The National Salvation Front (NSF or FNS; russian: Фронт национального спасения; ФНС, ''Front natsional'nogo spaseniya'', ''FNS'') was a broad coalition of
communist,
socialist
Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the ...
, and
right-wing nationalist movements against the government of
President
President most commonly refers to:
*President (corporate title)
* President (education), a leader of a college or university
* President (government title)
President may also refer to:
Automobiles
* Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ...
Boris Yeltsin
Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin ( rus, Борис Николаевич Ельцин, p=bɐˈrʲis nʲɪkɐˈla(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ ˈjelʲtsɨn, a=Ru-Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin.ogg; 1 February 1931 – 23 April 2007) was a Soviet and Russian politician wh ...
in
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...
. Established in 1992, the FNS was the first group to be banned in
post-Soviet Russia before playing a leading role in the
1993 Russian constitutional crisis
The 1993 Russian constitutional crisis, also known as the 1993 October Coup, Black October, the Shooting of the White House or Ukaz 1400, was a political stand-off and a constitutional crisis between the Russian president Boris Yeltsin and t ...
.
Foundation
The FNS was established at a congress on 24 October 1992 at which an alliance was concluded between some 3,000 communist and nationalist activists united by their opposition to the presidency of
Boris Yeltsin
Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin ( rus, Борис Николаевич Ельцин, p=bɐˈrʲis nʲɪkɐˈla(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ ˈjelʲtsɨn, a=Ru-Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin.ogg; 1 February 1931 – 23 April 2007) was a Soviet and Russian politician wh ...
.
Hard-line nationalism was represented by a number of leading authors and ideologues, including
Valentin Rasputin
Valentin Grigoriyevich Rasputin (; russian: Валентин Григорьевич Распутин; 15 March 193714 March 2015) was a Russian writer. He was born and lived much of his life in the Irkutsk Oblast in Eastern Siberia. Rasputin's w ...
,
Alexander Prokhanov
Alexander Andreyevich Prokhanov (russian: Алекса́ндр Андре́евич Проха́нов; born 26 February 1938) is a Russian writer, a member of the secretariat of the Writers Union of the Russian Federation and the author of more ...
and
Igor Shafarevich.
They were joined by former leading figures from the Soviet days such as General
Albert Makashov and Colonel
Viktor Alksnis and political figures including
Sergey Baburin and
Constitutional Democratic Party – Party of Popular Freedom leader
Mikhail Astafyev.
[Richard Sakwa, ''Russian Politics and Society'', Routledge, 1996, p. 83] The co-chairmen of the movements were Baburin, (both
Russian All-People's Union),
Gennady Zyuganov
Gennady Andreyevich Zyuganov (russian: Генна́дий Андре́евич Зюга́нов; born 26 June 1944) is a Russian politician, who has been the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation and served as M ...
(future leader of the
Communist Party of the Russian Federation),
Ilya Konstantinov, Astafyev,
Valery Ivanov,
Vladimir Isakov, Gennady Sayenko and
Albert Makashov. The involvement in Zyuganov in the FNS helped to ensure that when he established his new Communist Party in 1993 it included a significant strain of nationalism in its ideology.
Ideology
Shafarevich argued that the changes taking place in Russia were reminiscent of the settlement imposed on
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
after the
First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
whilst Konstantinov, who chaired the group's organising committee, stated that the aims of the group were to oust Yeltsin as President, establish a new coalition government that would take control of prices, end the dismantling of the armaments industry and halt the removal of troops from the former
Eastern Bloc states.
''Dyen'', a right-wing nationalist journal edited by a number of nationalist intellectuals including
Aleksandr Dugin
Aleksandr Gelyevich Dugin ( rus, Александр Гельевич Дугин; born 7 January 1962) is a Russian political philosopher, analyst, and strategist, who has been widely characterized as a fascist.
Born into a military intelligen ...
(accused by Yeltsin of being
anti-Semitic), threw its weight behind the FNS and functioned as the effective mouthpiece of the party. Dugin's ally
Eduard Limonov
Eduard Veniaminovich Savenko ( rus, Эдуард Вениаминович Савенко, , ɨdʊˈart vʲɪnʲɪɐˈmʲinəvʲɪtɕ sɐˈvʲenkə, links=yes; 22 February 1943 – 17 March 2020), known by his pen name Eduard Limonov ( rus, Эд ...
made his
National Bolshevik Front a constituent part of the FNS as well. As a result of Dugin and Limonov's involvement the FNS won the support of
Belgian
Belgian may refer to:
* Something of, or related to, Belgium
* Belgians, people from Belgium or of Belgian descent
* Languages of Belgium, languages spoken in Belgium, such as Dutch, French, and German
*Ancient Belgian language, an extinct languag ...
Third Position
The Third Position is a set of neo-fascist political ideologies that were first described in Western Europe following the Second World War. Developed in the context of the Cold War, it developed its name through the claim that it represented a ...
ist
Jean-François Thiriart
Jean-François Thiriart (22 March 1922, Brussels – 23 November 1992), often known as Jean Thiriart, was a Belgian political theorist.
Coming from a left-wing background, during the Second World War he was a collaborator with the Nazi Third Rei ...
who established the European Liberation Front as a network of support groups across western Europe.
[Lee, ''The Beast Reawakens'', p. 322]
The group's combination of Soviet communism and militant Russian nationalism was not always a comfortable marriage, however. Amongst the founders was and his
National Republican Party of Russia
The National Republican Party of Russia (NRPR; russian: Национально-республиканская партия России; НРПР; ''Natsionalno-respublikanskaya partiya Rossii'', ''NRPR''), before 1991 Republican People's Party ...
, a hard-line nationalist group that claimed to take its inspiration from
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn. (11 December 1918 – 3 August 2008) was a Russian novelist. One of the most famous Soviet dissidents, Solzhenitsyn was an outspoken critic of communism and helped to raise global awareness of political repres ...
. However a leaflet produced by Lysenko containing virulently anti-
Caucasian
Caucasian may refer to:
Anthropology
*Anything from the Caucasus region
**
**
** ''Caucasian Exarchate'' (1917–1920), an ecclesiastical exarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church in the Caucasus region
*
*
*
Languages
* Northwest Caucasian l ...
sentiment was criticised by a communist leader of the FNS, leading to Lysenko's party withdrawing from the Front in July 1993, with Lysenko dismissing the movement as too communist and internationalist.
Clashes with Yeltsin
On 28 October 1992 Yeltsin declared the FNS as unconstitutional, effectively making the group the first to be outlawed since the collapse of communism.
Konstantinov however argued that Yeltsin had overstepped his authority in doing so and stated that only a court could make such a pronouncement. The case was taken to the
Constitutional Court
A constitutional court is a high court that deals primarily with constitutional law. Its main authority is to rule on whether laws that are challenged are in fact unconstitutional, i.e. whether they conflict with constitutionally established ...
, which overturned the ban on 12 February 1993.
The FNS was one of the leading groups involved in the
1993 Russian constitutional crisis
The 1993 Russian constitutional crisis, also known as the 1993 October Coup, Black October, the Shooting of the White House or Ukaz 1400, was a political stand-off and a constitutional crisis between the Russian president Boris Yeltsin and t ...
.
The group even announced during the crisis that they had established a shadow government and were preparing to take control from Yeltsin.
Several leading members of the group were arrested and held in
Lefortovo Prison in the immediate aftermath of the unrest, whilst the Front, along with the
Russian Communist Workers Party
The Russian Communist Workers' Party (in Russian: Российская Коммунистическая Рабочая Партия; transcription: ''Rossiyskaya Kommunisticheskaya Rabochaya Partiya'' or ''RKRP'') was a communist party in Russia. ...
and
Alexander Rutskoy
Alexander Vladimirovich Rutskoy (russian: Александр Владимирович Руцкой; born 16 September 1947) is a Russian politician and a former Soviet military officer, Major General of Aviation (1991). He served as the only vic ...
's Free Russia Party, was barred from participating in the
1993 Duma elections. As a result of their non-participation the nationalist vote was dominated by the
Liberal Democratic Party of Russia of
Vladimir Zhirinovsky
Vladimir Volfovich Zhirinovsky, ''né'' Eidelshtein (russian: link=false, Эйдельштейн) (25 April 1946 – 6 April 2022) was a Russian right-wing populist politician and the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) fr ...
, who had taken no part in the FNS.
Decline
The group began to fall apart in mid-1994 as a response to ethnic unrest in the
North Caucasus
The North Caucasus, ( ady, Темыр Къафкъас, Temır Qafqas; kbd, Ишхъэрэ Къаукъаз, İṩxhərə Qauqaz; ce, Къилбаседа Кавказ, Q̇ilbaseda Kavkaz; , os, Цӕгат Кавказ, Cægat Kavkaz, inh, ...
. The leadership of the FNS attacked Yeltsin for what they saw as his heavy-handed response to ethnic separatism but ultra-nationalist leaders Limonov and
Alexander Barkashov, the leader of the
far-right Russian National Unity
Russian National Unity (RNU; transcribed Russkoe natsionalnoe edinstvo RNE) or All-Russian civic patriotic movement "Russian National Unity" (russian: Всероссийское общественное патриотическое движен� ...
and an emerging political force at the time, praised what they saw as the decisiveness of Yeltsin, with Barkashov even offering Yeltsin the use of his street army for use in
Chechnya.
[Lee, ''The Beast Reawakens'', pp. 328-329]
In 1994, some former members of the front created two small nationalist organisations: one led by and one led by Ilya Konstantinov.
References
{{Russian nationalism
1992 establishments in Russia
1993 Russian constitutional crisis
1994 disestablishments in Russia
Banned communist parties
Banned far-right parties
Banned political parties in Russia
Defunct communist parties in Russia
Defunct far-right parties
Defunct nationalist parties in Russia
Defunct political party alliances in Russia
Far-right political parties in Russia
Left-wing nationalist parties
National Bolshevik parties
Neo-Sovietism
Neo-Stalinist organizations
Political parties disestablished in 1994
Political parties established in 1992
Russian nationalist organizations