Politician Eduard Limonov.
Nationalist calls for ban on foreign merchandise
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Who's Afraid of Edward Limonov? BY MARK AMES CULTURE | 3.15.2002
A Message To The West: GET LOST!
LEGAL HARASSMENT AND INTIMIDATION
Rock star turns his talents to helping extremists
By Sergey Chernov
Photo: Yelena Yakovleva.
Russia should create a new Iron Curtain to keep out foreign goods which boost other countries' trade, says Eduard Limonov, writer and radical right-wing politician.
Speaking during his first public appearance in St Petersburg, Mr Limonov called for a complete boycott against foreign merchandise.
"The advertising of foreign goods should be prohibited on television, radio and in the streets, to begin with," he said.
The 52-year-old claimed that Russian workers were being starved of income because customers favored produce from abroad.
Mr Limonov said the new Iron Curtain slogan was adopted by his National Bolshevist movement long before it was "hijacked" by his former ally, nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky.
And in another bold suggestion to help revitalize the Russian nation, Mr Limonov urged a countrywide ban on abortions -- of which there are currently four million a year.
"Of course, it will limit human rights, but rights of a nation also exist," he said. Mr Limonov, whose real name is Savenko, but who prefers to use his adopted name, was speaking at an event billed as a "meeting with readers," at the Ligovsky Narodny Dom on February 26, which, in reality, turned out to be a political gathering.
Spectators packed the auditorium which can hold up to 750 people. Apart from a group of uniformed and swastika-wearing followers of Alexander Barkashov's RNE (Russian National Unity) party, Mr Limonov's performance drew a number of leather-clad rockabilly fans and thrash metal musicians.
He rejected a request to read his early poetry as well as most questions dealing with literature.
Instead he delivered the political program of the National Bolshevist Party, which he founded in September 1993, soon before the October violence in Moscow.
Mr Limonov was not the first to combine Russian nationalism with communist ideas. He sees Stalin as his predecessor because of his politics. He also views the German Nazis and Italian fascists in the same way. "Now that Nazism and fascism have been defeated, these words scare away everybody, but, let's remember, the strongest anti-capitalist criticism was coming from fascism," he said.
"Communism and fascism had the common enemy -- savage capitalism. So we have good genealogy, and the goals we defend are mostly noble ones." Mr Limonov came to St Petersburg to establish a regional branch of the party, which is yet unrepresented in the Duma.
He claimed to have branches in about 20 regions. He needs to have about 45 regional branches to obtain federal status and participate in elections.
What makes the NBP stand out is the way Mr Limonov's has targeted young people with his campaigns. He is also an iconoclastic author, infamous for sexually explicit scenes and obscenities in such books as "It's Me, Eddie" which brought him literary notoriety when published in New York in 1979.
He had lived in America for five years. Years later he also spent considerable time in France.
But more important is the fact that he has obtained support from Yegor Letov, the leader of Grazhdanskaya Oborona ("Civil Defence"), Russia's most famous punk band, which started the "Russian Breakthrough" rock movement in December 1993.
Mr Limonov's party is fighting for a change in Russia's borders.
"These borders should correspond to the ethnic borders of Russian population in the end," he said. "The Russian-dominated regions of Estonia, Donbass and Crimea belong to us."
Eduard Limonov: There is no left or right. There's the system and the enemies of the system.
"Pchela": What’s leftist and what’s rightist in Russia and
in the world?
Eduard Limonov: There’s no longer any left or right. There’s the system and
the enemies of the system. The system is the liberal democracy that triumphed
everywhere, that noxious, shit-colored weed. The enemies of the
system—that’s who we are, extreme Communists, extreme nationalists.
"Pchela": How would you assess the leftist and rightist movements in
Piter?
- I think that in Piter and Moscow both the extreme left and extreme right are
in a state of crisis now. There’s a re-evaluation of values going on, and the
disappearance of most extremist organizations of the sectarian type. New, much
more interesting political formations are emerging.
"Pchela": Was it worth trying to achieve the unambiguous victory of the
Serbs in Yugoslavia?
- Yes, absolutely. Milosevic betrayed the interests of the Bosnian Serbs in
order to serve the interests of his own voters from eastern Serbia, to serve the
conservative monster of the peasantry, who were ready to agree to anything in
order to restore ties to the West, so that fuel would be shipped in and their
cars would run. Unfortunately, this is another example of how no nation is
united: everyone voted for Milosevic, but Milosevic gave Serbian Krajina and
Knin to the Croatians. An example of internal betrayal and the betrayal of
Russia. Instead of the 70% of the land that the Serbs had controlled, they were
left with 50%. The result is hundreds of thousands of refugees.
"Pchela": What is the attitude of the National Bolshevist Party to
[Alexander] Lukashenko [president of Belarus] and to what’s happening in
Belarus?
- The classical patriots support Lukashenko, but we regard him with some
suspicion because we’re not sure that he won’t wind up the way President
Meshkov did in the Crimea. That is, third parties will profit from this clash of
the Belarussian Supreme Soviet and Lukashenko. His meddling, as I see it, is too
high-handed. We’re in favor of the reunification of Russia, yes, but of a
different Russia with a different Belarus.
"Pchela": What is the significance of Alexander Dugin in the NBP? What
role does he play?
- Dugin is our ideologist, the party treasure, in a certain sense. That is, he
plays the role of the high priest. I concern myself more with politics (that is,
with genuine politics), while he handles ideology.
"Pchela": There are many literary styles in Limonka [The Hand Grenade,
the NBP’s newspaper]—yours is one, for example, Dugin’s another. Could you
point to a certain aesthetic core?
- There’s the style of Limonka proper. There’s Dugin’s style and my style,
but there’s a style in Limonka that is a creative combination of these two and
many other styles. That is, we change according to the talents which come our
way. A new person comes in, he brings in something new. There’s this guy
who’s started writing for us under the pseudonym Gastello—an excellent,
interesting writer. He absolutely brought his own breath of fresh air to Limonka,
made it more concrete, brighter, more contemporary. We have a lot of interesting
writers.
"Pchela": What means are permissible in order to achieve political ends?
- All means are okay, except for betraying your ideals. You have to remember
that our slogan is "Russia is everything—the rest is nothing," a
credo which mustn’t be breached.
"Pchela": How would you evaluate the parliamentary elections, in which
the NBP participated?
- To be honest, we didn’t expect to win. In the last elections for the Duma,
it was already clear that it all came down to a confrontation between the
moderate communists of the CPRF [Communist Party of the Russian Federation] and
the regime. And we knew that there was no place for us or for other parties.
Society was polarized. Therefore the results of these elections didn’t cause
any heartbreak: it’s just that a hunting dog has to run and a party has to
participate in elections. Our time will come and we’ll win all the elections,
there’s no doubt about that. Today we’re satisfied that we occupy certain
strata, a certain part of the population is behind us.
A message to the West:
Get lost !
Eduard Limonov moved from a career as a literary lion of the Russian counterculture during the 1970s to leader of a political party in the 1990s without moving above ground. In the 1970s, he was an underground writer, in the sense that his books could not be published legally in the Soviet Union. His novel "It's Me, Eddy," written from exile in the 1970s, became a classic work of samizdat, as Soviet underground writing was known.
Now he leads the National Bolsheviks, which is a legal political party but has a distinct underground feeling, starting with the location of its headquarters in a dank Moscow basement and the punk-rock style of everyone hanging out there.
National Bolshevism is an example of the Red-Brown phenomenon of Russian politics. The "red" part means a positive association with the Communist past. In this case, the party headquarters is decorated with pictures of Lenin, Stalin and Lavrenti Beria, Stalin's rodent-faced security chief. The "brown" part refers to the nationalism, sometimes bordering on fascism, that runs through much of contemporary Russian politics.
Limonov, who fought as a volunteer in the early 1990s with the ethnic Serbs of Croatia, says the National Bolshevik platform commits the party to regaining the former Soviet territory in which 27 million ethnic Russian live under non-Russian governments.
Although he is an extreme case, his attitudes reflect the hatred of the West that has become politically fashionable in Russia.
Q: If your party came to power, what kind of relationship would you want to have with the West?
A: We don't give a damn about the West. We want the West to go back to the West and sit there and never get involved in our problems. After the recent bombardment of Serbia, we are excluding the Western countries from civilization. You have come to the conclusion that to do good, you must do evil. My feeling about the West is not even hate. ItÕs just that thereÕs no point in talking to such mutants. You are worse than cannibals. Your civilization is rotten.
A: Your system is excellent at raising people to be vegetables who are completely obedient to the authorities. Everything is forbidden in the U.S. except doing business and having sex. Now, with the advent of AIDS, it isnÕt safe to have sex, so you have only business.
Q: What has gotten better and what has gotten worse in your country since the end of the Cold War?
A: The country is in worse shape than in 1992. Then, at least we had hopes and aspirations of a better life. Now, we have lost our hopes and all we have gained is a few beautiful new buildings that no one can afford to occupy. It took 70 years for Russia to become sick of communism and it has only taken eight years to become sick of democracy. Now we need something completely different.
LEGAL HARASSMENT AND INTIMIDATION
Aside from murders and beatings, Russian journalists have had to contend with less dramatic but still serious forms of intimidation, which are related to the Press Law passed under Yeltsin. Despite the media’s progress in the last five years, they continue to operate in a climate where the government has the power to intervene in their work.
In accordance with the Press Law, the State Inspectorate for Defense of Freedom of the Press and Mass Information (previously known as Glavlit, the state censorship agency) operates under the Russian federal government’s Committee for the Press. The Inspectorate, which has branches in provincial cities, is empowered to give warnings to media outlets that allegedly violate the law. In addition, every regional administration (i.e., provincial government) in Russia has a Committee for the Media that can decide matters relevant to funding and news content. The Glasnost Defense Foundation has documented numerous incidents where inspectorates in the provinces violated procedure when attempting to enforce press regulations.
Judicial Chamber for Information Disputes: Government Enforcer of "Balance"
In an ostensible effort to mediate the numerous conflicts that arise with the emergence of a free press, the Arbitration Information Court was formed in 1993. The "court"--an ad hoc, extrajudicial body of prominent legal scholars and media professionals--was given a mandate to "secure equal access to the mass media for all participants in the electoral process and to bring about functional solutions to disputes and conflicts arising in this regard," as one of its members, lawyer Viktor Monakhov, wrote in Sreda [Medium] in March 1996. At first, the "court" was viewed as a positive but temporary effort by the reform elements of the government to handle controversial questions like the granting of air time to political parties during the 1993 parliamentary elections. The organization was subsequently renamed the Judicial Chamber for Information Disputes and placed under the administration of the Russian president. The Judicial Chamber was then given a permanent mandate to enforce "balanced" coverage of controversial issues and legal measures regarding inflammatory content.
Some journalists and other independent observers soon began to express doubts about the increasing influence of the extra-judicial body on press issues. Writing in the Cardozo Arts and Entertainment Law Journal (vol. 13, no. 3, 1995), Jamey Gambrell commented: "While in theory it is an innovative and needed institution, and indeed served a fruitful purpose during the December [1993] elections, it has insufficient legal status to enforce its decisions, and its actual effect on journalistic practice is so far unclear."
Several journalists writing on controversial issues have found that the Judicial Chamber plays a negative role:
- Svetlana Alexeyich, a Belarus journalist noted for her critical coverage of the Afghanistan war and the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, frequently contributes to Izvestia because she is often unable to publish in her own country. Alexeyich told CPJ on April 26, 1996, that she had been notified by the Judicial Chamber of the need to address a problem of "imbalance" that resulted from what was seen as her one-sided portrayal in Izvestia of the partisan movement in Belarus during World War II. Izvestia was then ordered to carry material with the partisan veterans’ point of view. A protest statement signed by the veterans was run in the May 5 issue of Izvestia with an editorial comment that the group had appealed to the Judicial Chamber and "had the right to its own truth."
- In 1993, Yaroslav Mogutin, one of the country’s few openly gay journalists, was arrested, held overnight in jail, and charged with "hooliganism" for using profane language in an interview with a prominent gay dancer that was published in Novy Vzglyad, a weekly nationalist newspaper distributed as a supplement to Moskovskaya Pravda. Charges were also filed against the weekly, even though the use of profane language had become quite common in many papers, including the high-circulation Moskovsky Komsomolets. The case was eventually dropped, but not before Mogutin and his partner were harassed by local policemen who would repeatedly come to their apartment in the middle of the night to extort money, threatening the couple with criminal prosecution if they did not comply. In 1995, after Mogutin published an article on the war in Chechnya in the January issue of Novy Vzglyad, the Judicial Chamber held two hearings on his writings and accused Mogutin of violating Article 74-1 of the Penal Code, which calls for a prison term of up to 7 years for "incitement of ethnic hatred, corruption of public morals and defamation of the Motherland." The Chamber recommended that the state shut down Novy Vzglyad, revoke its publishing license, and launch a criminal case against Mogutin. Based on this recommendation, the prosecutor’s office opened an investigation against him in April 1995. As a result of the continuing harassment, Mogutin went to the United States to seek asylum.
Independent journalists pointed out in regard to the 1995 case involving Mogutin that although at least 50 openly fascist journalists are allowed to publish in Russia--some tied to armed extremist groups--the Judicial Chamber had not moved against them, nor had the Russian courts, with the exception of four cases in the last two years, two of which follow:
- In 1994, the Chamber had concluded that the virulently nationalist and anti-Semitic newspaper Kolokol [The Bell], which supports Zyuganov’s candidacy, was inciting ethnic intolerance in violation of the constitution and the Press Law, although nothing came of its recommendations to local authorities to prosecute to the fullest extent of the law. The central district court in Volgograd, where the paper is published, had earlier ruled in favor of the Union of the Russian People, the organization that publishes Kolokol and which sued another local paper, Gorodskiye Vesti, for slander when it carried criticism of the extremist group. The court ordered that Gorodskiye Vesti print a retraction and acknowledge that its characterization of the group was "incorrect." Editor in chief Anatoly Karman told Izvestia, "The very fact that the suit of the Black Hundreds was won can only be viewed as a form of insurance [by the local government]. What if [the nationalists] really come to power as they say they will ?"
- In April 1996, prompted by complaints from the Russian Union of Journalists and the parliament’s Committee on the Press, the Judicial Chamber decided to go after the notorious figure Eduard Limonov, publisher of Limonka (circ. 6,000-8,000). The Judicial Chamber charged him with violating "international and Russian law, and Article 4 of the Law on the Mass Media, which prohibits the propagandizing of mass terror and hatred, and the damaging of Russia’s international reputation." They sent a recommendation to the Moscow city prosecutor’s office, which will determine whether to prosecute Limonov for "incitement of ethnic hatred" under Article 74-1. On March 2, 1996, Novy Vzglyad reprinted material that Limonov had published in Limonka in 1995 which claimed that Stalin’s brutal deportation in World War II of entire peoples, like the Chechens, were "actions of justified prevention" and that, regrettably, "he didn’t finish the job." The Judicial Chamber did not accept Limonov’s defense that he was reacting emotionally to the Chechen hostage-taking crisis in Budyonnovsk. In explaining their ruling, experts summoned to the hearing found that "the actions of individual criminals should not be ascribed to the entire nation." The Judicial Chamber recommended that The Russian Federation Committee for the Press, the government press regulation body, give Limonka an official warning. (After two such warnings the paper could lose its registration status, i.e., its license to publish.) Limonov is also being investigated by the prosecutor general’s office in Ukraine for calling for a "violation of territorial integrity" by urging that the Ukrainian city of Sevastopol be annexed to Russia.
CPJ does not take a position on the content of these papers, but we note that we do not defend persons whose writings explicitly advocate violence. The point here is to illustrate the troublesome nature of the Chamber as an extrajudicial but extremely influential body that may not work in favor of press freedom in every instance. Provincial journalists, however, have welcomed the Chamber’s extensive intervention in disputes between repressive local governments and struggling independent media. Still, the continued existence of this body is largely a function of the weakness of the unreformed judicial system and the complexities inevitably introduced by the government’s attempts to enforce extensive, intrusive, and often ill-defined press laws.
Libel Suits
As in many countries dealing with an emerging free press, libel suits are clogging the Russian courts. When public figures--many of them die-hard nationalists or Communists--are angered by the media’s unfavorable portrayal of them, they appeal to the courts for defense of their "honor and dignity." Several leading newspapers are fighting slander suits on behalf of their correspondents, but they have not been very public about their struggles. Slander accusations and suits clearly bedevil many journalists and are so much a part of their working lives that they rarely bother to complain about them as any kind of "pressure" or "harassment." But it is clear that they are a significant drain on their time and resources, and ultimately these cases may have the effect of curbing journalists’ frank characterizations of odious figures. Even providing a forum for critical comments made by prominent figures, such as reform economist Yegor Gaidar or former Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev, can land a newspaper or TV station in court on charges of slander. Both Gaidar and Kozyrev have lost libel suits and been compelled to publish retractions to their comments in newspaper articles and television interviews.
Although in most instances journalists are forced to react to accusations of defamation from various political figures, ranging from Yeltsin to extremist Vladimir Zhironovsky, at least one editor attempted to turn the tables.
- Globus Syndicate reported in V zashchitu
Svobody Slova (no. 9/96) that in September 1995, Kronid Lubarsky,
deputy editor of the weekly magazine Novoye Vremya, sued the
State Duma, the lower house of parliament, in defense of his "honor and
dignity." The suit was brought in response to comments made by
Stanislav Govorukhin, head of a parliamentary commission investigating the
Chechen war. Govorukhin claimed that the mass media had "launched a
colossal disinformation campaign" inspired by Chechen leader Dzhokhar
Dudayev, who, Govorukhin alleged, had paid large sums of money to a number
of journalists, including Lubarsky. To prove that his sole desire in
bringing suit was to set the record straight, Lubarsky set the amount for
damages at one ruble.
Since the parliament as a body cannot be sued under Russian law, Lubarsky was then forced to sue Govorukhin personally in the district where the parliamentarian resides. The Gagarin District Court repeatedly postponed the hearing, most recently until June 17, the day after the Russian elections, apparently wishing to determine first how the political winds will blow. On the advice of his lawyer, Lubarsky also tried to sue the other members of the Govorukhin Commission for "inaction" in setting the record straight, but the Supreme Court ruled that while unlawful acts of the government can be appealed, "inaction" by such bodies could not be the subject of a suit. Lubarsky appealed to the chairman of the Supreme Court to review the handling of his complaint, but sadly, the journalist died in May of a heart attack at the age of 61 before his case could be heard.
(c) 1996 Committee Protect Journalists
Rock star turns his talents to helping extremists
By Sergey Chernov
The radical National Bolshevik Party (NBP) has started its election campaign in St Petersburg in a typically odd way.
NBP candidate Alexander Dugin has appeared on posters promoting the last Saturday's "Kuryokhin for Dugin" concert by extravagant pop composer and show maker Sergei Kuryokhin.
Mr Dugin is the deputy to NBP founder Eduard Limonov, a controversial writer and a former member of Vladimir Zhirinovsky's shadow cabinet. The ultra-nationalist leader gave him the Russian FBI chief position -- a symbolic job that was a product of Mr Zhirinovsky's unusual mind.
Mr Limonov split with Mr Zhirinovsky in September 1993. The third most prominent NBP leader is Siberian punk rock star Yegor Letov of the band Grazhdanskaya Oborona (Civil Defense).
Mr Dugin, who lives in Moscow, is yet not registered as a candidate for the State Duma, but he admits having plans to participate in elections as a candidate from St Petersburg.
The NBP promotes the extravagant concept that ultra-right and ultra-left political groups are natural allies who should unite in order to seize power.
Despite this, the party has split from the much-publicized coalition they formed with Victor Anpilov of the radical communist party Labor Russia and Alexander Barkashov of the extreme nationalist Russian National Unity (RNE).
Mr Dugin said, "In a definite way it was an ephemeral, passing idea... Both Anpilov and Barkashov have narrow goals, which they are fulfilling, better or worse is the different question.
"It was an ideological action to show that the most interesting is the radical position which is even more left-wing than Anpilov's and more right-wing than Barkashov's," he added.
Pop star Kuryokhin shied away
from making direct political statements, and did not confirm that the concert
was the first in a series of events in support of the NBP candidate as has been
reported.
When asked, he replied that Mr Dugin was "just a friend."
"I have lots of friends, and nobody reproached me when I used to mix, say, with Sobchak," said Kuryokhin, who organized a press conference for both Mr Limonov and Mr Dugin in St Petersburg in May.
Whatever the quirky avant-garde musician might say about motives and plans, it seems clear that the concert aimed to make the previously obscure NBP politician a household name in St Petersburg.
© 1995 St Petersburg Press
By Edward Limonov
Periodically, every year or so, Moscow is convulsed by a witch hunting. Witches are played willingly by a few folkloric persons in thirst for vanity, like a "fascist" Vedenkin, surfaced on television in 1995. Hunters are professional "anti-fascists" as they call themselves. In 1995 "anti-fascist" No. 1 of Russia was a chief of State Committee for Press and Information Mr. Grisunov. Today's most notorious anti-fascist is a deputy of Moscow's city Duma, Mr. Proschechkin. If witches see to satisfy only its vanity, hunters pursuing more vulgar goals-they make a good living out of their "anti-fascism." Witch hunting activity profitably distinguish themselves from other rather gray competitors for the offices of deputies and government officials. They, in addition, receive grants and money from abroad, awarded for their "defense of democracy." For example, high volume "Political Extremism in Russia," produced by Verkhovsky, Papp and Pribilovsky, was created on money of American National Endowment for Democracy. The general manager of project was Freedom House. So, American money help to create fascist menace in Russia. Me, and my party comrade Alexander Dugin, philosopher, have a pleasure to be listed amongst sixty-four extremists, our detailed biographies included, cited by that McCarthyist style book. But among the extremists of Mother Russia one can find such persons as a governor of Kurskaya Oblast, Mr. Rutskoi, head of Liberal Democratic Party Mr. Zhirinovsky (irony of sort, as his party in parliament for all those years unanimously voted in support 100% of government laws). Bulk of a crowd listed as extremist consist, however, of caricatures such as Mr. Vedenkin, or Mr. Barkashov, whose organization "Russian National Unity" pose for TV cameras to frighten citizens with its uniforms of operetta's fascists for many years now, but shows zero of political activity. I know well all the "willing witches" "extremists" from 1992, my political activities obliged me to. My diagnosis is: they are handful, they are vain, harmless, photogenic, coquettish and good for nothing. With only three exceptions: Victor Anpilov's organization "Working Russia," Stanislav Terekhov's organization "Union of Officers" and Edward Limonov's organization "National-Bolshevik's Party."
On October 2, 1997, we, above-mentioned, have had united our political forces and announced creation of an Electoral Bloc of Radicals, having for a goal 1999's elections to a State Duma. Surprise, but only few days after was announced creation of Presidential Committee for Struggle Against Political Extremism with a Mr. Stepashin (the former head of the FSB) at its head, and including such members as Mr. Laptev, head of a State Committee for Press and Information, Mr. Kovalev, head of Federal Service of Security. Noticeable is difference between anti-extremists campaigns of the past. This time it is a State itself who is witch-hunting.
On October 16, and October 23, apartments of two ex-members of National-Bolshevik's Party were searched and consequently both men been arrested on charges of possession of the weapons. Also, on October 23, poet Alina Vituhkovskaya, close to National-Bolshevik's Party, was taken under arrest during her trial for alleged pushing of drugs. Now she is in Women's Prison Number Six of Moscow. Obvious is desire to find a motivation for a repression against my party. On October 31, Ministry of Justice have summoned representatives of parties and movements to announce them their obligation to re-register their organizations. State Duma also contributed to the campaign of repression against us Radicals-their political rivals. Beginning October, Duma voted unanimously for a new law proposed by President: that only political organizations will from now have right to participate in elections. Confusing, however, is that law: no definition of political organization is available.
If sporadic anti-extremist campaigns of the past have had a goal to frighten public, to create non-existent fascist menace, do "democracy" in Russia will appear to be only one force who is able to stop those monstrous fascists. New mighty Committee was created with a different purpose: to stop radicals from entering Duma. In context of a growing disappointment of communist electorate with behavior of Zyuganov's Duma faction of Communist Party of Russian Federation (KPRF), we, radicals, have strong hopes to charm their electorate. Even if we will succeed partly, Radical Bloc will receive well over five percent of votes. In 1995's elections Anpilov alone almost acquired that goal-he harvested 4.86%. Today's political situation is much more profitable for Radicals. Disgusted by cowardice of Zyuganov's party, by KPRF's deputies refusal to vote against government, disgusted by vulgar show of President Yeltsin delivering a medal to KPRF's speaker Mr. Seleznyov, radical party of communist's electorate will vote for a Bloc Anpilov/Terekhov/Limonov. That is precisely the reason why Committee Against Extremism was hastily created. That is why arrests, re-registration, restriction laws are hastily employed in order to stop us.
Is National-Bolshevik's Party an extremist party? National-Bolshevik's Party is political organization of a nation which has 27 million of compatriots been taken away by hostile neighboring countries, created as a result of destruction of Soviet Union. So we, National-Bolsheviks, for the union of all Russians in one State. German nation reunification in 1990 was saluted by the whole world as a positive event. Why similar demand of Russian party should be called extremist? Russia's territories such as Crimea and North Kazakhstan, populated overwhelmingly by majority of Russians, were sliced away from it. National-Bolsheviks Party were sliced demanding that Crimea and Northern Kazakhstan should be returned to Russia. George Washington and his boys were much more extremists in their time of a young American state. Russia is a young state today, born in 1991. Why we National-Bolsheviks should be called extremists, if England fought a bloody Falkland Island's War in 1982 for a few rocks in the ocean many thousands miles away? What is permitted to England is not permitted to Russia? National-Bolshevik's Party is for installment of anti-abortion law, for the creation of kind of sheriff's institution in Russia, in order to beat criminality. So, why we are called extremist? Because IT IS POLITICALLY PROFITABLE FOR OUR POLITICAL RIVALS AND FOR THE FOREIGN POWERS.
http://www.freezerbox.com/archive/article.asp?id=189
Who's Afraid of Edward Limonov?
BY MARK AMES
CULTURE | 3.15.2002
Edward Limonov, one of Russia's most famous authors, has been sitting in the KGB's Lefortovo prison in Moscow since April of last year. As author of several taboo-breaking novels, editor of the radical newspaper Limonka and chairman of the National-Bolshevik Party, Limonov has been one of the most controversial and scandalous public figures in post-Soviet Russia.
Today, he awaits charges that he was conspiring to overthrow the state of Kazakhstan, to acquire illegal weapons, and to form an illegal armed militia. He faces up to 30 years in prison if convicted of all charges.
Until this January, Limonov's case got no attention whatsoever outside of Russia. Which is odd, considering how much press jailed Russian writers, no matter what their politics, used to get during the Cold War. Moreover, Limonov is a dual French citizen, where he lived throughout the 1980's and grew to fame as the enfant terrible of modern European literature. The West's hitherto silence on Limonov's imprisonment is therefore baffling, if not downright hypocritical.
Recent developments may mean that things are slowly beginning to change for Limonov. Two months ago, a petition began to circulate among France's literary elite calling attention to Limonov's case and for the government to work to free him. The petition was signed by so many heavyweights that it eventually became a feature on France-1 state television.
The petition was the brainchild of Parisian journalist and writer Patrick Goffman. "When we heard that Limonov was facing 23 years in prison or perhaps even more, we realized that he was not involved in a petty quarrel with the Russian government, but rather that this was serious," Goffman said. "We started a petition with three Parisian writers, and from there it snowballed into something very impressive."
The "Free Limonov" petition is a Who's Who List of France's cultural and literary heavyweights, some 70 figures spanning the political spectrum from the left to the right, from Russian émigrés such as Vladimir Boukovsky, Alexander Ginzberg, and the widow of Andrei Sinyavsky to such luminaries as author Bernard Frank and Le Figaro literary critic Patrick Besson, who called Limonov "the best living Russian writer." It includes many leading publishers, including Vladimir Dimitrijevic, director of l'Age d'Homme in Lausanne, one of the West's oldest and largest publishers of Slavic literature.
"Limonov is one of Russia's greatest artists," said Dimitrijevic, whose house publishes everyone from Tolstoy to Solzhenitsyn. "He is a great writer and a very courageous man. I will always stand by a man who suffers for the truth." Since then, several PEN clubs around the world have called for his release: PEN Russia, Italy, Belgium, Bolivia, Italy, Spain, Taiwan, and others.
On March 1st, Sara Whyatt, PEN International's Program Director for Writers in Prison Committee, issued an official statement expressing International PEN's "concern about the trial process against writer and Bolshevik Nationalist [sic] Party leader, Eduard Limonov."
While the statement noted that PEN "considers many of the views expressed by Eduard Limonov to run counter to its own charter," it recognized Limonov's importance in modern Russian letters: "Limonov, during his exile in the USA and France in the 1970's and 1980's, gained a reputation as one of Russia's most noted avant-garde writers, leading this organization to take a special interest in his case."
Oddly enough, while the Limonov detention has made regular TV radio and print press in Russia, the Western press corps in Moscow ignores his case. Only in my newspaper The eXile, where Limonov was a regular contributor up until his arrest, and a few smaller articles in our straight-laced rival The Moscow Times has Limonov's detention been written up.
Is it more dangerous to be a dissident today than during the Cold War?
In 1974, Limonov, who had gained fame in Moscow's unofficial and underground art world as a leading avant-garde poet, was subjected to repeated KGB harassment and finally expelled from the Soviet Union, along with what became known as the "Third Wave" of Soviet dissidents. Back then, the Western media and diplomatic corps persistently fought for the right of Soviet citizens to publish and express themselves openly, and fought for the rights of anyone jailed or punished simply for the crime of disagreeing. The reason, we said then, was that we believed that freedom of expression was every human being's basic right--indeed that to differ and express was itself to be human--all the more so if that opinion or work of art upset the Powers That Be.
Cut to 2001. Edward Limonov, now one of Russia's most famous public figures after more than two decades as a leading émigré writer in America and France, is once again the target of the KGB, today renamed the FSB.
Last April, after completing a book on jailed Krasnoyarsk aluminum baron Anatoly Bykov, Limonov left for the Siberian region of Altai. On April 7, more than 50 counter-intelligence goons surrounded the dacha where Limonov and a few others, including the co-editor of Limonka, a viciously anti-government newspaper, were staying; at 4 a.m., they raided, dragged them out and made them lie face-down in the snow, and--failing to find anything besides the royalties Limonov received for his Bykov book--hauled him straight to Lefortovo Prison. He must be the only dissident to have been persecuted TWICE by two opposing regimes in the same country.
The case against Limonov rests on a sting against two teenagers busted in February of 2001 in Saratov for trying to acquire illegal arms. After a few months of coercion, they changed their story and accused Limonov of putting them up to it. This is the basis for the case against Edward Limonov.
Since then, the prosecution's case snowballed, capping with December's additional charge of attempting to overthrow the state of Kazakhstan, and with January's failed attempt to shut down Limonka and Limonov's extreme left-right political party, The National-Bolshevik Party.
Today, with so many leading French figures lining up behind him, Limonov's supporters are hoping that the French government will work to free him. Meanwhile, Limonov is running in the March 31 elections for a vacated seat in the state Duma in Dzherzhinsk, considered to be among the most polluted cities in Russia. He will face off against candidates from the Communist and pro-Kremlin Unity parties. Limonov has harmed no one and has stolen nothing. He is a dissident against both Putin's emerging neo-liberal dictatorship and against Western hegemony. His views were extremist, but not linked to a single death or injury. He called for re-nationalizing property, boycotting Western goods, and attacked Western-leaning liberals as stooges. He managed to build a significant following among Russia's alternative youth, particularly artists and writers.
"It is not possible to put a man like this in jail and to separate it from his writings and what he is," said Dmitrijevic.
Indeed if Limonov's life has been characterized by one thing, it's that he has always been in opposition to Power. When Limonov arrived in New York in 1974, he quickly grew into the role of a dissident within the dissident movement, arguing that the West was in many ways just a more sophisticated version of the Soviet Union, with more sophisticated propaganda, and just as little tolerance for true dissent. America didn't want to hear that. He found it nearly impossible to publish his political writings in the United States, so he turned to novels.
The Americans were reluctant to publish his first three novels, including It's Me, Eddie and His Butler's Story, both of which shunned standard anti-Soviet émigré literature in favor of a kind of debauched hyper-egoist anti-American stance. The books are funny, incisive, and vexing. This was not what America wanted to read about itself from an ungrateful Soviet émigré.
The positive reception his novels received in France inspired him to move from New York to Paris with his then-wife, singer Natalia Medvedeva, in 1982. In the next few years, he published some of the world's greatest modern fiction, including Memoir of a Russian Punk (Podrostok Savenko in Russian), a water-tight masterpiece about one brutal epic weekend in the life of a lumpenprole teenager in Kharkov during the post-Stalin era. His aesthetic was frighteningly cold, merciless and insectoid, more Jean Genet than Dostoevsky. Limonov was granted French citizenship in 1987, after taking France's avant-garde literary scene by storm; in 1986, French Cosmopolitan even named him one of France's top 40 leading cultural figures. Limonov wrote for several radical French publications, first siding with the left, then with the right.
In 1991, after the first official publishing in the Soviet Union of his controversial 1979 novel It's Me, Eddie sold nearly 1.5 million copies, then-President Gorbachev re-instated Limonov's Russian citizenship.
And that was the year, from the point of view of the West, that Limonov went bad. He sided with Serbia during its wars with its neighbors and the West, fighting alongside the Serbs in Bosnia and Croatia and publishing his war correspondence. He joined the shadow cabinet of Vladimir Zhirinovsky's ultra-nationalist, anti-Western LDPR in 1992 as its Minister of Interior, sided with the anti-Yeltsin rebels in 1993, and formed the National-Bolshevik Party in 1994 with radical-intellectual Alexander Dugin and Yegor Letov, lead singer of the punk group Grazhdanskaya Oborona, whose genius as a lyricist is matched only by his ability to attract wanton violence at his concerts on a level that would cause most Western punks to piss in their Dickeys.
Over the past decade, Limonov has been smeared with the racist and anti-Semite labels, even though there is no substantive proof to support these accusations. Many in the Western media and academia will say off the record that they think Limonov got what he deserved.
Limonov is an alien to such people. He was shaped by the avant-garde, in particular Russian avant-garde writers of the 1920s such as Daniil Kharms and poet Vladimir Mayakovsky, as well as the Anglo-American avant-garde of the 60s and 70s. He told me that the first English poetry he translated into Russian after moving to New York was the lyrics of Lou Reed. Reed, both as singer of The Velvet Underground and as a major figure in Andy Warhol's Factory scene, was aggressively anti-bourgeois and anti-liberal, taking much of his aesthetic from the sado-masochist underground, from the violent fringes of society, from fascism and revolutionary aesthetics, in order to confront contemporary Western culture. Soon after Lou Reed and Iggy Pop, Limonov fell in with the punk movement in New York, which also agitated against liberal middle-class culture and values, relying heavily on violence and the threat of violence, though also more often than not on outrageous humor. Limonov never changed his heart or tastes; indeed, much of his sympathy with the skinheads goes directly back to The Sex Pistols, The Clash, and Lou Reed, a Jew from Long Island who carved a giant iron cross in his skull and strutted around stage in a black leather uniform singing "Kill Your Sons."
Russian artists, going back to the Romantics like Lermontov and Pushkin, up through Dostoevsky and experimentalists like Kharms, have always had a way of borrowing their aesthetics from the West, Russifying them, and taking them one step too far, which is why they are generally superior to our Western artists. The same could be said of Limonov.
Which is why he is not only misunderstood, but loathed.
A conference-hopping American academic, a Volvo-chauffeured Western correspondent whose Moscow life consists of going from sushi bar to hotel lobby sucking up to sleazy oligarchs, an unscrupulous FSB agent who wouldn't bat an eye at extracting a bribe from a Caucasian fruit trader but recoils in horror at Limonov's freak show and descriptions of homosexuality--all are equally incapable of placing Limonov in context. Through their simplistic moral lenses, he is repulsive, a threat. He's where he belongs--in jail.
Limonov is perhaps the only Russian artist to be persecuted both by the KGB and, 30 years later, the FSB. And he is the only one who today rots in jail due to a collective wall of silence in the West.
As a personal friend and former editor of Limonov, I am finally hopeful. Sara Wyhatt of PEN International has now spoken out. The pressure put on by France's literary elite, followed by declarations of support from so many PEN clubs, has finally raised Limonov's profile. Now the real question is: will the Western media, whose power was so great in freeing dissidents in the Soviet era, bother to report on the plight of a writer who not only pissed off the Russian authorities, but also the West?
Mark Ames lives in Moscow, where he publishes the eXile, an alternative English language newspaper.
Reproduced gratefully from: http://www.freezerbox.com/archive/article.asp?id=189
