Today’s ‘Russian Community’ Differs from Tsarist Era’s Black Hundreds Only by Its Lack of Stress on Anti-Semitism, Anti-Fascist Activist Says

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Jan. 28 – “The only thing that distinguishes [today’s Russian Community] from the Black Hundreds is the absence of anti-Semitism or at least the lack of emphasis on it,” according to a Russian Anti-Fascist activist speaking on condition of anonymity. “The place of Jews is taken by migrants from Muslim countries,” and the Russian Community supports Israel.
    The two groups, although separated by more than a century, share a common “anti-communism, commitment to Orthodoxy, and radical loyalty to the state and to Putin personally,” and embers often say that the most important thing is that there not be any revolution” in Russia, he continues (posle.media/ih-obedinyaet-tyaga-k-nasiliyu/).
    That is just one of the points the activist makes in a wide-ranging discussion of the state of far right groups in Russia over the last several years. He argues that the key distinction between street-gang neo-Nazis and the Russian Community is generational” and that the two often work together.
    The street-gang neo-Nazis, he says, are mostly teenagers while the Russian Community is made up primarily of people over 30. But both are committed to sparking a race war between ethnic Russians and others, and so the finer points of ideology are less important to both than this common goal.
    (For background on the Russian Community, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/11/russian-community-organization-and-its.html,  windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/10/extremist-russian-community-now-active.html,  windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/10/another-black-hundreds-group-revived-in.html and jamestown.org/program/russian-community-extremists-becoming-the-black-hundreds-of-today.)