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Socialist Review Index (1993–1996) | Socialist Review 174 Contents
From Socialist Review, No. 174, April 1994.
Copyright © Socialist Review.
Copied with thanks from the Socialist Review Archive.
Marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
I was amazed to read the comment by Wayne Hall (February SR) that Zhirinovsky differs from the fascists of the 1930s because he ‘does not question the multi-party framework’.
To say this about Russia at the moment, where last September Yeltsin abolished the constitution and dissolved a democratically elected parliament, would be bizarre. But to say this about Zhirinovsky, who in an election broadcast last December called for the dissolution of all political parties, the banning of strikes and demonstrations, is just plain barmy.
This is a man who is seeking to build a paramilitary [1] youth organisation, ‘Zhirinovsky’s Eagles’. Until recently their paper was edited by people who were at the same time members of a smaller and openly Nazi organisation, and carried an article titled, The theoretical basis of National Socialism, as well as calling for ‘a new racial genesis’ and other vile fascist rubbish.
Socialists should not waste time trying to invent new words such as ‘hypernationalist’ for people like Zhirinovsky. There is already a perfectly adequate word – fascist.
And to believe we can rely on people like Yeltsin and Gaidar to fight the Nazis would be a disaster. Yeltsin has recently called for reconciliation with Zhirinovsky, and Poltoranin, a minister and leader of Gaidar’s party, made openly anti-Semitic remarks on television.
Thankfully, socialists do not need to rely either on the Russian government, nor on the Communists, who are part of the red-brown alliance alongside the fascists, to fight against the Nazi threat in Russia. Recent polls show support for Zhirinovsky dropping, and the possibility of a wave of strikes, which is terrifying the ruling class at the moment, could force the right to retreat.
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Nicolai Gentchev |
1. In the printed version this word is given as “parliamentary”, but this makes no sense in the context.
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