National Bolshevik Party

(NBP)

   Banned ultranationalist political party. Founded in 1993 by émigré writer Eduard Limonov, neo-Eurasianist philosopher Aleksandr Dugin, and rock musicians Yegor Letov and Sergey Kurikhin, the NBP, or NatsBols, began as a counterculture youth movement before embarking on a mission of antiregime violence, which it refers to as “velvet terror.” The party platform exudes anti-globalization, glorifies the accomplishments of the Soviet Union, and advocates the restoration of Russian power over its historical domains, thus putting it at the nexus of the anti-Yeltsin, “red-brown” coalition of the mid-1990s. Due to its somewhat esoteric origins, the movement attracted an eclectic mix of intellectuals, disaffected youth, and skinheads in its early years. After Dugin’s departure in 1998, the party lurched to the far left, accusing Dugin and his neoEurasianists of fascism. Since Vladimir Putin’s rise to power, the NatsBols have been targeted by the FSB and other security services; as a result the party has abandoned its glorification of the Stalinist police state and has begun advocating the building of civil society and an end to media restrictions, though the organization remains extremist, continues to employ direct action, and promotes a cult of violence. The NBP possesses a membership of approximately 15,000 members, with its largest contingent in Moscow.