Russians Split on Whether Classifying Russian Imperial Movement as Terrorist Group a Victory or Defeat for Trump

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 7 – Washington’s decision to include the Russian Imperial Movement on its list of terrorist organizations, a list that typically includes primarily Islamist groups, has sparked a debate in Russia less about the appropriateness of the step – nearly all are opposed – but rather about whether this is a defeat or victory for US President Donald Trump.

            Vzglyad’s Dmitry Bavyrin is one who views it as a defeat, noting “American liberals regularly suggest to the State Department that its terrorist list is to put it mildly not politically correct, it includes Islamists and no white nationalists” and use that fact to accuse Trump and his administration of racism and white supremacism (vz.ru/politics/2020/4/7/1032798.html).

            The basis for the group’s inclusion on this list, he continues, is that it can be accused of promoting “’white supremacy’ because Russians as is well known are white, and supremacy is the ideology of the superiority over someone.” Accepting that logic, it is clear why liberals would want this group on this list.

            But American liberals have other reasons to want to classify the Russian Imperial Movement in this way. It is an opponent of homosexuality and abortion, positions that in their eyes make its members “monsters,” Bavyrin says. They also appear to think that because its members participated in the Donbass, they are an “international” group.

            “One could laugh about this,” he adds. But this act of classification reflects a more widespread notion among liberals in the US that “Russians are a nation of  ideological racists,” a stereotype promoted by the first emigration because of pogroms before 1917 (most of which took place on the territory of Ukraine) and the new emigration about skinheads in the 1990s.

            “This is nonsense,” the commentator insists, “but this nonsense spoils our international image.” The US calls the Russian Imperial Movement a terrorist group that promotes white supremacy, but that is simply not true. It does promote traditional Russian values. And he adds, frankly, “we didn’t expect this from you, Mr. President.”

            A somewhat different judgment is offered by Roman Popkov, a commentator who earlier was part the National Bolshevik Party and even served time in jail for his activities. He insists that the Russian Imperial Movement is neither terrorist nor an advocate of white supremacy (mbk-news.appspot.com/suzhet/demokratiya-v-adu/).

            Instead, he continues, “this is a relatively small grouping of the ‘old-right’ type with an ideology based not on national socialism and racism of the 20^th century but on the archaic doctrines and worldview systems of the century before last – monarchism, Orthodox fundamentalism, and on etatism in its most extreme forms.”

            He suggests that the group may be glad of such attention and argues that there are several reasons that Washington has taken this step. Instead of the role of liberals, he suggests that labelling the group terrorist as Washington has now done kills two birds with one stone as it were for President Trump.

            On the one hand, it provides at now cost a display of support for Ukraine. And on the other, it is a step which protects Trump from charges that he has failed to react to “’the growth of racist force’ in the US.”  That suggests that this move reflects Trump’s own calculations rather than being something liberals forced upon him.