By John Dolan
SMOLENSK - I was running around Smolensk in the middle of a blizzard, trying to make contact with the local National Bolsheviks—the dreaded “NatsBols,” the most demonized party in contemporary Russia. So far I’d only seen signs of them: posters urging “Death to Enemies of the People,” election signs with a skull’s profile on a hand grenade. I was afraid I’d never find them, and even more scared that I would. Because these are serious people.
The NatsBols are the Tasmanian Devils of the Russian political scene, and proud of it. Mainstream commentators have just started furrowing their brows over the “national-socialist” or “red-brown” trend in the Duma, but the NatsBols embraced that combination of radical leftism and extremist nationalism long ago, and announced it in their party’s oxymoronic name.
The NatsBols don’t play by the bigger parties’ rules. They specialize in non-lethal violence. They throw a lot of eggs, tomatoes and other splattery missiles. And it works for them; for their size, the NatsBols get more airtime than any other party in Russia. They’re a classic case of the dictum that it’s better to have ten serious activists than a thousand apathetic supporters.
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