The Russian Radical Right Movement and Immigration Policy: Do They Just Make Noise or Have an Impact as Well?

Abstract

This article examines how, if at all, the mobilisation of the Russian Movement Against Illegal Immigration has had an impact on changes in Russian policies. Little is known about the outcomes of radical right movements in general or the Russian radical right in particular. The Movement Against Illegal Immigration has arguably played a role in shaping negative public attitudes towards immigration. On the other hand, the Russian government has not adopted any clear nationalistic anti-immigration policy frame. We show that disruptive events of Movement Against Illegal Immigration's mobilisation have caused reactions in terms of the elite discourse on immigration and restrictive immigration legislation.

Notes

¹ Dmitrii Rogozin was the founder of the nationalist and pro-Kremlin party Rodina (McFaul et al.2004, p. 296).

² The definition of the Russian regime ranges from ‘hybrid regime’ (Colton & Hale 2009, p. 2) and ‘managed democracy’ (Laruelle 2009, p. 24) to ‘illiberal internationalism’ (Kuchins 2007, p. 4) and ‘Tsarism’ (Aslund 2008).

³ See the review in Lahav and Guiraudon (2006) .

⁴ See more in Uhlin (2006, p. 3).

⁵ ‘Uncivil’ or ‘non-civil’ society refers to groups with non-democratic or right-wing extremist ideas, groups that use violence as a means for the achievement of their goals or that lack the spirit of civility. Far-right parties and movements belong to this category (Kopecký & Mudde 2003, p. 4; Kubik 2005, p. 107).

⁶ ‘New Right’ refers to the line of thought within the Western extreme right tradition named after the French ‘Nouvelle Droite’. For further details see Art (2011) and Davies and Lynch (2001).

⁷ See more in Goodwin (2007) and Koopmans and Olzak (2004).

⁸ Luders (2010) also examines how economic players react to protests and argues that these actors use the estimated loss of their profit as concession costs. According to his study of the civil rights movement in the United States, the owners of segregated diners had to estimate whether desegregation would bring them more or less income.

⁹ The president of Russia determines the actions of the Federal Migration Service, which is the leading agency for dealing with almost all aspects of international and internal migration. The president nominates its board of directors, initiates legislative revisions and always makes the final decisions (Ivakhnyuk 2009, pp. 38–48; Chudinovskikh et al.2010, p. 31).

¹⁰ SOVA is a Moscow-based NGO that was formed in 2002. It publishes the results of daily monitoring on the topics of racism and xenophobia, abuse of anti-extremism legislation and religion in a secular society (SOVA 2012).

¹¹ The term ‘Kondopoga-like events’, also referred to as the ‘Kondopoga tactic’, describes the strategy DPNI used for the first time in Kondopoga in 2006. The tactic works as follows: when violent brawls between ethnic Russians and non-ethnic Russians take place, DPNI frames these events in terms of an existential threat to ethnic Russians, whom it starts to mobilise via online and street campaigns (SOVA 2007). DPNI members from neighbouring cities and Moscow go to the point of conflict and hand out provocative discriminatory leaflets and stickers. They then try to organise a ‘people's assembly’ (which does not require any special permission) and to adopt a pre-written resolution setting out the ‘people's’ demands concerning foreigners. The event is sometimes followed by further xenophobic events as well as clashes with the police. As mainstream media do not cover xenophobic events, DPNI acts as the only newsmaker, actually trying to construct its own version of the facts, instead of merely reporting them (Kozhevnikova 2008a; Laryš & Mareš 2011).

¹² General public protests of DPNI refer to three kinds of mobilisation. Firstly, memorial days like the Russian March (4 November), the Russian March of Labour or National Labour Day (1 May), the Russian March of Grief or Day of Heroes (1 March) and the Day of Remembrance for the Victims of Ethnic Crime (1 October). Secondly, rallies, pickets, homophobic meetings, rallies for the commemoration of Hitler's birthday (20 April) and gatherings for articulating specific demands, like for solidarity with political prisoners or for the abolition of Article 282 of the Criminal Code, which penalises the incitement of national, racial or religious enmity and the organisation of an extremist community. Thirdly, Kondopoga-like events, meaning interethnic conflicts in various regions where DPNI tries to deploy the ‘Kondopoga tactic’, with or without success. For detailed reports on Kondopoga-like events and the rallies, pickets and gatherings detailed above, see the ‘Racism and Xenophobia’ page of the SOVA website, available at: http://www.sova-center.ru/en/xenophobia/reports-analyses/, accessed 10 December 2012. Events such as memorial days, and rallies, pickets and gatherings, usually take place in Moscow, but are becoming increasingly popular in the periphery. Kondopoga-like events have taken place outside Moscow, except for the Manezhnaya riots, when the ‘Kondopoga tactic’ was applied for the first time in the capital.

¹³ ‘Violence Leaves Two Dead in Karelia’, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 5 September 2006, available at: http://www.rferl.org/content/article/1143709.html, accessed 10 December 2012.

¹⁴ ‘Violence Leaves Two Dead in Karelia’, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 5 September 2006, available at: http://www.rferl.org/content/article/1143709.html, accessed 10 December 2012.

¹⁵ ‘Russian Police Sympathize with Nationalists’, Novye Izvestiya, republished in RIA Novosti, 28 September 2006, available at: http://en.ria.ru/analysis/20060928/54370532.html, accessed 4 September 2012.

¹⁶ In 2007 riots took place in Saratov (March), Stavropol (May) and Zelenograd (June) (Kozhevnikova 2008a). In 2008 there were riots in Belorechensk (January) (Kozhevnikova 2008b), Mozhaisk (October) and Karagai (autumn) (Kozhevnikova 2009b). In 2009 riots took place in Zamensk (July) (Kozhevnikova 2009c) and in Moscow's Cherkizovsky market (September) (Kozhevnikova 2010b). In 2010 there were riots in Pugachev and Kronshtadt in May (Kozhevnikova 2010c), in Hotkovo (October), and on Moscow's Manezh square on 6 December, followed by clashes in various Moscow locations on 15 December and in Moscow's Chistye Prudy and Solnechnogorsk on 16 December (Verkhovsky & Kozhevnikova 2011). Finally, in 2011 the ‘Kondopoga tactic’ was applied in Sagra (July), Nevskaya Dubrovka (July) and Moscow (August) (Yudina et al.2012).

¹⁷ Under the term ‘political prisoners’, DPNI refers to activists that have been imprisoned under Article 282 of the Criminal Code for incitement of hatred or enmity and Article 282.1 for organising an extremist community. ‘Ugolovnyi Kodeks Rossiiskoi Federatsii ot 13 iyunya 1996 g. N 63-F3, 2010’, available at: http://www.rg.ru/2007/11/12/ukrf-dok.html, accessed 11 May 2014.

¹⁸ The date coincides with the anniversary of Adolf Hitler's birthday.

¹⁹ A similar killing happened six months before that, when three Chechens killed the Spartak fan Yurii Volkov; nevertheless, the commemoration gatherings were peaceful (Verkhovsky & Kozhevnikova 2011).

²⁰ The Levada-Center is one of the largest Russian non-governmental organisations for sociological research. Its research is based on public opinion polls. It has been active since 1988 (until 2003 under the name VTsIOM (Vserossiiskii Tsentr Izucheniya Obshchestvennogo Mneniya)). It has regularly monitored a sample of 2,100 people until June 2008 and 1,600 people since June 2009.

²¹ In each of the years 2009 and 2011, the Levada-Center conducted two opinion polls in different months on the question ‘What do you think about the idea “Russia for Russians”?’ which produced slightly different results. In 2009, the opinion polls took place in August (month VIII) and November (month XI); in 2010, they were held in January (month I) and November. In Table 2, we present the results for each month and their averages, which we take as the final results for those years.

²² ‘Police Arrest 42 after Alleged Racist Attacks’, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 25 June 2007, available at: http://www.rferl.org/content/article/1143899.html, accessed 12 December 2012.

²³ See also numerous reports by the SOVA Center, which can be found in their archive on ‘Misuse of Anti-Extremism Legislation’, available at: http://www.sova-center.ru/en/misuse/reports-analyses/, accessed 12 December 2012.

²⁴ ‘Russian Police Sympathize with Nationalists’, Novye Izvestiya, republished in RIA Novosti, 28 September 2006, available at: http://en.ria.ru/analysis/20060928/54370532.html, accessed 4 September 2012.

²⁵ Information obtained from the authors' interviews with Viktor Shnirel'man, 4 October 2011, and Aleksandr Verkhovsky, 3 November 2011, in Moscow. On the authorities' failure to punish instigators of hate crimes as a factor in political opportunities for the far right, see Varga (2008, p. 573).

²⁶ Speeches were selected using the search keyword ‘immigration’ in the Kremlin database of presidential speeches from 2000 to 2010 (see Appendix for details). The search returned 59 speech acts, but we selected only one speech per month and each of these had to address a domestic audience. It should be noted that other members of the Russian political elite were also openly anti-immigration before DPNI became popular. Dmitrii Rogozin of the Rodina party called for ‘stopping the hordes of uninvited settlers’ and Viktor Ilukhin from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (Kommunisticheskaya Partiya Rossiiskoi Federatsii—KPRF) stated that immigrants should not be allowed to feel they were the masters in Russia (Ivakhnyuk 2009, p. 46). On the other hand, liberal opposition leaders, who saw immigration to Russia as unavoidable and called for policies that would help immigrants integrate into Russian society, were ignored (Ivakhnyuk 2009, p. 46).

²⁷ ‘Opening Address at the Session of the Council for the Implementation of Priority National Projects and Demographic Policy’, 5 October 2006, available at: http://archive.kremlin.ru/eng/speeches/2006/10/05/1156_type82912type82913_112091.shtml, accessed 10 December 2012.

²⁸ ‘Meeting on Additional Measures to Maintain Law and Order’, 16 December 2010, available at: http://eng.kremlin.ru/news/1483, accessed 10 December 2012.

²⁹ For example, Russia and the rest of the CIS signed the Bishkek agreement for visa-free entry of their citizens across the territory of the CIS in 1992 (Ivakhnyuk 2009, p. 14).

³⁰ We mention only indicatively that the shadow economy and corruption resulted in economic losses, while the police proved inefficient in reducing irregular migration. Social outbursts became more likely because of the xenophobia and intolerance towards migrants. NGOs and experts pressed for changes in the ineffective migration laws (Ivakhnyuk 2009, p. 50).

³¹ The principal laws on migration that were adopted in 2006 and which entered into force on 15 January 2007 were: the ‘Federal Law No. 110-FZ of July 18, 2006 on Amendments to the 2002 Federal Law on Legal Status of Foreign Citizens on the Territory of the Russian Federation’, and the ‘Federal Law No. 109-FZ of July 18, 2006 on Registration of Foreign Citizens and Apatrides in the Russian Federation’ (Ivakhnyuk 2009, p. 55; Ioffe & Zayonchkovskaya 2010, p. 23; Chudinovskikh et al.2010, p. 23).

³² Shortly after, the ‘2006–2012 State Program on Providing Support for Voluntary Resettlement of Compatriots in the Russian Federation’ was adopted by Presidential Decree on 22 June 2006. See also Chudinovskikh et al. (2010, p. 23).

³³ ‘Immigration Limits Come into Effect in Russia’, workpermit.com, 15 January 2007, available at: www.workpermit.com/news/2007_01_15/global/Russian_immigration_reform_begins.htm, accessed 10 December 2012.

³⁴ The 2007 quota did not cover the needs of the whole year. Therefore, in 2009 the initial decision was to raise the quota to 3.9 million, but as a result of the economic crisis this was cut by half. The quota announced for 2010 was 2 million workers (Ioffe & Zayonchkovskaya 2010, p. 24).

³⁵ ‘Putin Urges Harsher Rules for Misbehaving Migrants’, RIA Novosti, 27 December 2010, available at: http://en.rian.ru/russia/20101227/161953326.html, accessed 10 December 2012.