Last month Alexander Dugin boasted that his Eurasian Youth Union could bring out 1500 participants to their Imperial March. They got about 600-700 according to Kommersant (RFE/RL claims no more than 400 attended). It also seems that the Russian authorities have much more tolerance toward the far right than the left. A few days before the march, Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov granted the International Eurasian Movement a permit to march down Tverskaya to Revolution Square. But there seems to be some confusion on this permit. Other news agencies, like the Moscow Times and RFE/RL, report that Luzhkov only granted a permit for a two hour rally at Mayakovskaya. In contrast, the mayor’s office has rejected a similar request by the “March of the Discontented” for April 14.
There were no reported arrests and no clubbing of demonstrators. That doesn’t mean that the police were not in full force. They were indeed. “Twenty-seven truckloads of soldiers, a stepped-up police presence and even several busloads of special forces troops protected the demonstrators and make sure no march occurred spontaneously,” reports Kommersant. One has to wonder who was guarding who. Were the police guarding bystanders or the Eurasianists?
The march displayed all the nationalist rhetoric one would expect at a neo-fascist rally. Again from Kommersant:
“When the USSR collapsed, I had the feeling that I was being cut up into pieces,” Eurasian Youth Union leader Pavel Zarifullin told those gathered. “But we will restore the empire. The process has already begun.” Alexander Dugin, spiritual leader of the movement, called opposition members who attend the March of Those Who Disagree “the forces of hell,” and stated that “America is the kingdom of the Antichrist in the far West. Those who urge friendship with it want to sell the country for Internet and free chewing gum.”
From the Moscow Times:
“We are supporters of the regime. We support Putin because he created the prerequisites for the rebirth of the nation,” Dugin told the rally. “We want guarantees that Putin will stay for a third term or secure the continuity of his course.”
“Russia should be strong and not crawling under the West,” Dmitry Zakharov, a rally participant, said Sunday.
“National Bolsheviks want to monopolize street protests and the notion of civil society for themselves, and we want to show everybody today that we, too, are a part of civil society,” said Pavel Kanishchev, waving a black flag decorated with eight yellow arrows symbolizing Russia’s imperial expansion.
I think that this line from the International Herald Tribune summed things up nicely: “Some demonstrators said they were recruited in rural schools, and had little idea why they were there.”
