Monday, August 23, 2010

The National Bolshevik Party


The National Bolshevik Party (NBP, Russian: Национал-большевистская партия, НБП, also known as Nazbol) is a Russian political party dedicated to the ideology of National Bolshevism. The NBP is a prominent member of The Other Russia coalition of opposition parties. There are also smaller NBP groups in other countries.

In Russia, the organization has been banned, and has never been officially registered as political party. Since being banned, it has seen somewhat of a decline in membership. The NBP's preferred political activity has consisted of direct action stunts, mostly against prominent political figures.
The organization's official organ is the journal Limonka (Лимонка). The name is a play of words on Limonov and is idiomatic Russian for grenade. It was forced to change its name after the authorities banned it for "promoting extremism and hatred". 
As their name suggests, the party stands for a mix of National Socialist and Bolshevik politics, clearly emphasized by the Nazi inspired sleeve-band and logo. The party seems to be dominated by schoolchildren and young girls with lots of piercings and neckerchiefs worn in a variety of ways, judging by the photos on the party's web site.
The National Bolshevik Party advocates the creation of a Russian-dominated empire that would include all of Europe, as well as northern and central Asia. The party is vehemently opposed to American foreign policy, and believes that a Eurasian empire would be an essential counterbalance to capitalist global domination. However, when Aleksandr Dugin left the NBP to create his own party called Eurasia, the NBP lessened the emphasis on a geo-political agenda in favor of a national one, concentrating on the defence of Russian minorities in the former Soviet Union republics, and on opposition to the political regime in Russia. 

The party has replaced its aggressive Eurasianist and imperialist nationalism with a Russian territorial nationalism. It has criticized Lithuania and Estonia for degrading Russian-Soviet World War II veterans and memorials, and for legislation that banned Soviet symbols such as the hammer and sickle and the red star, which placed them on par with the swastika and other Nazi imagery.
Eduard Limonov at an NBP rally (file photo)



Eduard Limonov at an NBP rally

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