Amnesty International believes the number of victims to be much higher.

Two years ago the United Nations dispatched a special envoy to the Russian Federation to probe the growing wave of racist killings and beatings. Today the situation remains just as dire. These attacks according to experts on ethnic violence are not aberrations of Russian society, but consistent with widespread xenophobia that has swept over Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Russian newspapers and television are rife with xenophobic messages blaming "foreigners" for many of the countries ills, especially crime. And a poll conducted by Public Opinion Studies (VTSIOM) found that 61% of Russians approved of the slogan "Russia for Russians."

Police say that's exactly what the killers of 9-year old Khursheda Sultonov yelled as she was being slashed and stabbed, and investigators cited ethnic hatred as the primary motive for the murder. Similarly in May of 2006, black-booted skin-heads shouting "glory to Russia" stabbed to death a 19-year-old ethnic Armenian man aboard a Russian passenger train. True to that strange construct known as race, Georgians, Tajiks, Azeris and other citizens from the Caucasus and Central Asia are regarded by many ordinary Russians as "blacks." (http://liftedveilsproductions.blogspot.com/) It is probably no coincidence, therefore, that American Ku Klux Klan legend David Duke is wildly popular among Neo-Nazis and other ultra-nationalists in Russia and has made frequent trips there to cheer and to be cheered on by his supporters, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Report.

The Moscow Helsinki Group puts the number of skinheads in Russia at 50,000 to 60,000. But consider the fact that in 1992, there were only about a dozen fascist skinheads in Moscow and five in St Petersburg. Far more important than their numbers is the tacit and often overt support Neo-Nazis receive from Russian society.

Many of the assaults carried out by fascist skin-heads have taken place in broad open daylight in outdoor markets operated by migrant street vendors, aboard trains and in subways, and often in view of police and Russian citizens who have stood by and done nothing. In several documented cases some have actually cheered on the attackers.

When the thugs arrested in connection to the murder of Khursheda Sultonov were finally brought to trial in March of 2006, a group of Russian citizens chosen to render a "just" verdict effectively cleared all the defendants. It was the Russian equivalent of an all white jury in the American Jim Crow South. Only one of the young Nazis was even charged with murder and he was promptly cleared. All seven teenagers were found guilty only of "hooliganism" and sentenced to terms ranging from 18 months to five years. Three days after the jury turned justice for Khursheda on its head a 9-year-old girl of mixed Russian and African heritage was stabbed in the stairwell of her St. Petersburg apartment building by skin-heads who followed her home. A separate Russian jury in St. Petersburg that same year acquitted the defendants in a case of murder of a Vietnamese student named Vu Anh Tuan. He was stabbed 37 times. The skin-heads in question had earned a fierce reputation for crippling citizens of Ghana, Palestine, China and Azerbaijan but reportedly never spent more than a day in jail.

To his credit, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has spoken out forcefully against racist violence and intolerance. In turn, extremist groups like the National-Socialist Society have called for his resignation and that of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. But human rights groups also believe that Putin's harsh rhetorical attacks on Chechen separatists, Georgians and others have fanned the flames of nationalism and served as a green light for his more thuggish countrymen (and women in quite a few cases) on the streets of Russia. With evidence of growing public support for ultra-nationalist grassroots movements and, to a lesser degree, rightist political parties, Putin's rhetoric may be backfiring.

Last August Russian police who had blamed Chechen terrorists for the bombing of a railway near St. Petersburg conceded that it was likely the work of far-right extremists. The Russian Interior Ministry's about-face coincided with the posting of a ghastly video on the internet showing neo-Nazis chopping off the heads of two migrant workers from Tajikistan and Dagestan. Police confirmed the video to be authentic. A group calling itself ''the military wing of the National Socialist Society'' claimed responsibility and boasted that this was ''the start of our party's armed struggle against colored colonists and the Russian bureaucrats who support them.'' Experts on right wing extremism do not believe these groups are operating in a vacuum. Indeed there is evidence that far-right groups are becoming more organized and dangerous.

Human Rights researchers in Moscow have published documents showing "Nazi skinheads are being encouraged, organized, and used by Russia's ruling circles in their own interests." And Isvestiya reported that "Nazi skinheads from an openly fascist organization, the NNP (People's National Party), were being trained at the Moscow OMON special-purpose police detachment facilities and that they were being trained specifically by OMON coaches." Several years ago Russian historian Vladimir Ilyushenko asserted that "some parties view skinheads as their reserve. The process of encouraging fascist sentiments in Russia is steered by government officials." Young fascists have been linked to National Front, Russian National Socialist Party and Russian National Party politicians. Fascists have also successfully infiltrated the Motherland Party, which is widely believed to have been created by Putin to counter parties on the extreme right.

Not to say all Russians are focused inward. Indeed, hundreds of anti-racists have taken to the streets to counter right wing violence, and several Russian citizens have even given their lives. The World reacted in shock to the murder of independent Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya two years ago in her Moscow apartment building. Her investigative reporting into Russian military atrocities in Chechnya and street attacks against Chechen refugees made her a target for ultra-nationalists of every stripe. There also was Nikolai Girenko, an ethnologist who testified as an expert witness against skinheads to try to convince Russian juries that these groups posed more of a danger than ordinary hooligans. In 2004 he was shot in the head when he answered the door of his St. Petersburg flat. Eight self-acknowledged neo-Nazis were arrested in connection to his murder.

The danger in Russia is not the revival of an expansionist communist state, as some American conservatives and neo-cons have ridiculously asserted. Rather, it is the ideology of growing ultra-nationalism that has found expression in Neo-Nazism, elements of the Russian Orthodox Church, the Russian judicial system, and government policies that systematically discriminate against non-Russians.

It seems ironic that many within a nation that lost 20 million of its citizens to Hitler's war machine have turned a blind eye to the activities of 21st Century Nazis in their midst. But the current crop of fascists is merely expressing the animus that millions of ordinary Russians apparently feel toward foreigners, but would prefer to let someone else wield the knives, brass knuckles and chains. Now with the invasion of Georgia (given license by Georgian President Mikhail Saakshvili's recklessness), Russian ultra-nationalism has reached its logical conclusion with tanks, Kalashnikovs, and rampaging South Ossestian irregulars substituting for bald-headed youth shouting "glory to Russia."

Comments

[ezhik]

Skinheads are only a part of the problem. I am more concerned with the growing 'casual' nationalism.
And, no, it is not just 'the Russians are just being Russians.' The Russians are no more bigots than anybody else. It is a state-sponsored campaign to revive the old slogans like, "Russia is the third Rome,' and 'inorodtzi (people of non-Russian descend) are a threat to Russia.'

[MagisterLudi]

Moscow is controlled by ethnic criminal groupings, most of which were set up by former residents of the North Caucasus and Transcaucasus.
Ethnic gang members committed more than 4,300 crimes in the capital city last year. Staffers of the Moscow GUVD (Main Directorate of Internal Affairs) UBOP (Directorate for Combating Organized Crime) spoke about police efforts to counteract ethnic criminal groupings....

[MagisterLudi]

Is there a skinhead problem in Russia? There is. Some of it just teen posturing, some of it is more serious.
There's a very serious skinhead problem in England and Germany. There are also very serious criminal activity in Russia led by vicious Georgian criminal gangs. So what. These are the fruits of Western style freedom. To draw some geo-political implications from this is to fall prey to Georgian/Bush propaganda machine.

[MagisterLudi]

Rossiyskaya Gazeta, Moscow
Moscow's Criminal Ethnic Communities
by Petr Verigskiy and Ilya Zubko,

Moscow is controlled by ethnic criminal groupings, most of which were
set up by former residents of the North Caucasus and
Transcaucasus. Ethnic gang members committed more than 4,300 crimes in
the capital city last year. Staffers of the Moscow GUVD (Main Directorate of Internal Affairs) UBOP (Directorate for Combating Organized Crime) spoke about police efforts to
counteract ethnic criminal groupings.

"We cannot say that a particular ethnic criminal grouping in Moscow occupies the leading position or is the most powerful," Andrey Bolshakov, chief of the First Operational Investigative Unit of the Moscow GUVD UBOP... but The Georgian-Abkhazian grouping has the largest number of so-called
"crime kingpins." Its members specialize in robberies, thefts, extortions, and financial fraud..."

[Jsens3]

Russian culture is not American culture. The Russians are just being Russians. And, let's stop for once throwing around the terms "Nazi" and "Hitler" for cultural aspects and people Americans disagree with. Russians just aren't as accepting of aliens as Americans are. Here we put them on welfare. I would have thought that most readers and all bloggers on Huffpost would know the difference between Nazism and Communism, sadly that appears not to be the case. The Russians aren't facists, either. "Fascist" is another favorite appellation many American's tag on to people they disagree with, as "communist" is so last year.

I agree with the observation above that Putin is Russia's boss. He, like other Russian leaders is a strong man and it is true that to resist him is to court death. He comes from a long line of similar leaders,Peter the Great, (one of whose accomplishments was to be able to beat a man to death with his bare hands; also recall that when Russians refused his directive to shave their beards, he tied a number to posts, had pitch slathered over the beards and set them on fire), Ivan the Terrible; many of the other czars, and more recently Lenin, Stalin, Khruschev, Brezhnev, Andropov, to name a few.

And now, our president, after militart misadventures in Somalia, Afganistan, and Iraq, is "warning" the Russians. I am having trouble typing this because I can't stop laughing.

[ramal]

This also brings to mind the many reports of violence, harassment and intimidation shown to "out" Gays and Lesbians in Russia, all sanctioned directly or overtly by the Russian Orthodox Church and the government.

[ailbhe]

Great article, it is so sad what people have to endure. The problems started in the ninties, Yeltsin dumped the communist system overnight, immediately replacing it with an extreme form of capitalism. They privatised everything which allowed a minority of oligarchs, with outside money to buy up the entire country. The country has been run by the mafia ever since.

It is important to remember that the majority of the population were plunged into starvation level poverty. Putin has reduced poverty massively since he took power by taking back control of the oil and gas resources and investing the money into improving the running of the state but there are still huge problems which the powerful have no intention of solving.

People are still poor and angry, they feel that they are competing with others for limited resources which they believe to belong to Russians only. Mass immigration is exploited to reduce already meagre wages so quality of life is even further reduced, as a consequence people unleash their anger on the unfortunate immigrants rather than the business and political community.

I read in an Irish publication about Putin's government importing workers from North Korea, they are massively exploited and are constantly under surveillance to ensure they do not run away. They are treated as slaves. The government will of course allow people to take their misplaced anger out on the 'slaves' knowing it distracts from the real problem - big business and a fascist regime.

[MagisterLudi]

"People are still poor and angry.."
I think you stopped reading the news in the 90s. I suggest you catch up.Putin's approval rating was 81% in June 2007. Highest of any world leader. Why? Because there's order, freedom to travel, hope for the future and relative prosperity.

[Phillip Martin - Huffpost Blogger]

...and ultra-nationalism. None of which you cite here negates the objective reality of nationalistic fervor in Russia. Nationalism becomes problematic when society tolerates the actions of extremists (witness the broad tolerance of the KKK in the U.S. in the 1920's and beyond in places such as Ohio and Indiana) . That's the concern I've addressed in this essay. Membership is not the key problem. It's the failure of society, police, government and the judiciary to take "skin-head" violence seriously that is of paramount concern. Too often it translates as acceptance of skin-head actions, though not necessarily their beliefs. -p

[larry278]

It may be that Putin has aided in turning Russia into a kleptocracy but the new Russia may still remember Nazi Germany's pre-emptive invasion of the former USSR in 1940 & the USSR's many bloody battles with & ultimate defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945. The USSR's war with Nazi Germany is still remembered as the great patriotic war in Russia. Some will remember that the USSR was a Communist Marxist dictatorship from 1917 till 1990. After 1990 the former USSR became the CIS, aka Russia. Georgia & some other Eastern European & North Asian nations were part of the USSR till 1990.
Putin & Russia can be expected to move to stamp out any Neo-Nazi or Neo-Communist movement & its members since such forces would be disruptive to the Russian system & nation which Putin has fostered. Putin is Russia's boss. To oppose Putin in Russia is to court death. Putin may some day coin or approve a name for the system which governs Russia but it won't be either Neo-Nazism or Neo-Communism. You can bet the farm on that. Putin can be expected to eviscerate any xenophobic movement in Russia to clearly establish that he's Russia's boss.

[Phillip Martin - Huffpost Blogger]

It's not that Putin is unaware of the dangers posed by Neo-Nazism. The problem is that his government, as well as municipal officials, have done too little to counter the rise of fascism. Police in many situations have allowed violence to fester, and in some documented cases have actually abetted the actions of skin head thugs. Moreover, the jury court system--as I've pointed out--weighs against the victims of Neo-Nazi violence. If Putin (the authoritarian that he is) perceived ultra-nationalism as a priority, federal and municipal officials would be much further along in stemming its prolongation.

[Nicolaus]

Impressive.
This expose, filled with innuendos and unreferenced hearsay comes in time.
We now, as the title suggests, understand why Russia helped the Ossetians as they were bombarded by the peace doves from Georgia with roses - that blew up their capital asunder.

Fantastic!