Kremlin Ally Denounces Russian Feminists as Western-Financed ‘Femfascists’

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 2 – Angry at the success the Feminist Anti-War Resistance has had in organizing protests in Russia (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/04/feminist-anti-war-resistance-fas-leader.html), pro-Kremlin commentators are denouncing FAS as an extremist movement of “Femfascists” financed and controlled by the West.

            The latest example of this is a diatribe against FAS, the acronym of the Russian name for the group, by Agniya Krengel of the nationalist and imperialist Strategic Culture Foundation in Moscow (fondsk.ru/news/2022/05/02/rossijskie-feministki-prevraschajutsja-v-ekstremistskoe-dvizhenie-56088.html).

            The commentator says that feminist movement in Russia has shifted from being about “the defense of the rights of women” to being an openly “terrorist organization” being used by the West against Russia. As such, it must be stamped out by the powers that be before it does any more damage than it has so far.

            According to Krengel, the manifesto of the group, a document that has been translated into “almost 30 languages” shows that it is Western oriented and that its activists are seeking to please their Western masters more than influence Russians who, she continues, have largely been put off by its anti-Moscow rhetoric.

            What the Russian authorities should be worried about, however, is that the group appeared so suddenly, an indication that the West had been preparing to launch such an effort long before. That in turn suggests that it may be organizing other groups now to use in the future and these groups must be nipped in the bud.

            Such argumentation, of course, provides yet another ostensibly plausible argument for repressing other groups in Russian society, as well as catering to the patriarchal values of many Russians, values that the Kremlin openly supports and that it has been using against equal rights for women.